Yvonne Ba­boolal

A Hin­du gov­ern­ment and Chris­tian­i­ty. This is what is caus­ing young black men to com­mit crime.This was the view of pan­el­lists at a dis­cus­sion on crime or­gan­ised by the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee (ESC) at the Na­tion­al Li­brary in Port-of-Spain on Thurs­day evening."Chris­tian­i­ty in schools is hav­ing a dev­as­tat­ing ef­fect on chil­dren be­cause of the mind­set it cre­ates," said speak­er Pearl Ein­tou Springer, who pas­sion­ate­ly ad­vo­cates pre­serv­ing African her­itage and is a devo­tee of the Or­isha re­li­gion.

An is­sue in­volv­ing race once arose at a rel­a­tive's school and the teacher said, "Well, we all one un­der the Lord Je­sus Christ," Springer re­lat­ed, in­cred­u­lous."That is what is go­ing on in your schools. Are you mind­ing your busi­ness? Are you leav­ing the ed­u­ca­tion of your chil­dren to the teach­ers?" she asked the group fill­ing the au­dio­vi­su­al room at the li­brary.

Springer al­so claimed chil­dren from a school in the Mor­vant/Laven­tille area were be­ing forced to learn East In­di­an dance be­cause it was the on­ly type on the dra­ma cur­ricu­lum un­der the new Con­tin­u­ous As­sess­ment Com­po­nent pro­gramme.To add in­sult to in­jury, a re­quest for drums was de­nied and dho­laks were sent in­stead, she added.An­oth­er pro­gramme in which lo­cal artistes were used to per­form in at-risk schools was al­so stopped, she said.

"The trau­ma of be­ing made to be a sec­ond-class cit­i­zen is be­com­ing en­dem­ic in those high-risk com­mu­ni­ties."Many vi­tal lessons can al­so be taught through the La Di­a­b­lesse, a fe­male myth­i­cal fig­ure with a cloven foot un­der a long, white dress, Springer in­sist­ed, but these forms of cul­ture are not be­ing used.Springer said it was slav­ery, which forced African men to be studs for a long time, that was caus­ing fa­thers to be delin­quent to­day.

David Muham­mad, the lo­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Louis Far­rakhan's Na­tion of Is­lam of the Unit­ed States, said it was the Hin­du Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment that was caus­ing young black men to com­mit crime."African youths are tar­get­ed. You saw what hap­pened when al­most 8,000 African youths were ar­rest­ed dur­ing the 2011 state of emer­gency by a Hin­du gov­ern­ment," he said.Mo­hammed, who hosts a ra­dio show, The Black Agen­da, said out of 200-plus na­tions in the world, five or six were run by Hin­du gov­ern­ments.

"In­dia was deemed the most racist coun­try on earth. And that was be­cause of the re­li­gion. If there are Hin­du lead­ers in a so­ci­ety where there are Africans, they take away their prop­er­ty, give them the most me­nial jobs."This has been rear­ing its head in T&T from time to time and black youths are suf­fer­ing from this," Mo­hammed said.Crim­i­nol­o­gist Re­nee Cum­mings, an­oth­er pan­el­list, said crime plans in­volv­ing more polic­ing were not work­ing.

There is a need to dig deep­er in­to the caus­es of crime, which can be traced to poor par­ent­ing and bro­ken homes and child­hood trau­ma which re­sults, she said.Cum­mings said child mo­les­ters de­port­ed from the US were walk­ing free in T&T and there was al­so a high lev­el of teen pros­ti­tu­tion.