I
know people were waiting for the opportunity to begin the religious
arguments surrounding carnival. The Bahamas for more than 40 years has
enjoyed the freedom of a free an open society where people are granted
the privileged right to choose. There's a direct separation of state and
religion. The Bahamas governance is a concept of secularism - national
governance without influence from religious factions. Those from the
religious community comes out condemning like they were given the
religious hierarchy to be presiding judge over our society.
Furthermore,
you attempt to raise arguments using photos of other individuals
without their permission on a public social forum absolutely violating
them to visual support your argument. Nobody has the authority to judge
everybody has a right to their opinion, but an opinion that supports the
infringement of an individual right is irrelevant to the public
discourse over Bahamas junkanoo carnival. We've protected many of
Christian principles, but we have to know how far we can assert them on
the lives of others. We enjoy the freedom of religion that is shared by
every single individual to practice our faith public or PRIVATE.
Many
Bahamians belong to different faiths, we have no jurisdiction to tell
the Rastafarian they don't belong in our society because the majority of
among us are Christians. We have no sovereignty to define what people
can and cannot do it in the principle of choice as long as it is in the
rightful context of our constitution. If we as Christian in a democratic
society can express dissatisfaction or annoyance about a state of
affairs or an event then Bahamians who are atheist can express their
annoyance with the Baptist parade or any other Christian related event.
The truth is neither of us can stop these events if we enjoy the fruits
of freedom.
We
love our democracy because women are seen as equal in our society, we
enjoy our democracy because we practice any religion without fear of
persecution, we enjoy our democracy because we have the freedom to
decide and to determine our country's political future, we enjoy our
democracy because individuals have the right to choose. We have no right
telling a woman what she can and shouldn't wear.
Christians should continue to pray and seek the guidance of God and use the biblical
teachings not to judge the sins of others, but to guide them to truth
and to help them with the understanding that they have the liberty to
choose for their personal life just like you choose for yours.
Latrae Rahming,
CEO of Bahamaren "Chinese Consultancy Firm
University of International Business and Economics ( Beijing, China) Student Government President"
Disclaimer:
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private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of
TheBahamasWeekly.com