GILLIAN LUCKY

What was be­ing cel­e­brat­ed on Tues­day at the Rien­zi Com­plex? Or more ac­cu­rate­ly, who was be­ing glo­ri­fied as the sav­iour of the peo­ple? One would have thought that by now we would have re­alised the dan­ger in mak­ing a mar­tyr of an in­di­vid­ual who en­joys tran­sient po­lit­i­cal at­trac­tive­ness, in­stead of pro­mot­ing the team and en­sur­ing that all its mem­bers are up to par.

But who am I to crit­i­cise an event that brought joy to thou­sands of peo­ple who will­ing­ly con­gre­gat­ed to share in the su-preme reign of a beau­ti­ful and clever queen who is able to con­trol all her brave and loy­al sub­jects. That the pop­u­la­tion was bom­bard­ed with live cov­er­age of the event shows that the cel­e­bra­tion was meant to be all-in­clu­sive so that all cit­i­zens could par­tic­i­pate in some form or fash­ion in this aus­pi­cious oc­ca­sion. And what were we cel­e­brat­ing again? Oh yes, the two-year an­niver­sary of the elec­tion of our dear and beloved Prime Min­is­ter to the post of po­lit­i­cal leader of the UNC, which re­sult­ed in the si­mul­ta­ne­ous demise of her once pub­licly ac­knowl­edged po­lit­i­cal gu­ru. It must be quite iron­ic for this first fe­male Prime Min­is­ter of our coun­try, who has achieved such great­ness in a short pe­ri­od of time, to share the stage with peo­ple who, dur­ing that in­ter­nal par­ty elec­tion, said the most hor­ri­ble things about her as they tried to un­suc­cess­ful­ly break her un­daunt­ed po­lit­i­cal spir­it. That Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is such a for­giv­ing and mag­nan­i­mous per­son must bring great com­fort to those who fear that she would take of­fence by re­al­is­tic and truth­ful as­sess­ments of her per­for­mance in of­fice.

The red car­pet

The start of the year is al­ways an ex­cit­ing time in Hol­ly­wood as the town is buzzing with ac­tiv­i­ty, with stars prepar­ing them­selves to pa­rade on the red car­pet as they at­tend the gala events.

The crowds are al­ways anx­ious to see their favourite celebri­ties, if on­ly for a fleet­ing glance, and the stars just love the at­ten­tion. It is a time of great cel­e­bra­tion, with awards be­ing giv­en to those ac­tors, ac­tress­es, di­rec­tors and pro­duc­ers who have dis­tin­guished them­selves in their cho­sen pro­fes­sions. The win­ners are not self-pro­claimed but are cho­sen based on pop­u­lar vote by a tri­bunal and, for some awards, by the fans. The build-up to the event has be­come as an­tic­i­pat­ed as the cer­e­mo­ny it­self and thou­sands of ad­mir­ers line the streets as they ea­ger­ly await the ap­pear­ance of the glam­orous stars. And here at home we are not back­ward. The North Amer­i­can in­flu­ence, and some would cor­rect­ly point out the Bol­ly­wood blitz, has be­come a part of this regime's cel­e­bra­tions. In sim­i­lar fash­ion, thou­sands ar­rive at the venue and pa­tient­ly await the ar­rival of the main star whose stage tal­ent is com­pa­ra­ble to the best in the busi­ness. And why not, if Ar­genti­na could have its Evi­ta, then what is wrong with us herald­ing our Kam­la? Of course Evi­ta spoke to the mass­es from the Casa Rosa­da but our Kam­la ad­dress­es the crowds with com­pa­ra­ble flair and flavour.

Go­ing flat

Our learn­ing curve for the pre­ven­tion of po­lit­i­cal er­rors made in the past is tak­ing such a dip that it is on­ly a mat­ter of time be­fore we suf­fer from a flat lin­er. There are cur­rent­ly too many cit­i­zens who are afraid to open­ly dis­cuss the mis­steps of this regime be­cause they fear po­lit­i­cal vic­tim­i­sa­tion and oth­ers who are so my­opic that they view every ad­verse ut­ter­ance about this Gov­ern­ment as a crime pun­ish­able with the harsh­est sen­tence. That the Prime Min­is­ter is sur­round­ed by some ad­vis­ers who ap­par­ent­ly have as much in­tegri­ty as the weavers who sewed the new clothes for the ar­ro­gant em­per­or, is a sit­u­a­tion that, if left un­at­tend­ed, could lead to great em­bar­rass­ment. For ex­am­ple, there must be sta-tis­ti­cians with­in her ranks who could ac­cu­rate­ly in­di­cate the sit­u­a­tion with re­spect to crime. To boast that this Gov­ern­ment has been able to ad­dress the mat­ter wor­thy of pub­lic ac­cla­ma­tion and ap­plause is an in­sult to the in­tel­li­gence of the cit­i­zen­ry. The fig­ures re­veal that there was a 20 per cent de­crease in the com­mis­sion of se­ri­ous and vi­o­lent crimes in 2011 when com­pared with the fig­ure for the pre­vi­ous year. How­ev­er, such a rev­e­la­tion with­out any con­sid­er­a­tion be­ing giv­en to the lit­tle over three months in the last year when there was a state of emer­gency (SoE) could be tan­ta­mount to in­ad­ver­tent in­tel­lec­tu­al dis­hon­esty. Dur­ing a SoE, when law en­force­ment agen­cies are most present and vis­i­ble, with cur­fews im­posed on the pop­u­la­tion, it is ex­pect­ed that the crime rate will fall. An ac­cu­rate pic­ture would en­tail a com­par­i­son of the months Jan­u­ary-Au­gust 2010 with the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od for 2011 as this would ex­clude the SoE pe­ri­od.

In any event, there was an un-im­pres­sive 1.5 per cent in­crease in the de­tec­tion rate for 2011, and so, I ask again, what are we cel­e­brat­ing? And for the record, how does Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz feel know­ing that he be­longs to an ad­min­is­tra­tion that is fail­ing dis­mal­ly in the fight against crime? If he was still the chair­man of the Kei­th Noel 136 Com­mit­tee, would he have any­thing to say? I sug­gest that the ho­n­ourable min­is­ter, who was ex­treme­ly crit­i­cal of the last regime in its at­tempts to fight crime, should brief him­self as to what he stat­ed in an in­ter­view re­port­ed on Oc­to­ber, 24, 2005. Or per­haps his no­tice­able si­lence on the mat­ter is a re­sult of his hav­ing al­ready done so.

How ab­surd

The sug­ges­tion by the Prime Min­is­ter that the Op­po­si­tion should draft the leg­is­la­tion nec­es­sary to fight crime is ac­tu­al­ly an ad­mis­sion that her Gov­ern­ment lacks the ex­per­tise to ful­fil its leg­isla­tive man­date. The Hansard record con­tains suf­fi­cient ma­te­r­i­al for the drafters em­ployed by the State to give con­sid­er­a­tion to the con­cerns raised by the Op­po­si­tion when the rel­e­vant bill was de­bat­ed in the Par­lia­ment and to make the nec­es­sary amend­ments. This Gov­ern­ment has to stop play­ing games and get down to the busi­ness of the na­tion. While the coun­try may tol­er­ate and even en­joy the singing and danc­ing per­for­mances of the po­lit­i­cal elite dur­ing this Car­ni­val sea­son, the fact is that there are sev­er­al mat­ters of ur­gent na­tion­al im­por­tance that are be­ing side­lined. The show is over and it is time for se­ri­ous work to be­gin.