Antigua-Barbuda PM highlights social issues at Ecclesiastical Consultation

 PM Spencer (left) is seated next to Pastor Alphonso Barnes, Dr. Patrick
Thomas and Bishop Donald J. Reece.  Photo:  Maurice Merchant

by Norman 'Gus' Thomas
Caribbean Net News Senior Correspondent
E-mail: rc@caribbeannetnews.com 

Monday, August 22, 2005

ST. JOHN'S, Antigua: Antigua and Barbuda's Prime Minister, Baldwin Spencer, in addressing the second annual National Ecclesiastical Consultation held at the Multi Purpose Cultural Center last Thursday dealt with a number of issues including moral decay and other social ills.

Spencer also took the opportunity to voice concern to the clergy over what he called an assault by demagogues on society.

"Our country faces determined forces, bent on provoking discord and igniting tensions in our society.

The society continues to be under assault from people who are responsible for nothing, who hold themselves accountable to no one, and who condemn and criticize selected targets with capable ill will."

The Prime Minister went on to suggest that their vocation is sowing discord, igniting tensions and vilifying institutions in utter disregard for the consequences of their conduct.

"Those demagogues dominate a number of local radio programmes," Spencer said going on to add that "they use anonymity of the internet, they use poison pen missiles, they come in various guises, they endanger or engender disrespect and destroy values in our national community."

The country's leader warned that such action is as destructive "as the movies and music loaded with gratuitous violence and sex," such forces, he said, have the capacity to inflict damage on any society and warned that, "we share responsibility for our nation’s children, for our nation’s elderly, and for our nation’s under-privileged.

Spencer also suggested that the time might have come for some action to be taken in a bid to regulate what is being carried on the nation's airwaves. This suggestion has caused a number of media houses to raise their eyebrows in concern. 

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