A rare mo­ment of agree­ment be­tween the Prime Min­is­ter and Op­po­si­tion Leader on a mat­ter of na­tion­al con­cern, pro­vides a plat­form to con­sid­er the deep root­ed, decades-old di­vi­sions, stoked by pol­i­tics and race, that are shred­ding the fab­ric of our so­ci­ety.

The au­then­tic­i­ty and pow­er of T&T is por­trayed in a colour­ful ta­pes­try of di­verse eth­nic­i­ties, re­li­gions, cui­sine and artis­tic ex­pres­sions wo­ven in­to a unique so­ci­ety and cul­ture, but it is be­ing stained and ripped apart by greed, hate and vi­o­lence.

It is sig­nif­i­cant that in the days be­fore Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar stum­bled up­on com­mon ground amidst the out­rage over des­e­cra­tion of sa­cred spaces, there had been fresh erup­tions of dis­cord with strong un­der­cur­rents of race and re­li­gious in­tol­er­ance.

That is clear from the strong re­ac­tions to the con­tri­bu­tion by In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Hazel Thomp­son-Ahye to the Bud­get de­bate in the Up­per House.

Not one to mince words, Sen­a­tor Thomp­son-Ahye ruf­fled quite a few feath­ers with her analy­sis of T&T’s crime cri­sis, when she point­ed out the con­tin­ued gloss­ing over of the prob­lem of white-col­lar crime while cast­ing blame sole­ly on “black boys”.

Soon af­ter, OW­TU leader An­cel Ro­get in­ad­ver­tent­ly pro­vid­ed an il­lus­tra­tion of what the sen­a­tor meant when, dur­ing the union’s post-Bud­get fo­rum, he went on at length about young Afro-Trinida­di­an males as the main per­pe­tra­tors of the coun­try’s bru­tal crime wave. His state­ment has al­ready elicit­ed a strong re­ac­tion from Khafra Kam­bon, for­mer head of T&T’s Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee.

At the same time, the sim­mer­ing de­bate over re­li­gious free­dom has pit­ted the Op­po­si­tion Leader against of­fi­cials of the coun­try’s biggest Hin­du or­gan­i­sa­tion, the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS).

Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, a Hin­du, has in­fu­ri­at­ed SDMS sec­re­tary-gen­er­al Vi­jay Ma­haraj and oth­ers by point­ing out that oth­er places of wor­ship, not just tem­ples, have been tar­get­ed by thieves and van­dals. That is the point on which she and Dr Row­ley agree.

This week’s noise and fury are the lat­est signs of deep­en­ing di­vi­sions in a na­tion that should be draw­ing its strength from di­ver­si­ty.

The coun­try had on­ly just set­tled down af­ter pun­dit Satyanand Ma­haraj stirred up a hor­net’s nest in April with his con­tro­ver­sial link­ing of an up­surge in crime in his com­mu­ni­ty to young black mis­cre­ants op­er­at­ing along the East-West Cor­ri­dor.

Since then there have been no re­al ef­forts at rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and heal­ing, so any off-colour com­ment or un­for­tu­nate in­ci­dent can be the spark that ig­nites an­oth­er race or re­li­gious con­fla­gra­tion.

In a few days, there will be the cel­e­bra­tion of the Hin­du fes­ti­val of Di­vali, a com­mem­o­ra­tion of the tri­umph of light over dark­ness. This year, let it be an oc­ca­sion to break down the bar­ri­ers of race and re­li­gion and de­feat the dark­ness of dis­crim­i­na­tion and hate.

Na­tion­al uni­ty has al­ways been a pow­er­ful el­e­ment in T&T’s Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions and this year, it needs to be car­ried in­to the fast ap­proach­ing Christ­mas sea­son.

The coun­try’s two main po­lit­i­cal lead­ers — a Chris­t­ian and a Hin­du — can play their part by en­cour­ag­ing more agree­ment and di­a­logue and more ac­tive­ly speak­ing and act­ing in sup­port of peace and uni­ty.

There has been too much of the su­per­fi­cial­i­ty of lip ser­vice and go­ing through the mo­tions, and not enough ef­fort to find ar­eas of agree­ment and to stand on the side of truth.

Agree­ment and truth — that is what T&T needs.