‘Religious intolerance must be stamped out of our society’ – Nandlall

Attorney General and the Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall is urging citizens to safeguard the long-standing and hard-fought religious tolerance that prevails across the country.

Referring to the coinciding observances of Ramadan, Lent and Navratri, sacred periods for Muslims, Christians and Hindus respectively, Nandlal said Guyanese should never take this for granted.

“These commingling of religious activities, religious observances and religious festivals and festivities that are occurring almost simultaneously in some cases and contemporaneously in others, are being done in peace, in dignity, in unity, in love, in camaraderie, in brotherhood and with seamless ease,” he remarked during his programme “Issues in the News” on Tuesday.

“And we must never take this state of affairs for granted,” he emphasised.

“It was not always like this. There are many places on planet earth now as I speak where wars are being fought, children, women and men are dying, families are dying, people are losing their limbs, buildings are being bombed, countries are being invaded in the name of religion or because of religious-based hostilities and issues,” Nandlall reminded.

He noted that in Guyana, citizens are enjoying “an exceptional atmosphere of national unity, national fervor and a multicultural explosion of religion and other ethnic events taking place at the same time.”

He stressed that, “we have to work hard to protect these cherished rights and freedoms that we enjoy.”

Against this backdrop, Nandlall strongly condemned efforts by influential figures to incite religious intolerance.

“I have seen our political leaders being denigrated or denigrated, disrespected, attacked because they are attending religious places of worship. That must be stopped,” he contended.

In fact, he reflected on his own personal experience following his attendance at a mosque at Le Resourvenir, East Coast Demerara (ECD).

“I have been in public life now for nearly three decades. I am not new to this thing…I have been going to the mandirs all my life. I have been going to churches across this country all my life. I have been going to mosques in this country all my life. I was married into a Muslim family for nearly 20 years, a religious Muslim family for over 20 years. Yesterday [Monday], I went to a mosque in Le Resourvenir and there was an outpouring of hate and criticism against me on my Facebook page. I know where it is coming from. These things never used to happen before in this country. It is since the birth of one political movement and they have a robot farm,” Nandlall said.

During the programme, he shared a screengrab of a Facebook post made about his attendance at the mosque from a presumed fake profile under the name “Abu Dhabi”. The post calls for Nandlall to be “stoned to death” for attending the mosque.

“That is the level of religious intolerance that these people are preaching and the level of political intolerance that they are practicing. I call upon every single Guyanese to condemn that level of religious intolerance. We must stand up when we see the ugly head of division, when we see the destructive hand of division being raised,” he emphasised, adding that every citizen must take this matter seriously.

“It is the responsibility of all of us to stamp it out and stamp it out resolutely and urgently and strongly,” Nandlall posited.