Fortunately I was in the Senate Tuesday afternoon when opposition Senator Fitzgerald Hinds launched what can only be described as a very unfortunate-that is putting it mildly- and thinly veiled assault on journalists in the country.
I know he would vigorously deny he did such a thing, which, ironically, happened when he piloted a private motion calling on the People's Partnership Government to reaffirm its commitment to Trinidad and Tobago's democratic system of governance.
I shall deal with this topic in this space next Thursday, as I have learned over the years not to do anything in anger....you lose focus and can get emotionally tied up, thereby losing the substance of what you are trying to do or say. Today let's take another look at the still-number-one challenge facing the country-crime and all its implications, and specifically what this administration is doing to come to grips with this clearly out-of-control blight.
I might be wrong, but it may seem that certain sections of our national community, for their narrow and selfish goals, smile each day when they read or see on the news media another man, woman or child, bite the dust at the hands of these gun-crazy criminals.
Unfortunately, this nationwide problem is being used as a political weapon to get at the government, whose detractors are saying it is not delivering on its promises and that the main players are simply engaging in PR stunts. Of course the PP is able to counter these claims and my beef today is with those who are bent on not giving the current Minister of National Security or this Government the encouragement needed to take on these social misfits in a very aggressive manner.
I don't expect the PNM politicians to join with the Government in tackling this crisis because it is not in their interest to make the Government look good. Sadly, they cannot see the bigger picture, which is that we are all in this predicament together, and if we do not unite to deliver these hoodlums a firm knockout blow, the time will soon arrive when this place could become ungovernable.
I have written off the opposition politicians in this regard, but what I do not understand is why their surrogates in the media especially the electronic arm, are hell-bent on pushing misinformation and downright falsehoods while pushing their masters' political head.
Take, for example, one of them earlier this week passionately appealing to Afro-Trinis to rise up against the alleged racist attacks from this PP regime. If you were a first-time visitor to Port-of-Spain on that day and tuned in to the station, you would have wondered if we were living in apartheid-era South Africa.
Almost every initiative National Security Minister Jack Warner undertakes to make this country once more a safer place for all its citizens is met with criticism, not only from some ordinary citizens but from these PNM politicians, conveniently ignoring the cold fact that the areas targeted by Warner and his ministry for special attention are those represented in the Parliament by the very PNM.
I was pleasantly surprised that same day when I heard Garth Christopher on Power 102FM debating, in a comprehensive and dispassionate manner, the pros and cons of some of the anti-crime measures, something I wish other talk-show hosts would emulate in the interest of the national good.
The latest of these anti-crime initiatives took place at the Queen's Park Savannah on Sunday, and, apart from having an entertainment component, saw several booths dealing with a wide range of issues such as registering people for employment, information on accessing Government's social programmes and the like.
But what did you get? I did not see a single PNM MP at the day-long event, but you heard them criticising the Government for throwing a $4 million "fete" at the expense of taxpayers. A bright side to this thorny challenge is that Mr Warner is not being deterred from doing what he feels is right to prosecute his mandate, and that is how it should be; we have to try and keep on trying until we get the right formula.
We cannot just throw up our hands in the air and surrender more territory to the criminal elements.