Following the tragic death of a toddler in Belmont, religious leaders are calling for a collective return to community values and spiritual grounding.
Ot-to Car-ring-ton Se-nior Re-porter ot-to.car-ring-[email protected] The killing of 23-month-old tod-dler Aki-ni Kafi, along-side two men in Bel-mont on Thurs-day, the sec-ond child-linked tragedy to rock Trinidad and To-ba-go in un-der two months, has trig-gered re-newed alarm among re-li-gious lead-ers.. Speak-ing with Guardian Me-dia yes-ter-day, the re-li-gious lead-ers warned that the na-tion is spi-ralling in-to a deep moral, spir-i-tu-al and so-cial cri-sis fu-elled by vi-o-lence, law-less-ness and a col-lapse in com-mu-ni-ty val-ues.. Pres-i-dent of the
In-ter-Re-li-gious Or-gan-i-sa-tion (IRO) of Trinidad and To-ba-go, Dr El-lis Har-ri-son Bur-ris, said the tragedy re-flects a fail-ure in the na-tion’s spir-i-tu-al and hu-man de-vel-op-ment, while call-ing for ex-pand-ed out-reach and ed-u-ca-tion pro-grammes through church-es and re-li-gious bod-ies.. “It ap-pears to me we’re not mak-ing any progress from a hu-mane and pos-i-tive light with re-spect to spir-i-tu-al de-vel-op-ment of all peo-ple,” Bur-ris said.. “What has hap-pened there is ap-palling.” Bur-ris said the in-volve-ment of chil-dren in
such vi-o-lent in-ci-dents paints a dis-turb-ing im-age of so-ci-ety and high-lights the need for deep-er in-tro-spec-tion and stronger spir-i-tu-al ground-ing.. “It’s not a very good im-age that is be-ing por-trayed there with chil-dren in-volved in this kind of mur-der,” he said.. The IRO pres-i-dent said re-li-gious or-gan-i-sa-tions must in-ten-si-fy ef-forts to reach com-mu-ni-ties and en-cour-age cit-i-zens to re-con-nect with faith in a more mean-ing-ful way.. “We are hop-ing that from a re-li-gious per-spec-tive… we can
be able to in-crease our ed-u-ca-tion pro-gramme across the church-es, to en-cour-age peo-ple to come to-wards God in a more mean-ing-ful way,” he said.. “Peo-ple might say they’re com-ing to-wards God with their lips, but not with their hearts.” Bur-ris ex-plained that greater out-reach would in-volve en-cour-ag-ing med-i-ta-tion, self-re-flec-tion and spir-i-tu-al dis-ci-pline aimed at help-ing peo-ple de-vel-op health-i-er at-ti-tudes to-ward one an-oth-er.. “If we could get more peo-ple to re-alise or do greater med-i-ta-tion, that
they can be able to reach the di-vine source of the Cre-ator in a more mean-ing-ful way, we en-cour-age that at all times,” he said.. His com-ments come as sev-er-al faith lead-ers ex-pressed alarm over the killing in Bel-mont and broad-er pat-terns of es-ca-lat-ing vi-o-lence in-volv-ing young vic-tims.. Pas-tor Clive Dot-tin de-scribed the coun-try as “col-laps-ing at a very fast clip,” warn-ing that the na-tion is rapid-ly los-ing its moral foot-ing amid crime, cor-rup-tion, drugs
and il-le-gal guns.. “We have no to-mor-row in this bat-tle,” Dot-tin said.. “Now is the time.” He ar-gued that re-spon-si-bil-i-ty for ad-dress-ing crime ex-tends be-yond Gov-ern-ment and law en-force-ment.. “Par-lia-men-tar-i-ans have a role, but we as par-ents and adults have a role.. Pas-tors have a role.. Busi-ness-men have a role,” he said.. Dot-tin al-so called for stronger ac-tion against ma-jor crim-i-nal net-works and rogue el-e-ments with-in the pro-tec-tive ser-vices al-leged-ly linked to gangs.. Mean-while, Na-tion
of Is-lam leader David Mo-hammed warned that the Bel-mont killings may rep-re-sent a dan-ger-ous ero-sion of long-stand-ing “un-writ-ten codes” that his-tor-i-cal-ly dis-cour-aged at-tacks on women and chil-dren, even with-in crim-i-nal cir-cles.. “Women and chil-dren should be con-sid-ered off lim-its for any kind of vic-tim-i-sa-tion or re-venge or re-tal-i-a-tion,” Mo-hammed said.. He cau-tioned that if such bound-aries are dis-ap-pear-ing, Trinidad and To-ba-go could be en-ter-ing “an ex-tra-or-di-nar-i-ly neg-a-tive pe-ri-od” in its so-cial de-vel-op-ment.