Very poor reasoning

One man suggests that we may as well abolish the Gregorian Calendar since it is the legacy of “medieval papal astronomers.” Others have also suggested that we change the name of our country since ‘‘Trinidad’’ is Spanish for ‘‘Trinity.’’ One UWI student wrote that the Trinity Cross has been a part of our history for far too long to get rid of it. It seems to me that these commentators fail to see the point. I believe that the crux of the issue - pardon the pun - is that of personal choice. No one ever has a choice of where he or she will be born; it is not as though we can actually choose the location where we will be born before we are conceived. Like so many other things in life such as physical characteristics including sex, skin colour and hair type or the kind of parents we have, we have no control over the name of the place and circumstances of our birth.

In a democratic society however, we have a choice whether or not we will accept an award, the highest in the nation, the design of which in our case shows preference for a particular religion. Currently the only choice a Hindu, Muslim, other non-Christians or an Atheist has is, “you either take it or leave it.” You call those options? Failure to see the inequity in this is the very reason we must change the award to reflect the reality of modern Trinidad and Tobago society.

Some may take from this that I am suggesting we create several awards one for each of the various religions of the future recipients, however, this is the last thing I would suggest.

Trinidad and Tobago is a secular state, or is supposed to be, hence our national awards and emblems should in no way show favouritism for any particular religion or any religion at all.