Today, the independent nation of Trinidad and Tobago turns 62. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been wondering what we, the people of T&T, really want for our 62nd Independence Day.

Do we really want the independence we were granted so many years ago?

Do we want change?

Do we actually want things to be better?

The recent controversy over the coat of arms suggests that, for all our talk, a number of us actually like things just the way they are. Others have been thoroughly disarmed by a learn-by-rote education system that treats social studies as an optional (and inconsequential) subject.

The result: a population largely incapable of even imagining what meaningful change would look like.

Make no mistake, this is the status quo our politicians work so hard to maintain. One in which the majority of us are so busy “earning a living” (such a ghastly concept) that we have neither the time nor the energy to really look at what they and their financiers are up to.

It’s why they were so eager to misinterpret international health policy (in turn undermining our own public health policies) to rush us all back to a “normal” that feels anything but.

It’s why they periodically toss controversy grenades (like announcing a change to a national emblem on a political platform) to keep us distracted and bickering over nonsense while much more important matters are being decided without us.

They know something that they’re always working feverishly to keep us from grasping: change is possible and it’s not nearly as difficult as they want us to believe.

But it won’t happen if we don’t require it.

It won’t happen as long as we think of the people we hire and pay to run our country as benevolent monarchs bestowing us with gifts.

It won’t happen as long as we allow those who’ve grown accustomed to leeching off of our nation’s resources to continue even as they deem the rest of us to be a burden.

It won’t happen if we don’t decide what we really want for the future of our nation.

And then push for it.