Derek Achong

Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Arch­bish­op Bar­bara Burke says she re­mains loy­al to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), de­spite at­tend­ing a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day cel­e­bra­tion in La Hor­quet­ta on Mon­day and par­tak­ing in the cus­tom­ary rit­u­als, in­clud­ing the ring­ing of the bell.

Af­ter see­ing Burke at the PNM func­tion, per­sons in some quar­ters and on so­cial me­dia won­dered whether she had changed her al­le­giance.

Ad­dress­ing at­ten­dees at an­nu­al cel­e­bra­tions at the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Em­pow­er­ment Hall in Mal­oney yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Burke said she re­mains grate­ful to the UNC gov­ern­ment led by for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day, who in­tro­duced the pub­lic hol­i­day in 1996. 

“The oth­er night I went to a func­tion there and I sit down and laugh. I say look at them en­joy­ing the hol­i­day and they did not want it,” she said, when re­fer­ring to her at­ten­dance at the event. 

She said af­ter decades of ac­tivism, the Pan­day-led gov­ern­ment, in which she served as a Sen­a­tor, grant­ed the hol­i­day to com­mem­o­rate the 1951 re­peal of colo­nial leg­is­la­tion which had pro­hib­it­ed the prac­tice of the re­li­gion.

“I ain’t leav­ing that par­ty for noth­ing. If it burn­ing down I will burn in the ash­es,” she said. 

Burke said when she and oth­er Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tists lead­ers be­gan ad­vo­cat­ing for the hol­i­day, it was of­fered as a na­tion­al fes­ti­val by the then PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion led by for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning. 

“They want­ed to give us a fes­ti­val be­cause they fig­ure we black, stu­pid and can’t read and write. I nev­er want­ed a fes­ti­val, I want­ed the banks and schools to close. That is a hol­i­day,” she said. 

Burke called on mem­bers of the faith to al­ways re­mem­ber the strug­gles that their an­ces­tors faced in or­der to freely prac­tice their faith. 

“The colo­nial peo­ple beat my an­ces­tors. They put them in jail...When we par­ents burn the can­dle they lock them up. When they hold the flow­ers they lock them up. When they ring the bell they locked them up,” she said. 

“This is what you re­joic­ing for to­day,” she added. 

Burke said that she had her de­trac­tors who ap­peared to have for­got­ten her role in de­fend­ing and ad­vanc­ing the faith in T&T. 

“If I ain’t look sharp they beat off my clothes be­cause they shout­ing more than me. They get­ting more func­tion than me be­cause is like them get the hol­i­day. They hate to call my name,” she said. 

Burke al­so paid spe­cial trib­ute to women’s rights and so­cial ac­tivist Hazel Brown, who at­tend­ed the cer­e­mo­ny. 

“Nev­er for­get peo­ple. This la­dy would have been in every gro­cery com­par­ing the prices and rag­ing hell in this coun­try. You want to tell me none of al­lyuh women can’t take Hazel Brown’s place,” Burke said. 

She called up­on the next gen­er­a­tion to learn from her and Brown’s ex­am­ple to take up the fight in rais­ing so­cial is­sues. 

“I am so wor­ried when I see things in the gro­cery go­ing up and no woman has the guts, the bel­ly, or the sta­mi­na to go out there and raise hell,” she said. 

De­spite Burke’s crit­i­cism of the PNM, in 2020, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced that the Gov­ern­ment had de­cid­ed to do­nate State land in Cou­va and con­tribute $10 mil­lion for the con­struc­tion of a Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Cathe­dral and Memo­r­i­al Ground. Work on that fa­cil­i­ty has al­ready start­ed af­ter the Gov­ern­ment kept this promise.