It is 62 years to date since our country, then Western Samoa, become independent. How can I, or anyone of my generation, ever forget that great Monday - 1st January 1962?

For months, the whole country had been preparing for it with great anticipation and excitement. Districts that were selected to carry out cultural protocols or provide the entertainment had rehearsed for months. Schools, boys’ scouts and boys’ brigades, brass bands all practiced their marching skills that were on display at Mulinu’u on Independence Day.

For many of us young people, although we were excited, we didn’t fully understand what becoming independent meant. We’d grown up under the New Zealand Administration that made all policy decisions according to what they thought was beneficial to us. We got so used to it that we went along with them without much questioning whether they were in our best interest.

It wasn’t therefore surprising when the question of whether we should be independent was being debated, that some people asked: “What will happen to our country when New Zealand leaves?” She had been like a surrogate mother doing everything for us since it took us under its wings. For some, it was a worrying feeling that it caused some 14.5% of our people to say ‘no’ to the second question in the 1961 Plebiscite.

The Plebiscite had two questions: (1) Do you agree with the Constitution adopted by the Constitutional Convention on October 28, 1960? (2) Do you agree that on 1 January 1962 Western Samoa should become an independent State on the basis of the Constitution? The answer to each question was an overwhelming ‘yes’ - 86.49% and 85.40% respectively.

Spot on midnight, 31st December, every church bell in the country rang as people celebrated with prayers for our country, a small dot in the Pacific Ocean, becoming an independent sovereign nation. That we achieved this before some well-known ex-colonies of Great Britain and France that now dominate the United Nations (Kenya - Dec. 1963, Uganda - Oct. 1962, Algeria - July 1963), and just a few days after Tanzania, is indeed testament to the determination and foresight of our founding fathers and leaders of the Constitutional Convention as well as the foreign Constitutional experts who advised them and who had become very close to Samoa.

Following church services, large crowds started heading to town from villages many miles out on foot to join the masses who had gathered for the march to Mulinu’u. Others went just to watch. Occasionally, a bus loaded to the hilt with people from outer villages would go past. As there weren’t that many cars then, the walk to town wasn’t that dangerous.

At Mulinu’u, every who’s who of Samoa was there amongst the many foreign dignitaries who had come to witness history in the making; the lowering of the New Zealand and the Samoa emblems that had co-flown at Mulinu’u for years by New Zealand’s Prime Minister Keith Holyoake and our Prime Minister Fiamē Matā’afa Faumuinā Mulinu’ū II, and the raising of Samoa’s emblem by our two Heads of State, Tamasese Mea’ole and Malietoa Tanumafili II.

Today, we still see photos taken that day of shirtless Fiamē Matā’afa and the young Assistant Clerk of the House, George Fepulea’i and other officials in black lavalava with a tapa sash around the waist and ula fala. (As far as I can recall, this was Fiamē Matā’afa’s attire on many official occasions except when he led the Boys’ Brigades during pre-independence Queen’s Birthday parades.) What I remember vividly is seeing Members of Parliament dressed just in black lavalavas and ula fala, without an ounce of fat on their torso or a drooping beer gut that we see in today’s males, heading towards the then thatched Fale Fono (it did not have walls) for the opening of our first Parliament. It was a remarkable sight.

That first Independence Day celebration was an honour to be part of because it is something that happens only once in a nation’s existence. But the question now is whether we need to keep repeating them at a grand scale at huge costs year-after-year just to remind us that, as a nation, we are another year older?

I read in the media last week that the former Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition, Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi is concerned about the “scaling down” and “limiting [of] celebrations” to milestone years accusing the FAST Party leadership and Government of “relegating” it in its list of priorities. I think he is wrong. He ought to know that Government’s priorities have shifted since his Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) was in power. The focus of today’s politics is the Party. HRPP’s mantra of “What is good for Upolu is good for Savai’i” meaning “What is good for the country is good for the Party” no longer applies.

Now it is, “What’s good for the Party is good for the country” meaning, if those who lead the Party do well, the poor people in the village will become better off. It is very much like the free market economy ‘trickle down’ theory. You must first build up the wealth of the business owners and investors who sit at the top and hope that some of it will eventually drip down to the workers and the little people at the bottom.

Government’s policy of limiting Independence celebrations to ‘milestone years’ is absolutely the right thing to do. It should have gone further and limited it to every one-hundred years.

As for tomorrow’s celebration, I hope we will not see Prime Minister Fiamē as the only Member of the Cabinet attending because the rest are all on travel duty.