Gonzales demands explanation over NCIC sponsorship withdrawal

PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les is de­mand­ing an ex­pla­na­tion from the Gov­ern­ment over what he de­scribes as the sud­den with­draw­al of state en­ter­prise spon­sor­ship from the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture’s Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions, warn­ing against the use of pub­lic re­sources to pun­ish cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions.

In a state­ment is­sued on Mon­day, the Arou­ca/Lopinot MP al­so con­demned Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments con­cern­ing the NCIC, de­scrib­ing them as “reck­less and un­for­tu­nate”, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing a re­li­gious pe­ri­od as­so­ci­at­ed with peace, good­will and na­tion­al uni­ty.

Gon­za­les said the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice car­ried a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­mote har­mo­ny, ex­er­cise re­straint and re­spect the in­de­pen­dence of re­li­gious and cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions.

He ar­gued that her state­ments, cou­pled with the with­draw­al of spon­sor­ship, raised con­cerns about the mo­ti­va­tion be­hind those de­ci­sions.

“The tim­ing and cir­cum­stances cre­ate a trou­bling per­cep­tion that state re­sources may be used to pun­ish cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions that do not find favour with those hold­ing po­lit­i­cal pow­er.”

Gon­za­les called on Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the UNC Gov­ern­ment to ex­plain the with­draw­al and demon­strate greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, tol­er­ance and re­spect to­wards cul­tur­al and re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tions.

“No re­li­gious or cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tion should be sub­ject­ed to po­lit­i­cal in­tim­i­da­tion, pub­lic vil­i­fi­ca­tion or fi­nan­cial re­tal­i­a­tion sim­ply be­cause its de­ci­sions may not find favour with the Gov­ern­ment.”

The PNM chair­man said rea­son­able state spon­sor­ship of re­li­gious and cul­tur­al cel­e­bra­tions rep­re­sent­ed an in­vest­ment in pre­serv­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s na­tion­al iden­ti­ty and strength­en­ing so­cial har­mo­ny.

He main­tained that PNM ad­min­is­tra­tions had con­sis­tent­ly recog­nised the im­por­tance of sup­port­ing such cel­e­bra­tions and the or­gan­i­sa­tions re­spon­si­ble for pre­serv­ing the coun­try’s cul­tur­al her­itage.

Gon­za­les al­so praised the NCIC’s con­tri­bu­tion to the preser­va­tion and pro­mo­tion of In­di­an cul­ture and tra­di­tions, say­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion de­served re­spect rather than po­lit­i­cal hos­til­i­ty.

He de­scribed the coun­try’s re­li­gious foun­da­tions and cul­tur­al her­itage as es­sen­tial to its di­ver­si­ty, tol­er­ance and peace­ful co­ex­is­tence.

“Our di­ver­si­ty must nev­er be­come a ca­su­al­ty of par­ti­san pol­i­tics.”

Link­ing his ap­peal to Di­vali’s mes­sage of light tri­umph­ing over dark­ness, Gon­za­les urged cit­i­zens to re­ject di­vi­sion and recom­mit them­selves to mu­tu­al re­spect, re­li­gious tol­er­ance and na­tion­al uni­ty.

He said Trinidad and To­ba­go be­longed to every­one, re­gard­less of race, re­li­gion, cul­ture or po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion.