We can all observe a minute of silence

Nov 04, 2021 Letters

Dear Editor,

Kaieteur News – I have been reading avidly on the debate of prayers in school. I noticed a lot of persons replying and bringing some interesting views. To the end of one side, we have Former President of Guyana, Hon. Donald Ramotar proposing we scrap prayers in public places.
On the other end, we have Dr. Jerry Jailall who claims that we are all inherently evil and thus prayers should remain while we focus on improving infrastructure and welfare for students, teachers, nurses, etc. You know, the things that became possible of religion, and it doesn’t matter if the inventor was religious. Ridiculously, he opines that religion would prevent or reduce children from viewing porn, but we should switch more towards educating them via the internet. Gee, I wonder where a student would have access to porn freely.
We also have Anthony Pantlizt, who opines that prayers are important for students and that they must remain. I don’t disagree with that necessarily, but to suddenly jump to guns replacing prayers made me laugh. Clearly, he is American because he is ignorant to the fact that American has a looser gun regulation bill compared to Guyana, and it is deemed a right to bear arms in America, so guns are more accessible for citizens there. Guns in school were a problem long before prayers “came out of it in American” (it’s not, teachers aren’t allowed to lead prayers and schools aren’t allowed to lead religious activities in the public system).
The main problem in this, in my opinion, is that all of these men have failed to understand what Swami has voiced in his article, and it is that of inclusion. The universal prayer response from the Ministry of Education, while attempting to address inclusion, does come off as Christian in every shape and form, and this needs to be addressed. We actually do have a way to address this and no Hon. Donald Ramotar, Former President, we do not need to take prayers out. Instead, we can all observe a minute of silence and everyone can say a little prayer in their mind, so that everyone would feel included. And that is why I believe the framers of the constitution gave Guyana a secular status, not to spite God, but to include diversity of interpretation of him.

Amir Khan

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