Senior Reporter
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt
As Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar reminded Spiritual Baptists that it was the United National Congress (UNC) government that granted them their holiday, she promised to deliver the first Spiritual Baptist secondary school should they support her party in the next general election.
Persad-Bissessar made the pledge at Moruga/Tableland MP Michelle Benjamin’s Spiritual Baptist Liberation Day Thanksgiving at the Moruga Multi-Purpose Youth and Sport Facility on Saturday.
She recalled making the promise of a secondary school for the faith previously and vowed to make it happen if it stays united with the UNC. She told them that education is the only passport out of poverty.
“Education is the only key to a better life. So we give you land and you can build your cathedral. You must worship the Lord, but we have to educate our children. That is where our thrust has always been, in education, so today, should the good Lord give us a chance, I make this promise: We will build the first-ever Spiritual/Shouter Baptist secondary school,” Persad-Bissessar said.
Persad-Bissessar said UNC policies ensured that the Spiritual/Shouter Baptist community is now widely recognised and celebrated for its immense contributions to the nation’s cultural, social and religious development. She said the holiday was one of the most important days in her personal and political life, as it commemorates the Spiritual/Shouter Baptists’ historic and inspiring struggle. She told members that their foreparents showed courage, resilience, strength, faith and ultimate triumph over decades of ingrained colonial persecution. Persad-Bissessar recalled that the colonial government passed the Shouters Prohibition Ordinance in 1917 to prevent Baptists and others from practising their beautiful and powerful faith. In those days, they faced persecution and were threatened with jail if caught practising their religion. However, she said they stood up for faith.
While the prohibition was repealed in 1951, Persad-Bissessar said Baptists continued to face discrimination for decades. She said successive governments denied practitioners their request for a holiday that would give the Spiritual Shouter Baptists recognition and legitimacy.
“It was the UNC government which did this, under our great founding father, the late Basdeo Panday, when he became Prime Minister in 1995. Let us not forget. We must not forget,” Persad-Bissessar said she was attorney general on January 26, 1996, when the government declared the Spiritual Baptist Liberation Day holiday.
“Some of you are not young like me, but some of you may remember, those of you who are young like me, back then, I was the only parliamentarian on both the PNM side and UNC side who would wear the beautiful garbs of this great faith.”
Persad-Bissessar reminded them that the 1995-2000 administration, when she served as minister of legal affairs and then education, passed the Miscellaneous Laws Act in 2000, which removed several discriminatory laws that affected their freedom to practice your religion and culture from the statute books. That same year, she piloted legislation in Parliament for the passage of the Orisha Marriage Act, which gave the community the right to register their marriages.
She boasted that the UNC government handed over the deed for lands to the Spiritual Shouter Baptists to erect a primary school and an African Spiritual Park in Maloney. The UNC lost the 2002 general election, and Persad-Bissessar said the People’s National Movement refused to honour her government’s promise. When she became prime minister in 2010, she said she built St Barbara’s Spiritual Shouter Baptist Primary School and St Barbara’s Spiritual Shouter Baptist Early Childhood Care and Education Centre.