The start of every new year is traditionally a time when we look back at the year past and while reflecting on the many difficulties and successes that were experienced we also look forward to the coming year with hope and expectations of a “happier and more prosperous new year’. As we enter 2017, however, there is much that causes citizens to feel that 2017 will neither be happier nor more prosperous than 2016. Indeed, many do not share optimism or hope about the future and with good cause.

We need not detail the many issues that seem to be beyond the capacity or will of the Government or other institutions of state to tackle successfully. From crime and violence to the economy to the health care sector to jobs to poverty and growing inequity and discrimination to the many injustices that exist to the industrial relations climate to the education system and schools in a dilapidated state to corruption; there is a myriad of issues that bedevil our society and devalue the quality of life of citizens. In the past thirty years we have used a strategy of changing parties in office when they failed to address, far less, resolve these many issues.

That strategy has now left us in the present state where we do not share hope about the future. This is because none of the changes in governments has resulted in real change. We have tried out – more than once – the two traditional political parties with the same result. To go back to the one that is now in opposition is truly to go backwards. And the one that is now in government is not taking us forward. It is a truism that a people without a vision perish. That is where we are today. The Government has no vision for Trinidad and Tobago. The Opposition’s only vision is to try to get back into office by opposing the Government and frustrating their efforts even when by so doing citizens can be adversely affected – as for example with the FATCA issue.

This absence of a shared vision and hope for the future are underlying reasons for much that cannot be solved now – crime and violence; an end to the impunity of corruption; an economy that seems to be spiraling downwards to a very bad crash; different sectors of society left with no choice but to pursue their self interest. As we stand on this the first day of 2017 we all need to ask -is there a way out of this mess? Can we stop spinning top in mud? Can hope in the future of Trinidad and Tobago be restored? Can we once again look to the future with optimism?

For us in the MSJ the answer to all these questions is – YES! Our optimism is rooted in our faith in the human spirit and our history which is one where through the united struggles of our people we moved “out of slavery, through indenture and up to freedom”. That journey “up to freedom” is not yet complete. We attained political independence in 1962 and became a Republic forty years ago. However, our crisis is rooted in the very fact that neither political independence nor the first republic created the economic or governance systems that would enable or facilitate our freedom or our sense of individual or collective ownership and therefore responsibility for the well-being of the nation and its citizens.

The way out of our predicament is therefore for us to come to the conscious realization that we need to change not only “who” is in power but the very systems of economic and political power. This requires us to have a “revolution of the mind”; a “revolution of the mind” that challenges the status quo and enables us to “re-imagine the future”; to see a different Trinidad and Tobago.

The MSJ has great confidence that the people of Trinidad and Tobago have the capacity to “re-imagine the future”. For our part, we will be continuing the process of engaging citizens in their communities – both geographical communities and communities of interest – to listen to what they are saying and to share our Vision of The Second Republic. This process we believe will contribute to the “revolution of the mind” which is needed at this time to build a movement that is powerful and united and conscious of the need for fundamental change.

We therefore look to 2017 with hope that change is not only necessary but possible in Trinidad and Tobago in this process of moving “out of slavery, through indenture, up to freedom and towards the Second