See below full message from the People’s Progressive Party:
As our nation celebrates the festival of Deepavali, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) takes this opportunity to extend greetings to all Guyanese, especially the Hindu community.
Deepavali commemorates the victory of Lord Rama over Ravana and his triumphant return to the kingdom after years of exile. The jubilant subjects of Ayodhya, keen to make Lord Rama’s homecoming as swift and safe as possible, illuminated the way with masses of twinkling diyas.
Universally recognized as the festival of light; the triumph of knowledge over ignorance and the substitution of all that is negative with that which is positive, we call on all Guyanese, in particular our Hindu brothers and sisters, to reflect upon the significance of this great festival and to inculcate its message into our daily lives.
Occasions such as these present the opportunity for all of our people to display to the world, as one nation, the beauty and uniqueness of our cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity and tolerance.
Let us all remain open to be inspired by its pertinent messages and to work for the best interest of our country so that the light of prosperity will manifest itself in our lives, building stronger bonds of togetherness.
Shubh Deepavali to All!
It is clear that T&T, Guyana and Suriname all contain similar elements of a cultural mix that is quite diverse and cannot be considered unique to any on these countries because the world is fast becoming a multicultural world from migration and unending influx economic refugees.
The Festival of Divali is pivotal to the cultural framework of these three countries and the Commonwealth Secretariat must recognise this and play a role in reinforcing these indigenous cultural attributes and manifestations as a sub-set of cultural integration.
Divali must generate the need to undertake co-operation and exchanges among these three Caricom partners so that they can build a common platform of brotherhood and cultural-religious similarity.
Divali Nagar in T&T must extend the hand of friendship to Divali Kalsa in Guyana and exchange artistes and greetings with each other to further cement cultural ties at the NGO’s level annually.
I am therefore not convinced that in the light of the above of the accuracy of this statement because we are fabricating non-existent cultural silos in the Southern Caribbean instead of building bridges, cultural interface and mutually beneficial conversations on how we can jointly move forward.
“…Occasions such as these present the opportunity for all of our people to display to the world, as one nation, the beauty and uniqueness of our cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity and tolerance…”.
Happy Divali to the people of T&T, Guyana and Suriname.