Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley have urged cit­i­zens to re­mem­ber the in­jus­tices en­dured by Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tists as they cel­e­brate the Spir­i­tu­al/Shouter Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day to­day.

Kan­ga­loo and Row­ley made the call yes­ter­day in their an­nu­al mes­sages to mark the pub­lic hol­i­day, as they sought to give a his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tive of the strug­gles faced by mem­bers of the faith.

Kan­ga­loo said: “Let us cel­e­brate the oc­ca­sion as a tes­ta­ment to the im­por­tance of per­se­ver­ance and stead­fast­ness dur­ing times of tri­al and tribu­la­tion. Let us see the oc­ca­sion as a cel­e­bra­tion of our abil­i­ty to re­sist and en­dure, and to se­cure free­dom from op­pres­sion.”

“Let us cel­e­brate it as a demon­stra­tion of the pos­si­bil­i­ties that un­fold when we stand firm and fight for what we be­lieve in,” she added.

Stat­ing that the com­mu­ni­ty is one of the great­est ex­am­ples of in­jus­tice bring­ing out the best in our­selves, she not­ed that on No­vem­ber 16, 2017, an “un­speak­able” in­jus­tice oc­curred when colo­nial au­thor­i­ties passed the Shouters’ Pro­hi­bi­tion Or­di­nance.

“The dis­crim­i­na­to­ry ban pro­hib­it­ed mem­bers from con­gre­gat­ing, erect­ing a place of wor­ship, or oth­er­wise prac­tis­ing their re­li­gious be­liefs,” she said.

She not­ed that the au­thor­i­ties sought to sug­ar-coat their dis­crim­i­na­tion by sug­gest­ing the leg­is­la­tion was in­tend­ed to re­duce the “dis­tur­bances” caused by shout­ing and bell-ring­ing, which is char­ac­ter­is­tic of the faith’s gath­er­ings.

“The Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty would not be daunt­ed by that con­trivance. They recog­nised the in­jus­tice for what it was,” Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo said.

Kan­ga­loo not­ed that mem­bers of the faith per­se­vered de­spite the ob­vi­ous chal­lenges.

“Yet, rather than al­low­ing that in­jus­tice to erupt in­to ei­ther de­bil­i­tat­ing frus­tra­tion or un­bri­dled anger, they turned their ef­forts with­in, com­mit­ted them­selves all the more to their be­liefs and their as­pi­ra­tions, and for the next 34 years, put on one of the most ex­tra­or­di­nary dis­plays of courage, re­silience and de­ter­mi­na­tion in mod­ern his­to­ry,” she said.

The or­di­nance was even­tu­al­ly re­pealed on March 30, 1951, with the pub­lic hol­i­day serv­ing to com­mem­o­rate the oc­ca­sion.

She not­ed that the stance of mem­bers of the faith should serve as a blue­print for cit­i­zens faced with mod­ern in­jus­tices that are more sub­tle than the overt prej­u­dice shown over the or­di­nance was passed over a cen­tu­ry ago.

“It is a re­minder of our du­ty as cit­i­zens to iden­ti­fy and call out in­jus­tices when and where we see them. Fight­ing in­jus­tice is a shared re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. It means fight­ing, not just for our own lib­er­a­tion from in­jus­tice, but al­so fight­ing for the rights of our broth­ers and sis­ters,” Kan­ga­loo said.

“Let us there­fore take up the man­tle that the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty has forged. Let us fight for one an­oth­er. Let us fight to make our beloved coun­try a bet­ter place for us all to live in,” she added.

In his mes­sage, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley made sim­i­lar ob­ser­va­tions about the in­jus­tice en­dured by mem­bers of the faith.

“The pub­lic hol­i­day is an ex­pres­sion of the coun­try’s com­men­da­tion of the strug­gle of the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Faith to es­tab­lish the ba­sic civ­il right - to wor­ship,” he said.

He al­so not­ed that the faith had its gen­e­sis from en­slaved Africans dur­ing colo­nial rule.

“It is against this cen­turies-old, his­tor­i­cal con­text that we must ap­pre­ci­ate the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tists to­day,” he said.

“The faith must be com­mend­ed for its re­sis­tance to the British colo­nial au­thor­i­ties; for in­sist­ing on the right of its fol­low­ers to wor­ship and to ex­press the spir­i­tu­al in­spi­ra­tion they felt deep with­in,” he added.