In Shakespeare's Julies Caesar, Mark Anthony uses the assassination of Caesar as a political opportunity to have himself installed as a member of a three-man coalition that took over the Roman Empire following the Caesar's demise.
It was Shakespeare who put in Anthony's character, the words: "Cry 'havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war." The phrase which was uttered by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar two weeks ago, accompanying a sudden spate of police killings in the wider Laventille area, has been attributed to clueless speech writers. I am not too sure.
The Prime Minister, who was a Use of English lecturer at the UWI before she segued into law and politics, clearly chose her words deliberately and carefully. And by the end of the week, inspector Roger Alexander, who leads the North Eastern Division Task Force, had responded affirmatively to the call to arms.
"Let us go to war! We have no choice but to go to war! I have been saying this all the time... eventually we will have to confront these persons. We are at war," Alexander was telling Radio i95 FM last week, as he responded to a presumed threat from the brother of a recent victim of a police shooting. He made it clear that there would no negotiations in his prosecution of that war. It brought a new definition to protecting and serving.
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