Rhon­dor Dowlat

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt 

Promi­nent Rasta­far­i­an leader Glen­roy “Bon­go Grease” Halls has strong­ly con­demned the ac­tions of a young man claim­ing to be Rasta­far­i­an, who was seen in vi­ral videos hurl­ing in­flam­ma­to­ry re­marks out­side mosques, church­es, tem­ples, and the Di­vali Na­gar site in re­cent days.

Speak­ing to the Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day night, Halls em­pha­sised that “Rasta­fari has noth­ing to do with such con­duct. Our phi­los­o­phy has al­ways been one of peace, love, and re­spect for all hu­man­i­ty.”

He added, “True Rasta­far­i­ans re­spect all re­li­gions and their fol­low­ers. This be­hav­iour goes against every­thing Rasta­fari stands for. Re­li­gion is per­son­al and sa­cred to each in­di­vid­ual, and it is not our place to de­mean or in­sult any­one’s be­liefs.”

Halls called on the pub­lic to re­ject at­tempts to as­so­ciate Rasta­far­i­an­ism with di­vi­sive or in­flam­ma­to­ry ac­tions.

He said, “The mes­sage of Rasta­fari has al­ways been uni­ty. We are a peo­ple of peace and love, and we re­spect all creeds and races. This be­hav­iour is some­thing en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent and should not be mis­tak­en for Rasta­fari.”

The in­ci­dent has al­so drawn sharp crit­i­cism from po­lit­i­cal and re­li­gious lead­ers.

Ch­agua­nas West MP and at­tor­ney Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly de­scribed the man’s re­marks, par­tic­u­lar­ly against Hin­duism at the Di­vali Na­gar site, as deeply of­fen­sive and a vi­o­la­tion of the law.

“The Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty must not tol­er­ate in­sults against their gods,” Ram­bal­ly said.

“These ver­bal at­tacks are not harm­less—they are in­tend­ed as in­sults and must be treat­ed as such. I ad­vise the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha and the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture to file a po­lice re­port and con­sid­er pri­vate pros­e­cu­tion.”

Ram­bal­ly em­pha­sised the lim­its of free­dom of speech in T&T, stat­ing, “While I re­spect free­dom of ex­pres­sion, it does not ex­tend to mak­ing deroga­to­ry state­ments about oth­er re­li­gions’ deities and be­liefs.”

He high­light­ed the im­por­tance of ad­dress­ing in­ci­dents like these to pre­serve the coun­try’s tra­di­tion of uni­ty.

“Our in­ter­faith har­mo­ny is a cor­ner­stone of our so­ci­ety,” he said.

“When ac­tions threat­en this bal­ance, we must act with se­ri­ous­ness to main­tain the re­spect and peace that de­fine our na­tion.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) con­demned the of­fen­sive videos, call­ing for im­me­di­ate po­lice ac­tion.

It la­belled the re­marks as deeply deroga­to­ry and warned of their po­ten­tial to in­cite di­vi­sion and hos­til­i­ty among Trinidad and To­ba­go’s di­verse com­mu­ni­ties. The or­gan­i­sa­tion called on the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter and hold the in­di­vid­ual ac­count­able for pro­mot­ing hate speech.

In its state­ment, the SDMS al­so re­mind­ed au­thor­i­ties of pri­or in­ci­dents of van­dal­ism against Hin­du tem­ples and oth­er places of wor­ship, many of which re­main un­re­solved.

“It is im­per­a­tive that those who seek racial or re­li­gious di­vi­sion be held ac­count­able for their ac­tions,” the state­ment read.

The SDMS fur­ther ex­pressed sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture and oth­er re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions, re­it­er­at­ing its com­mit­ment to fos­ter­ing in­ter­faith re­spect and har­mo­ny. It called on cit­i­zens to re­main vig­i­lant and re­port any in­stances of re­li­gious ha­tred or dis­crim­i­na­tion to pre­serve the coun­try’s mul­ti­cul­tur­al fab­ric.