Republic Day - Love, Respect And Responsibility

And tomorrow our nation observes Republic Day but we're starting the celebration right here this morning marking 50 years as a republic with a show dedicated to our history, our culture, our achievements and most importantly our people. And we have a wonderful lineup of guests and conversations ahead as we reflect on how far we've really come and celebrate the national pride that continues to bring us together. And this is also an opportunity to reflect on the kind of nation that we're building and the responsibility each of us carries in shaping it. Prime Minister Kamala Prasad Visasa recently endorsed a message from Archbishop Charles Jason Gordon urging citizens to let love triumph over anger. As she pointed to murders arising from altercations and revenge and domestic disputes, violence that in many instances begins with conflict between ordinary people. So beyond the laws, the policing and national security, what needs to change within us? Well joining us this morning is His Grace Archbishop Charles Jason Gordon, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Port of Spain. Good morning Archbishop and welcome and happy Republic Day. Morning and thank you for being here. Wonderful to start the day reflecting on this beautiful wonderful twin island republic that we have. Absolutely and we're really grateful that you are in studio with us this morning. This is indeed a blessing. So Archbishop, Republic Day speaks to us taking responsibility for our nation. We should do that. 50 years into becoming that republic now, what do you believe we need to confront about ourselves as a people? You know our long history is a very unique history for nations. I'm not sure there's any other nation anywhere in the world outside of the Caribbean where the people were brought together by the intention and the force of another people and pieced together for a productive activity that really didn't benefit them, benefited another people altogether. Dragged from different parts of the globe to coexist with no way of mixing and mingling that was made available. Our history in the Caribbean is a unique history but we have to take responsibility for who we are right now. We could drive with a review mirror constantly before our eyes or we could look in the mirror and do a check and say hmm the surroundings are great. Let's move forward now. In starting by describing the history this way, it is also saying the part of that legacy is that for us the rally rail has always been somewhere else. Fashion, design, music. The rally rail and our norms still remain out of us. In the north to the big countries to the the metropolitans and at 50 we have to realize we have a style that is uniquely Trinidad and Tobago. We have a vibe that nobody else in the world nobody else in the world has that vibe. We have a way that we do things that I don't know anywhere else in the world you can go and and experience this kind of relationality across the levels of difference the cultural and historical wounds that we have and still the relationality that we do is amazing. I mean when it comes to any of the great festivities every Trinidadian becomes that. Diwali, Eid, Christmas. I mean you know there are Muslims and Hindus that have beautiful Christmas decorations all over their house and Christians light up Diwali lights all over their place. This hybridity that we have allowed to become who we are is actually a social structure that was there before Columbus even came because the tribes that lived or the nations that lived here interacted by marriage and by other things. So we always had hybridity doubles. Find doubles anywhere else in the world except for Trinique took it out for me. Find Roti anywhere else in the world. We have a way of doing things that weren't intended with materials that were given and that is one of our best and greatest defining qualities that has made us Trinidad and Tobago. I mean we could go on and on in our food and how we have done different things with our food and that to me is a beautiful part. What do we need to do? We need to start with gratitude. 50 years on, I would ask every citizen to stop and reflect. What am I most grateful for in this nation? In our 50-year republic experience, what am I most grateful for? In the 64 of India, what am I most grateful for? Because there's so much to be grateful for. Spiritual maturity happens when people show gratitude in very concrete, very tangible ways. Spiritual decadence happens when we can't see what we're grateful for and we start just seeing the negative. What is wrong? What is bad? What I don't like? What should change? What should fix? And we are absolute experts at the negative. I would like us to become experts at the gratitude. You know, you're reminding us about all the beautiful things but I want to take a moment now for the flip side of that. Years ago, you asked a very important question. You asked, what is all this anger about? And when you look at Trinidad and Tobago right now, where do you think that anger is coming from? The anger has several places it's coming from. So part of it is our history. We have not yet sorted through the wound of moving millions of people from Africa to here. