Kevon Felmine

San Fer­nan­do may­or Mar­lene Coudray likens the state of emer­gency to Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions, say­ing they are both tools to dri­ve out dark­ness. The may­or made the com­ment on Fri­day night ad­dress­ing the au­di­ence at the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion's an­nu­al Di­vali pro­gramme. Coudray said: "We have over­come a lot, and even in the state of emer­gency that peo­ple are com­plain­ing about and the re­stric­tions of the cur­few. "These mea­sures are in­tend­ed to dri­ve out the dark­ness which had been per­vad­ing our coun­try for such a long time. So let us thank Moth­er Lak­sh­mi for show­ing us the way to over­come the dark­ness at this spe­cial time in our na­tion and our city's his­to­ry."

The May­or ex­pressed the view that Di­vali breaks down bar­ri­ers of race, creed, age and gen­der which she said em­body the cos­mopoli­tan na­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. She added: "Any oc­ca­sion that makes way for the stem of neg­a­tiv­i­ty and degra­da­tion of our hu­man val­ues, is a time for com­mu­ni­ties to ex­press their hap­pi­ness." She told the gath­er­ing that Di­vali has more spir­i­tu­al val­ue than re­li­gious sig­nif­i­cance. Coudray said de­spite re­li­gious di­ver­si­ty, peo­ple from all walks of life come to­geth­er to cel­e­brate with one an­oth­er.