I consider myself a conscientious, hard-working person. I drag myself out of bed at 4.30 am to start my work day. I do my best impression of a law-abiding citizen. Additionally, I use my talents and modest resources to contribute to the sort of nation I’d like to see. I am not special in this regard. There are thousands of ordinary folks who work, raise children and carry on with lives guided by the basic tenets of civilised society. Many of these men and women support causes which reach out to the less fortunate and at-risk youth in so-called “hotspot” communities.
I may not be perfect, but I won’t accept responsibility for three men who decided to rob a bar in Paramin. Neither will I take credit for the woman with a sweet tooth for every sweetman who cavalierly dispenses his baby batter. I won’t claim the expanding brood of fledgling bandits she is ill-equipped to raise in a nurturing environment. There is only so much law-abiding citizens can do to influence the rampant criminality ravaging this country.
The acting Commissioner of Police doesn’t see incidents of severed heads and murdered girls as a crisis. For him, it’s merely an unfavourable manipulation of crime statistics by the media. Mr Williams, who enforces a standard for his senior officers from which he is exempt, is calling for collaboration from all law-abiding citizens. Trust, however, is earned not given.
The acting Commissioner cannot expect enthusiasm among ordinary citizens to risk their lives providing information to the police. The fear of being exposed as an “informer” to underworld elements by tainted police officers is not imagined. Drug blocks flourish across this country with minimal intervention by law enforcement. Criminals are “known” to the police yet little is done in the way of intelligence gathering to make these criminals “known” to the prison system.
More staggering than the acting Commissioner’s warped perspective on crime is the tendency of many citizens to absolve the government of any responsibility for dealing with the scourge.
“It’s not like Rowley is going around the country with a cutlass and gun killing people!” That’s a sample of the social media comments on the current spate of violent crime. There’s a general assertion that the ongoing bloodshed is strictly a consequence of our moral decay and abdication of personal responsibility. Not too long ago, the same voices now training their criticisms on a society of loose morals, placed blame at the doorstep of the previous administration for abysmal enforcement of the law. “Tanty Kams” was personally responsible, whereas under the Keith Rowley regime, “It’s going to take all of us!”
I’ve seen people perform the most death-defying contortions to defend the inaction and ineptitude of the current government. This isn’t peculiar to one cult of political supporter. The UNC’s gross malfeasance in office over the course of five turbulent years only stoked the unflinching defence of their party loyalists. What is happening now clearly confirms our willingness to put the lives of politicians before our own, even though we are the ones who suffer when they fail to confront crime and corruption.
What PNM die-hards seem unable to understand is that no one is assigning blame to the Prime Minister or his government for the crime with which we are afflicted today. The species of criminality now stalking the land has had a long and complex evolutionary path. At this point, it really doesn’t matter which government presided over the rise of the arch-criminal in T&T. The government of today has a responsibility to protect its citizens, and indeed promised to do just that.
The Office of the Prime Minister, in response to the criminal crimson tide, issued a press release that was as meaningless as it was insulting. Apparently no one in the OPM thought of how a news release addressing such a serious matter and riddled with grammatical errors and hollow platitudes would be received by the public. That press release was, itself, a misdemeanour. It is also unfortunate the Prime Minister seemed not to consider the feelings of besieged citizens as he was photographed with a broad smile on his face at a Carnival fete on the very evening that press release was committed.
And why should he? With so many party apologists lining up to take a bullet for “their government” why should anyone in this administration be burdened with pangs of conscience over the terrifying death toll?
Every week we are presented with what we believe is a new “last straw.” Women are being murdered with impunity, gangs wage wars among civilians and marauders storm our businesses and homes to strip us of everything they haven’t worked hard to achieve. Yet, we are being asked by defenders of the government to do our part. All of this for a cabinet of old stagers and blunt instruments in dress rehearsal for more than a year.
I wonder if those who continue to drink tea for the government’s fever will maintain that defence after the death-dealers have come to their homes.