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of people from India to here. Chinese, Lebanese and none of the people who came, came as willing volunteers for what they came to. And that wound that is really part of the understructure of the society is something that I think we have to address significantly and address it in a very formative way. Why is that? Well, I want you to think of it. The master's tone is still what you hear in the classroom today, in the boardroom today and in other parts of our society today. I like to distinguish between the master's tone and the shepherd's tone. The master is the one who holds the whip. Talking down at, how often do you hear that in public discourse, in the domestic setting, in the classroom setting, in parliament, in wherever else. That tone is one of the wounds of the plantation system that has remained with us, that reminds us constantly we have not yet done the healing from that history. The shepherd's tone is different. Okay, I hear you're hurting. I understand that this is not to your liking. Help me understand a little bit more, but what can we do to make this better? Yeah. Different tone. So just in our tonality, we betray a wound that is deep in our psyche. Archbishop, the prime minister actually recently returned to your message and pointed to murders that were arising from altercations and revenge and even domestic disputes. Well, when an argument or a disagreement can end with someone losing their life, what does that say about where we are as a society in that moment? What it says is exactly where I was going, that anger, that wound, that hurt, that pain now has been exacerbated by an economy that has made people feel less than. Because before, when I was growing up, none of my friends had any set of money to spend on things that would be external. Everybody had one outfit that you wore to church, one outfit you went out to a party in, and you mix and match as your best you can. Brands and all these things had nothing to do with us. Now, when brands and television are showing a lifestyle, the desire is fueling a sense of I do not have and a sense of inferiority, which fuels a sense of people feeling angry that I cannot live up to what my expectations are. That's part of it. Another part of it is that we've not helped people to create space between stimulus and response. Stimulus, something happens, you don't like it. Response could be I walk away. Response could be, you know what, I'm not getting into this argument again. Is that what you meant when you said bring the temperature down? Yes. Response could be I hear you, but you know what, let's both take a deep breath right now. Let's come back to this a little bit later. There are ways in which we put space between stimulus and response, and that's a hallmark of maturity and emotional intelligence, and it's in short supply right now, and I think because we have focused so much on the wound and so much on our pain and so much on who has done us what, and we've not built emotional intelligence among our young and among our old, and we're just responding out of anger, and when you respond out of anger, a long time it was a cutlass you had at your hand to bring to that response, a man would get or a woman would get a couple chops with a cutlass, you know, it was a news item. When a gun is now available in the midst of that practice, the stimulus and the response are very different, and so we have to work a lot more on bringing the temperature down, making that space between stimulus and response, giving people the inner tools of responding differently. Archbishop, domestic disputes have also been among, you know, all the circumstances that we're highlighting this morning. How do we begin now, apart from everything that you're saying, changing a culture where love and possession and jealousy and anger and control can sometimes become dangerously intertwined, where we mistake one for the next? We need a national curriculum on emotional intelligence, okay? We need, and I'm starting from the top to the bottom, emotional intelligence is the capacity to delay gratification. You put a child in a room, you put one marshmallow on the table, and you say to the child, if you can wait until I come back, I'll give you two marshmallows. If you need to eat it now, well, okay, but see if you could wait, you leave and you go, and you look at that child, and you see them scrimmaging, you see them, the child that could look at that marshmallow and distract themselves with other things, that child is best suited to succeed. The child who cannot wait and has to eat the marshmallow, that child is doomed to not succeeding. Why? No emotional intelligence. If we can't delay gratification, we can't really love. How do you love when every little stimulus is an atom bomb exploding? How do you love when you can't wait until the other person has finished speaking to say your point of view? So the first thing is, I think we have to learn some emotional intelligence in the country. Where does it start? Even on the media, the way I hear people speaking about office holders, about the society, with such venom, such vitriol, that says something about us. And I think we should take that temperature down in a national discourse and then give people more resources for emotional intelligence to be able to have more space in their heart to