T&T SHOULD BE BETTER OFF

AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s In­de­pen­dence Day as­sess­ment that Trinidad and To­ba­go should be fur­ther ahead af­ter 64 years of In­de­pen­dence, giv­en the foun­da­tion in­her­it­ed from Britain, has trig­gered a sharp his­tor­i­cal re­buke, with a his­to­ri­an ac­cus­ing her of pre­sent­ing a dis­tort­ed pic­ture of colo­nial rule.

In her In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage post­ed on so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Trinidad and To­ba­go’s for­mer colo­nial pow­ers left the coun­try in 1962 as a “very pros­per­ous func­tion­ing coun­try,” ar­gu­ing that its post-in­de­pen­dence short­com­ings should no longer be blamed on its colo­nial past.