Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine praised the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty for set­ting an ex­am­ple of peace, dis­ci­pline, and re­li­gious uni­ty.

In an ad­dress at Eid ul Fitr cel­e­bra­tion in Low­lands yes­ter­day, Au­gus­tine com­mend­ed Mus­lims for their strong sense of broth­er­hood and their ef­forts in guid­ing young peo­ple across the is­land.

He said he is amazed by their dis­ci­pline dur­ing Ra­madan, par­tic­u­lar­ly in fast­ing and mem­o­riz­ing the Qur’an, and asked To­bag­o­ni­ans to mir­ror that com­mit­ment to self-re­straint and re­spect through­out the year.

“We may have flaws as a coun­try, and we do strug­gle with an in­or­di­nate­ly high crime rate, es­pe­cial­ly when it comes to vi­o­lent crimes. But as a con­trast to that, the way our faiths can peace­ful­ly co­ex­ist with each oth­er is cer­tain­ly some­thing we can ex­port to the rest of the world,” he said.

Au­gus­tine added that To­ba­go’s grow­ing Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty plays a vi­tal role in fos­ter­ing peace.

“Every time I come here, I re­mark at the fact that I keep see­ing new faces. I keep see­ing younger peo­ple in­volved. I keep see­ing men folk in­volved and a strong sense of broth­er­hood. And we want to con­grat­u­late you on that,” he said.

Au­gus­tine al­so re­flect­ed on an in­ter­ac­tion he had dur­ing Ra­madan: “On one oc­ca­sion, I sat with the imam, and I was there dis­cussing the Bible, he was there dis­cussing the Qur’an, and we were com­par­ing be­liefs, com­par­ing teach­ings and it was hap­pen­ing all peace­ful­ly, with­out anger, and with re­spect to each oth­er’s be­liefs. That, to me, is one of the great things that as a coun­try, we can of­fer the rest of the world.”

Ad­dress­ing glob­al con­flicts, Au­gus­tine spoke of To­ba­go’s sup­port for peace in Gaza.

“Last year, while we were here, we were just be­gin­ning to look at the con­flict that is hap­pen­ing in Gaza and over the year, I had the for­tu­nate priv­i­lege of hav­ing a sit-down with the Is­raeli am­bas­sador, and I can tell you, I was quite hon­est in my con­ver­sa­tion with him in telling him how I feel, and how this coun­try feels about what’s hap­pen­ing in that re­gion. We can­not sup­port any­thing but peace in all re­gions in the world,” he said.

THA Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris said he hopes the is­land adopts the mes­sage of Eid ul Fitr as part of their lives.

“This pe­ri­od of re­flec­tion and cel­e­bra­tion re­in­forces the core val­ues that bind us all to­geth­er—faith, per­se­ver­ance, and uni­ty. Through fast­ing, prayer, and acts of char­i­ty, your com­mu­ni­ty ex­em­pli­fies the spir­it of self­less­ness and grat­i­tude, re­mind­ing us of our du­ty to care for one an­oth­er,” he said.

The event was at­tend­ed by sev­er­al THA as­sem­bly­men and oth­er politi­cians, in­clud­ing In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA) po­lit­i­cal leader Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus and PNM Sen­a­tor Lau­rence His­lop.