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.
