SHAS­TRI BOODAN

T&T has no place for racism and those push­ing a racial agen­da, de­clared Far­ley Au­gus­tine, Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), to­day.

At the time, he was ad­dress­ing Eid cel­e­bra­tions at the Masjid al Taw­bah in Low­lands, To­ba­go, on Mon­day 2 May 2022. 

He said racist re­marks usu­al­ly rear their ug­ly heads dur­ing the po­lit­i­cal sea­son.

“The oc­ca­sion­al racism that we come up with…  We are not re­al­ly racist you know.  We are pre­ten­tious racist and con­ve­nient­ly racist to meet our po­lit­i­cal ends,” he said.

“We know as a coun­try how to live with each oth­er. Mo­ments like this should re­mind us, re­mind every­day cit­i­zens to con­tin­ue to re­ject racism and to re­ject peo­ple that ped­dle that kind of di­vi­sive­ness in our so­ci­ety," the THA Chief Sec­re­tary stat­ed.

Au­gus­tine praised To­ba­go's Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty for its con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of the is­land. Au­gus­tine said he vis­it­ed the Mosque on Fri­day and was warm­ly greet­ed.

"It dawned on me that I, as a Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist, could just walk up the road and walk in­to the com­pound of a mosque from the Is­lam­ic faith, and be warm­ly re­ceived,” he ob­served.  “As they break their fast, I start my sab­bath cel­e­bra­tions and we break bread and eat to­geth­er.”

Far­ley Au­gus­tine point­ed out: “In many, many places this is not pos­si­ble at all. In many places in the world, Hin­dus and Mus­lims do not sit at the same ta­ble. In many places of the world, Chris­tians and Mus­lims do not get along.”

“Here in T&T, we have the recipe for peace and har­mo­ny… Per­haps we need to bot­tle that and sell it to the world," he added.

The THA Chief Sec­re­tary said peo­ple must not take for grant­ed their re­li­gious lib­er­ties. He as­serts that peo­ple must have the right to wor­ship how they see fit.

Au­gus­tine al­so not­ed To­ba­go is be­com­ing more di­verse with per­sons of var­i­ous re­li­gious se­cur­ing roots in the sis­ter is­land. 

Kameel Ali, the Pres­i­dent and Di­rec­tor of the Masjid al Taw­bah, said Mus­lims in T&T are over­joyed to cel­e­brate Eid at their Masjids af­ter two years of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Ali said the mosque, Masjid al Taw­bah in To­ba­go, has no fences and is open to all.