ASJA must give way

THE EDITOR: I happened to be one of the thousands of spectators who was enthralled by the procession of the tadjah’s in the national Hosay celebrations over the weekend in St James. It was so thrilling to witness the unique blend of the races: Indians, Afros, whites, the mixed and so on who banded together under the unity of the tassa. There were males of all ages who committed themselves in solemnity to accompany the glorious tadjahs. They beat a steady and scintillating hand of tassa as though it was music from the heavens. The drums stirred the deepest emotions. The procession did justice to the martyrdom of the sons of Hosein.

Indeed, the big and small tadjahs themselves were a spectacle of which the Muslim community should be proud. Now anyone witnessing this miraculous facet of Trinidad and Tobago culture would be so astonished by its grandness, that they would immediately recognise the petty, selfish, chauvinistic and dominating ways of ASJA, the nation’s so called largest Muslim body. Over the last couple weeks, foolish ASJA has tried to impose the way of its own extremist clerics on the other Muslim groups. They even went so far as to call on the Government to ban the Hosay. Imagine that! That is like Roman Catholic Church trying to tell Pastor Cuffie to stop being so self righteous and anti-religious by jacking out Omar Ali because he belongs to another sect of Christianity.

These old tired men who are hell bent on locking out a female principal until she is forced to retreat to another school or denying its students the right to participate in Carnival and then turning around and trying to block them from exams. ASJA knows how secular and self-centred they are: they would never set foot in the St Joseph TML school, because they know of the animosity that awaits. ASJA must wake up to the reality and thank God they are living in a multi-religious state. If they take it for granted then the daily happenings in Teheran, Istanbul and Turkey should contain good lessons for them about live and let live.

ANTON DICKIE
Parishioner — Exalted Word Tabernacle of Prayer
Calcutta Settlement