Pas­tor Clive Dot­tin

In this plur­al so­ci­ety, we have to be very care­ful that we do not ig­nore the po­ten­tial for a mega ex­plo­sion if we op­er­ate on a reck­less ba­sis. There­fore, we have to ex­ert every ef­fort to en­sure that there is equal­i­ty, in­tegri­ty and loy­al­ty. In ad­di­tion, we must ex­alt the no­bil­i­ty that is in­her­ent in the gold­en rule. You must have heard be­fore that an un­just so­ci­ety can­not ex­pe­ri­ence a sus­tained pe­ri­od of peace. Some­one told me that cor­rup­tion is so en­trenched that it would be ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult, al­most im­pos­si­ble, to pro­duce a just so­ci­ety.

We have to build a so­ci­ety where Chris­tians love Hin­dus, Hin­dus love Bap­tists, Bap­tists love Ba­ha'i fol­low­ers, and Mus­lims love Catholics etc. There­fore our lead­ers, not just po­lit­i­cal lead­ers but those in the ar­eas of busi­ness, re­li­gion, en­ter­tain­ment, and sports, must dis­play an ex­tra­or­di­nary bal­ance and ma­tu­ri­ty.

While we have hon­est, de­cent cit­i­zens, we al­so have those who are sat­u­rat­ed with re­venge and do not ap­pre­ci­ate uni­ty in di­ver­si­ty. I nev­er thought that I could be con­vinced that there are peo­ple who are so ma­li­cious that they have a de­sire to plunge T&T in­to the caul­dron of a civ­il war.

But this would ben­e­fit no one. It would be a lose-lose sit­u­a­tion. There are some mo­ron­ic el­e­ments that make in­flam­ma­to­ry com­ments and be­lieve that there will not be cat­a­stroph­ic re­sults. These peo­ple are in a state of de­nial. They are not on­ly reck­less but they pos­sess an an­a­lyt­i­cal de­fi­cien­cy. The cur­rent de­bate on eth­nic re­la­tions in T&T has gone be­yond the Tu­na­puna prin­ci­pal is­sue and the war with the man­age­ment of the Ma­ha Sab­ha. There are tox­ic voic­es who are call­ing for a con­fronta­tion in­volv­ing rad­i­cal ac­tion. There are two words that are loaded with im­pli­ca­tions-man­age­ment and mis­man­age­ment. If a crick­et team is mis­man­aged, the match would be lost. If a mu­si­cal con­cert is mis­man­aged, there may be colos­sal debt. If a gar­den is mis­man­aged, the plants would die. If the fam­i­ly is mis­man­aged, the so­ci­ety will be paral­ysed.

The na­tion is re­al­ly a com­bi­na­tion of fam­i­lies where we hope for the suc­cess­ful trans­mis­sion of val­ues. Be­cause val­ues de­ter­mine choic­es which help to craft life-styles, pos­i­tive val­ues there­fore will pro­duce healthy choic­es. Do we want a so­ci­ety where the me­dia pro­vides a plat­form for In­do-Trinida­di­ans to at­tack Afro-Trinida­di­ans? Do we want a so­ci­ety where Catholics dis­crim­i­nate against mem­bers of the Je­ho­vah's Wit­ness­es re­li­gion? No, a thou­sand times no.

