As Good Friday loses significance among a seemingly declining religious Vincentian population, Deputy Prime Minister St. Clair Leacock has raised the question of whether fetes and other entertainment activities are replacing the reverence of the day when many Christians around the world commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Leacock raised the question on Boom FM while discussing violence and the number of entertainment activities held across the country during Holy Week and the Easter weekend.
Leacock, who is also minister of national security, said that on his way to the radio interview, he was listening to another radio show evaluating the Easter weekend.
“And in their evaluation, … they were speaking about those promoters who lost their shirt in the week of Easter — that’s the argument — and went on to advocate that the Ministry of Tourism should have been giving them a stronger helping hand to make sure that their events were more successful,” Leacock said.
“But they literally concluded, for example, on Good Friday night, it was perfect to have a J’ouvert celebration,” he said, noting that the proposal was coming from a radio station.”
Leacock said he expected backlash for raising the issues, adding that, as far as he was concerned, “Easter is Easter, and Easter is a special day or week in the Christian calendar.”
“You want to replace Good Friday with J’ouvert Friday? Now, if that is a signal that you’re beginning to send from your point of influence, you see how our work is cut out for us in St. Vincent and the Grenadines?” Leacock said.
The lack of reverence for Holy Week and the Easter weekend is not a creeping issue.
It is already deeply entrenched in the country, whose population is predominantly Christian but most of whom openly do not abide by many tenets of the faith.
Leacock reiterated that it irked him that “on Good Friday night you could have had a j’ouvert to lift the weekend”.
He questioned how that would “square with the Easter celebrations”.
“It asked us, ‘What kind of country do we want?’” Leacock said.
Responding to Leacock’s comments during the said programme, pastor Cecil Richards of the Kingstown Baptist Church reminded the deputy prime minister that SVG is a democratic country.
He said he live in the vicinity where he could hear and he was “shocked”, but at the same time, he “was understanding we are in a country where, in as much as Christians and Bible-believing people have rights, there are people who don’t have that spectrum and base of belief, and they have freedoms too, and they have rights”.
Richards said one has to negotiate and respect other people’s rights to live according to their beliefs and value systems.
“… inasmuch as I would like to impose, and as much as I like them to have this congruent value structure with us, as I reflected on the weekend, we want to have services, we want to praise God, but there are people who want to party,” Richards said.
“There are people who want to live out their value structure, how it is constructed.”
He said he sorted through “the tensions” of being partial and giving licence to Christians and Bible-believing people to have their Easter services.
Richards, however, questioned, at the same time, the extent to which a state can “legislate the rules of governance and restrict freedoms of people in this way to tell them they can’t exercise their right to have a party, can’t exercise their right to have a faith and their right to do what they want”.
He said that, as uncomfortable as it is, he believed that “what is good for the goose is good for the gander”.
“Today, you might want to restrict those who are doing that but tomorrow, the very same principle can apply, where, instead of that group being subdued, it could very well be that the very laws and rules and regulations that you might put in place to restrict and subdue the freedoms of that group, it might turn around and bite you,” Richards said.
He added that he did not want to be in a position where, as a Christian, he is told he cannot have a service, because he knows how he would feel.
Leacock interjected, saying, apparently sarcastically, that people wanting to have a wet fete and opening their shops to sell Strong Rum on Good Friday are all “part of democracy…” adding, “I’m not with you at all.
“Societies have to have certain parameters, and democracy anticipates that. I don’t think democracy ever anticipated that society is to be sent to the point where you do what you like,” the deputy prime minister said.
“So that’s not my input and my interpretation of what the word democracy means. And that’s why we have law and order and we have limitation, and we have consent of what we do, when we do, and where we do certain things,” Leacock said.
“So, if I take your approach, it explains to me why we have so much of what we are having now … across St Vincent and the Grenadines in so many spheres of life where everybody is doing their own thing.”
Richards said it is the same discussion that has taken place across multiple issues regarding the infringement on rights and the exercise of rights.
“It was the core argument at the centre of the COVID [vaccine] mandate: to what extent should you impose on people’s right to their bodies and tell them what to do, and multiple other things,” the preacher said.
“ We have this tension as to how far should a state exercise its authority to shape and put the guards real guard rails on society,” Richards said.
Leacock interjected, saying “state laws come off of the template of religious laws” and “the more deviation you have”, the more likely to have societies in turmoil and in confusion.
He said there has to be a society saying that people have democratic rights, they have privilege, and there is a constitution and guidelines, “but we have some things that represent normative behaviour, and when people cross those lines that we have a right to address”.
Richards responded, saying, “I would love to have everyone lined up on our side of morality and values and value expression. I would love that, but you also know, truth be told, there are those who just want to do an exercise. “
Leacock, however, countered:
“I’m saying, for example, with respect to the responsibility that I have now, which goes over to you as a church and to the church and Christian community, it will be so helpful to me and to the police force if people like yourself, who I recognise as influencers in society, are on board and say that we are on this thing together.”
