Just sounding an arguably badly timed alert here. Smack in the middle of difficult fete choices, disputed competition results, blue and green roses, costume preparation, and mayhem on the road.
Acknowledging therefore that it’s likely to
be just as lost as purposefulness in addressing some urgent issues of the day.
But still trying this because when the dust
clears, our minds need to be directed sooner rather than later toward the
manner in which we have slipped up badly on the subject of addressing criminal
violence.
This, of course, is not to contribute to
hysteria over this in the public domain. So, yes, party, celebrate, and have
fun. But consider how we operate at this time of year and the positive
attributes (an absence of mutual suspicion?) that point in the general
direction of solutions and, perhaps, a route out of the malaise and sense of
hopelessness.
I was taught a long time ago that while
authoritarianism certainly points to the behaviours of the rulers, the
compliant participation of the ruled is equally important to consider.
Position this thought alongside the fear,
anxiety, grief, anger, and rage that accompany outrageous, murderous violence
and what follows is more likely than not a pervasive response conducive to
reinforcing authoritarian instincts and actions.
It’s amazing that the real experts at this
have not been clinically examining our collective condition in this manner.
This is not dry, esoteric theory.
What we have been witnessing – and this is
not peculiar to any political administration – is a tendency to avoid nuanced,
deliberate, and careful attention to emotion-inducing realities and instead
“solve” problems in the same manner in which they greet us. Violence,
therefore, tends to stimulate more violence. Impunity greets impunity. And dissent,
poetic or not, will not be tolerated.
They say this is perfectly understandable
when people feel besieged by a challenge. If it involves threats, injury or
death there is going to be fear and anger and a reliance by the affected on
those in charge to end it.
There is more attention to “what” is needed
than to the “how.” A few weeks ago, for instance, this space was employed to
have people consider why a penalty of death is so easily integrated into a
notion of punishment.
Survey the population today – even in the
middle of a wine or jump – and capital punishment for acts of criminal violence
will win overwhelmingly. Then ask whether people believe that the shortcomings
within policing and the criminal justice system can mean the execution of
someone who might well be innocent.
Well, that’s okay, it’s unlikely to happen
to “people like me” - “I do not look
like the usual suspects. I do not live where they live.”
Include in the survey questionnaire the
method of punishment and list the options: public lynching, dismemberment,
burning at the stake. “Wait till somebody you know is raped, maimed, or
killed!”
Responsible official action needs to dampen
the bloodlust rather than fuel it, as in saying out loud that “stand your
ground” does not mean a right to murder a housebreaker or mango thief. That the
more guns there are, the more shooting there will be. That genuine ameliorative
measures aimed at underlying causes are essential in any proposed solution.
We have not considered, as well, that
continued use of emergency powers actually signals a sad failure (incompetence?)
to administer ordinary law and the systems that uphold it. Global examples
establish an addictive nature. Forget, for now, suspicious, perennial,
“specific threats” to national security.
There are also countries that have reached
such a persistent and longstanding pass largely on account of perceived
political threats. It’s an easy segue from “threat to national security.”
In the Philippines, for example, disgraced
ex-president Rodrigo Duterte (and I am aware of people here who were once proud
of him) employed emergency powers to address “lawless violence” more than once.
Human rights groups estimate that as many
as 30,000 people were killed over six years of his rule by the police,
vigilante groups, and other civilian “supporters” of the move to bring order to
crime linked to the trade in illicit drugs. Narco-terrorism?
Perish the thought that civil liberties
should be asserted under such conditions. That new measures should be so framed
as to protect the innocent and to minimise rather than increase violence in all
its manifestations.
Such a posture requires credible,
trustworthy, honest leadership that does not exploit understandable public
panic. What is unfolding before our eyes are long-term consequences that will
lead to community alienation, unaccountable police behaviour, and a loss of
confidence in the administration of justice.
In other words, it’s possible to take one
step forward and two backward on this issue.
