Shas­tri Boodan

Re­li­gious lead­ers must be­gin work to take back com­mu­ni­ties from crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

This call came from Bish­op Dave Al­leyne at the an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing of the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion on Sat­ur­day.

The meet­ing took place at the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion’s Ad­min­is­tra­tive Com­plex at Cum­ber­batch Street.

Al­leyne said “More and more of our com­mu­ni­ties are be­com­ing un­liv­able and I say it is be­cause of the fail­ing of re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions. Why are we al­low­ing that? Are we so caught up in our own lit­tle world and our own lit­tle doc­trines and our own lit­tle mis­giv­ings or PR (pub­lic re­la­tions) that we are not get­ting in­to the trench­es and do­ing enough that our young men and women are mov­ing in­to vi­o­lence?

“wwIt hap­pened un­der our watch. Where do crim­i­nals come from? From homes and who in­flu­ence homes, the re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions. We are re­spon­si­ble for the moral and spir­i­tu­al de­vel­op­ment of our na­tion, of our na­tion’s youth.”

Leo Pow­ell, chair­man of Pow­ell En­ter­pris­es, said the IRO should start go­ing back to its found­ing philoso­phies. Pow­ell said the up­heavals fa­cil­i­tat­ed in 1970, by the Black Pow­er Move­ment, gave young peo­ple then a voice through which they com­mu­ni­cat­ed their frus­tra­tions with their lead­ers of the day.

“Can our gen­er­a­tion rise to the oc­ca­sion to ad­dress the vi­o­lence, crim­i­nal­i­ty and fear in this coun­try in this mo­ment? Our young peo­ple are call­ing out to us for help and we are not lis­ten­ing. In this moral strug­gle for the hearts and minds of our young, what are we do­ing to heed their pleas?” he asked.

Pow­ell said T&T has the po­ten­tial for great­ness but had gone down a wrong path.

“In­stead, I see peo­ple di­vid­ed by race, creed and po­lit­i­cal dis­po­si­tion and far sep­a­rat­ed from the val­ues of our na­tion­al an­them. I see our ge­o­graph­i­cal lo­ca­tion be­ing used to traf­fic drugs and with that put guns in the hands of our young peo­ple. In­stead, I see par­ents strug­gling to make ends meet in a so­ci­ety where every­thing is ex­pen­sive and peo­ple turn to crime and cor­rup­tion to keep up im­pres­sions of suc­cess. But most of all, I see a vac­u­um with­in the di­vide, a light with­in the tun­nel, that can and must be filed by a new gen­er­a­tion of lead­ers, start­ing with the re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions,” he added.