RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has called on cit­i­zens to learn the his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s on­ly in­dige­nous re­li­gion, stat­ing that the fight for Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day is a sig­nif­i­cant mo­ment in the coun­try’s po­lit­i­cal and so­cial his­to­ry.

Speak­ing at the Moru­ga Mul­ti-Pur­pose Sport­ing Com­plex dur­ing the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­flect­ed on the role she played as a young sen­a­tor in se­cur­ing the hol­i­day.

“To­day, I say I fought for you in the Par­lia­ment to­geth­er with Bar­bara Burke. I was then a new sen­a­tor and we brought forth the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist.

“The his­to­ry some don’t know. We could have gone with Shouter Bap­tist or Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist, but there were dif­fer­ent groups. When we met with all the groups, we said we would ac­com­mo­date every­one, and that’s how we came up with Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day.”

She added, “To­day is one of the most im­por­tant hol­i­days to cel­e­brate our unique ca­pac­i­ty to demon­strate equal­i­ty and love. Every re­li­gion, creed, and race.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said dur­ing the Bas­deo Pan­day ad­min­is­tra­tion she had recog­nised the im­por­tance of the Bap­tist pop­u­la­tion who fought against colo­nial op­pres­sion, for labour rights, and brought uni­ty among all races.

Mean­while, Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young de­fend­ed his sug­ges­tion about re­mov­ing the word “Shouter” from the name of the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist hol­i­day.

This drew con­dem­na­tion from Arch­bish­op Bar­bara Gray-Burke who said she would take the mat­ter to court if any at­tempt was made to re­move “Shouter” from the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day ti­tle.

How­ev­er, speak­ing with re­porters at the Ma­coon Street Masjid in San Fer­nan­do, Young back­tracked, “I am not sug­gest­ing or in­sist­ing any­thing. I said clear­ly that it was a de­ci­sion for them to make. I put for­ward ar­gu­ments as to why the term “Shouter” is an out­dat­ed colo­nial term but that is not my de­ci­sion.”

Re­spond­ing to Gray-Burke’s com­ments that she would con­sid­er le­gal ac­tion, Young said, “The courts are free and open to every­one. If that is what the Arch­bish­op said, then we will meet her at the court.”

Asked whether he would con­sid­er trig­ger­ing Sec­tion 137 of the Con­sti­tu­tion to re­move Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie in light of the Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar case, Young said, “I have seen peo­ple call­ing for that. That is not a de­ci­sion that can be made on the cuff or the fly. That is a very se­ri­ous de­ci­sion. I was part of the le­gal team that had pro­vid­ed ad­vice on Sec­tion 137 when I was in prac­tice, so I am very fa­mil­iar with the Con­sti­tu­tion and that sec­tion.”

On the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tion and Fri­day’s Nom­i­na­tion Day, Young com­pared the readi­ness of the PNM with the UNC, which is yet to name a full slate.

“You are see­ing a good com­par­i­son. The PNM has all 41 can­di­dates ready. At the run-through last week with the EBC, we were all pre­pared. The pop­u­la­tion was told the day be­fore I was sworn in who our 41 can­di­dates were. We pre­sent­ed our­selves. You see struc­ture, work­ing in ac­cor­dance with the Con­sti­tu­tion.”

He ques­tioned the Op­po­si­tion’s prepa­ra­tions.

“You haven’t seen all 41 can­di­dates. All 41 are not from one par­ty. You are see­ing per­sons from dif­fer­ent par­ties, peo­ple com­ing for­ward, not sure.

“Hear­ing about a po­lice of­fi­cer—was he screened? Was he not screened? There seems to be a lot of con­fu­sion.

“That does not both­er me. I am not fo­cused there. We are fo­cused on go­ing to the polls,” Young added.