We must ar­rive at the point where our cul­ture is not just a mir­ror but an el­e­va­tor. Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, busi­ness­men, re­li­gious lead­ers, sports­men, mu­si­cians, poli- ti­cians, teach­ers, and par­ents must recog­nise the awe­some re­spon­si­bil­i­ty we have. We, we, we. This is a tough time for our re­pub­lic. The tide needs to turn and turn quick­ly. The glob­al eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion pro­vides no cause for re­joic­ing. Trade union lead­ers say much about salary in­creas­es but avoid the con­cept of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Sad to say some of our politi­cians do not re­alise that jus­tice must not on­ly be done but it must be seen to be done. Then we must cope with the fact that those who for­get his­to­ry are con­demned to re­peat it. Let us come to the "touchy" is­sue of jour­nal­ists and race re­la­tions. Some are not just ir­re­spon­si­ble but provoca­tive. In this sce­nario, to pro­voke is to stim­u­late a par­tic­u­lar lev­el of sus­pi­cion, ha­tred and re­venge. How­ev­er, while we have some me­dia hous­es which are more in­ter­est­ed in im­prov­ing their rat­ings and their mar­ket­ing ad­van­tage, we have to place a greater de­gree of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty up­on our re­li­gious lead­ers. Some sig­nif­i­cant play­ers in our com­mu­ni­ty have sug­gest­ed that the is­sue in­volv­ing Sat Ma­haraj and the prin­ci­pal was dri­ven more by re­li­gion than race. Per­haps the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, con­sist­ing of many qual­i­fied pro­fes­sion­als, will per­form a thor­ough analy­sis of the sit­u­a­tion and dis­cov­er the facts.

Even af­ter the al­leged rec­on­cil­i­a­tion meet­ing at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, it is clear that the sit­u­a­tion is far from over. Since the heart of the mat­ter in­volves a ma­jor re­li­gious group, there­fore it is im­por­tant for the lead­ers in that or­gan­i­sa­tion to move ex­pe­di­tious­ly to build bridges. Re­li­gious lead­ers have an awe­some task in this pe­ri­od of the na­tion's his­to­ry. Some wise folk have said that we could dis­agree with­out be­ing dis­agree­able. In spite of the at­tacks against priests, pun­dits, imams etc, we still com­mand an enor­mous amount of re­spect. They see us and wish to see us as role mod­els. There­fore, de­cen­cy, kind­ness, re­spect, pu­ri­ty must be the in­domitable hall­marks dec­o­rat­ing our con­duct. You see, we have in­flu­ence which can be used to re­con­struct the so­ci­ety, or in­flict per­ma­nent dam­age. If we keep threat­en­ing to bring down the Gov­ern­ment and cre­ate chaos, where are we go­ing to live? If we have enough mon­ey to re­lo­cate that is one sto­ry, but there are those who have to live here, pre­fer to live here and would like com­fort zones to be erect­ed.

Around the high­ly charged elec­tion sea­son, we have racial­ly-charged com­ments. We have de­vel­oped an at­ti­tude where­by we do not ap­plaud, but we ex­pect the op­por­tunists to sur­face and en­joy neg­a­tive pub­lic­i­ty.But now we are faced with the ug­ly pic­ture of poi­so­nous state­ments be­ing made be­fore, dur­ing and af­ter elec­tions. We have to call a halt to this de­bil­i­tat­ing trend. To con­tin­ue this way is to af­firm sui­ci­dal de­sires. Hate speech is now spread­ing and be­ing em­braced. This is com­ing at a time when there are sev­er­al il­lus­tra­tions of the short-fuse syn­drome.

This is very im­por­tant to note. For­get­ting the con­fu­sion that is be­ing trig­gered by the race and re­li­gious de­bate, we have a kind of im­pa­tience, road rage, anx­i­ety which cre­ate a plat­form for easy col­lapse. Each cit­i­zen has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to make a dif­fer­ence, to help to turn the tide, to as­sist in a mas­sive pro­gramme of psy­cho­log­i­cal and spir­i­tu­al re­con­struc­tion and to af­firm pro­gres­sive ini­tia­tives. The ma­jor­i­ty of cit­i­zens keep qui­et when they could dis­play a lev­el of courage that is ur­gent­ly need­ed. We may not vote for Dr Kei­th Row­ley, but that does not mean that we have to hate Dr Row­ley. We may nev­er vote for Queen Kam­la, but we must not dis­re­spect her. No one should claim in­fal­li­bil­i­ty, but each of us must stand strong to save T&T.