actually live what we are expected as human beings to live. And then as people of religion and 80 something percent of our people have a religious tradition, we are supposed to be people of love, and people of care, and people who can forgive, and people who can turn the other cheek in our tradition, and in other traditions they have other ways of saying the same thing. How do we live our religious traditions with a deeper sense of purpose, so that we bring to the fore a person that is much more loving, much more caring, much more kind, much more empathetic. Archbishop, your message is ultimately that love is, you know, the one thing that can triumph over anger. So for someone listening this morning, or viewing, who may be carrying deep hurt, and resentment, and sadness, even some thoughts of retaliation, what would you say to that person this morning on understanding, or you know, what would you want them to understand before they act on those feelings? I want them to do four things. I want them to find somebody they trust, who is not going to gaslight them, and I want them to tell their story. Just say what you have experienced that has hurt you. Second, name the hurt. Say specifically, you know, in this whole story, this, and this, and this is what really hurt me. Third, I want you to make a choice to forgive. Forgiveness is ultimately a choice. I could choose to hold the hurt, or I make a choice to forgive. And fourth, then make a big decision. Do I renew that relationship, and make it tighter and better, or do I rework that relationship and decide, this relationship is really not good for my health, not good for me, and not good for the other person, and I need more space in this relationship. Some relationships are too toxic to rework, and some relationships are so great, but we need to renew them without all of the vitriol, and get past that hurt into real love. If you would tell this story, if you would name the hurt, and choose to forgive, the whole temperature comes straight down, and then that relationship has a chance at flourishing again. Well, Atisha, before we wrap up this morning, as we approach Republic Day 2026, what's your message to Trinidad and Tobago this morning about, you know, togetherness and moving beyond the patriotic moments and the celebrations, but our true togetherness? We have 5,100 square kilometers. That's a tiny, tiny space by comparison with other nations. We have to bounce into each other, no matter what you do. You go to a doubles vendor, you're bouncing people of every race. You go to a roti shop, you're bouncing people of every race. You go to Calypso, you go to Carnival, you go to Paraguay, you go wherever you go, you're bouncing up people of every race. When I was in school, I sat next to a guy who was Indian one semester, and a guy who was African the next semester, a Chinese guy. We are too small a geographical space to allow race to become the boogeyman that we have allowed it to become. We're too small. And on top of that, we've done too much. We have walked through a history of people who have had their own hoods. Everyone who has come has had his own hood, and everyone has had their own pain. Let's accept that, and let's also accept that each one has made an incredible contribution to this twin island republic we call Trinidad and Tobago. And if we could accept that, let's also accept that on a daily, weekly basis, we are participating in the culture of each one of the people who have come to this place. And then let us do some gratitude, not just for the things I like that come out of my culture. I would ask every Trinidadian, Tobagonian today, to look at the other cultures and ask, what am I grateful for, for what they have brought to this beautiful land of mine? What am I grateful for, for what the East Indians have brought, for what the Africans have brought, for what the Chinese have brought, for what the Europeans have brought, for what the Madeirans have brought to this beautiful country that has made us a gift that we have, that has given us a style that we have, that has given us a vibe that we have, that we could have a Peter Menchel that could go on an international stage and woo a whole international community with a Saga Boy and a Tantan, that they could not imagine that that could be possible. For us, that's just our vibe. I think if we start looking at what we have to celebrate in each other, our nation would be an amazing country and we would be a more amazing people. Profound quote this morning that I think I'm going to post on my Facebook. We are too small to allow race to become the boogeyman it has become. Yes. That's a headline for tomorrow, Archbishop. All right. Thank you very much for joining us this morning. Perhaps Republic Day should remind us that building a nation is not only the work of governments and institutions, it's also found in the choices that we make in our homes and our roads and our communities and the moments when anger gives us the choice about what happens next. Thank you very, very much for being here with us this morning. His Grace Archbishop Charles Jason Gordon, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Port of Spain. Of course, we take a short break and when we come back, our very special Republic Day show continues on Trinidad and Tobago today.