Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

The killing of 23-month-old tod­dler Aki­ni Kafi, along­side two men in Bel­mont on Thurs­day, the sec­ond child-linked tragedy to rock Trinidad and To­ba­go in un­der two months, has trig­gered re­newed alarm among re­li­gious lead­ers.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, the re­li­gious lead­ers warned that the na­tion is spi­ralling in­to a deep moral, spir­i­tu­al and so­cial cri­sis fu­elled by vi­o­lence, law­less­ness and a col­lapse in com­mu­ni­ty val­ues.

Pres­i­dent of the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IRO) of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Dr El­lis Har­ri­son Bur­ris, said the tragedy re­flects a fail­ure in the na­tion’s spir­i­tu­al and hu­man de­vel­op­ment, while call­ing for ex­pand­ed out­reach and ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes through church­es and re­li­gious bod­ies.

“It ap­pears to me we’re not mak­ing any progress from a hu­mane and pos­i­tive light with re­spect to spir­i­tu­al de­vel­op­ment of all peo­ple,” Bur­ris said.

“What has hap­pened there is ap­palling.”

Bur­ris said the in­volve­ment of chil­dren in such vi­o­lent in­ci­dents paints a dis­turb­ing im­age of so­ci­ety and high­lights the need for deep­er in­tro­spec­tion and stronger spir­i­tu­al ground­ing.

“It’s not a very good im­age that is be­ing por­trayed there with chil­dren in­volved in this kind of mur­der,” he said.

The IRO pres­i­dent said re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions must in­ten­si­fy ef­forts to reach com­mu­ni­ties and en­cour­age cit­i­zens to re­con­nect with faith in a more mean­ing­ful way.

“We are hop­ing that from a re­li­gious per­spec­tive… we can be able to in­crease our ed­u­ca­tion pro­gramme across the church­es, to en­cour­age peo­ple to come to­wards God in a more mean­ing­ful way,” he said.

“Peo­ple might say they’re com­ing to­wards God with their lips, but not with their hearts.”

Bur­ris ex­plained that greater out­reach would in­volve en­cour­ag­ing med­i­ta­tion, self-re­flec­tion and spir­i­tu­al dis­ci­pline aimed at help­ing peo­ple de­vel­op health­i­er at­ti­tudes to­ward one an­oth­er.

“If we could get more peo­ple to re­alise or do greater med­i­ta­tion, that they can be able to reach the di­vine source of the Cre­ator in a more mean­ing­ful way, we en­cour­age that at all times,” he said.

His com­ments come as sev­er­al faith lead­ers ex­pressed alarm over the killing in Bel­mont and broad­er pat­terns of es­ca­lat­ing vi­o­lence in­volv­ing young vic­tims.

Pas­tor Clive Dot­tin de­scribed the coun­try as “col­laps­ing at a very fast clip,” warn­ing that the na­tion is rapid­ly los­ing its moral foot­ing amid crime, cor­rup­tion, drugs and il­le­gal guns.

“We have no to­mor­row in this bat­tle,” Dot­tin said. “Now is the time.”

He ar­gued that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for ad­dress­ing crime ex­tends be­yond Gov­ern­ment and law en­force­ment.

“Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans have a role, but we as par­ents and adults have a role. Pas­tors have a role. Busi­ness­men have a role,” he said.

Dot­tin al­so called for stronger ac­tion against ma­jor crim­i­nal net­works and rogue el­e­ments with­in the pro­tec­tive ser­vices al­leged­ly linked to gangs.

Mean­while, Na­tion of Is­lam leader David Mo­hammed warned that the Bel­mont killings may rep­re­sent a dan­ger­ous ero­sion of long-stand­ing “un­writ­ten codes” that his­tor­i­cal­ly dis­cour­aged at­tacks on women and chil­dren, even with­in crim­i­nal cir­cles.

“Women and chil­dren should be con­sid­ered off lim­its for any kind of vic­tim­i­sa­tion or re­venge or re­tal­i­a­tion,” Mo­hammed said.

He cau­tioned that if such bound­aries are dis­ap­pear­ing, Trinidad and To­ba­go could be en­ter­ing “an ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly neg­a­tive pe­ri­od” in its so­cial de­vel­op­ment.