Un­con­scionable po­lit­i­cal op­por­tunism finds no more dan­ger­ous time for ex­pres­sion than at the height of so­cial rec­ti­fi­ca­tion be­ing un­der­tak­en in the na­tion­al in­ter­est. Crime, mur­der, drugs, and mind­less vi­o­lence had reached their zenith be­fore the PP coura­geous­ly seized the bull by the horns, plac­ing the crim­i­nal el­e­ment in a dilem­ma matched on­ly by the em­bar­rass­ment of the pri­or ad­min­is­tra­tion over its own flat­u­lence made bereft of any moral au­thor­i­ty to com­ment. With an ar­se­nal of law op­tions, the PNM chose self-im­posed paral­y­sis and did noth­ing to stem the flow of hu­man blood. In the present state of emer­gency, sedi­tion is mag­ni­fied be­yond the norms of tol­er­ance, and in the new state of so­cial net­work­ing de­mands height­ened vig­i­lance by the au­thor­i­ties.

While abuse and pro­fan­i­ty have be­come the new id­ioms of ca­su­al ex­pres­sion par­tic­u­lar­ly on Face­book and oth­er so­cial net­works, in de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­eties any threat to the head of gov­ern­ment/state is still tak­en as a crim­i­nal vi­o­la­tion and re­mains pros­e­cutable in law. Here in a ten­sion-filled state of emer­gency, a trick­le can be­come a tsuna­mi and even a child­ish at­tempt at brava­do can be­come a flood to breach the dykes. The AG would have been re­miss had he not dealt with the of­fen­sive YouTube video that breached the norms of so­cial com­ment quick­ly and firm­ly. Copy­cat­ting has been nipped in the bud and every­one has awak­ened to the se­ri­ous­ness of the of­fence, many rec­om­mend­ing mer­cy and tol­er­ance for the mi­nor.

The young woman may re­quire coun­selling and her ac­com­plices iden­ti­fied and pros­e­cut­ed if they prove to be ma­nip­u­la­tive adults. The de­fences be­ing of­fered on her be­half by po­lit­i­cal op­por­tunists should be pros­e­cutable as ac­com­plices af­ter the sedi­tious fact, since the SoE can­not be dis­missed or waved away, much as ac­com­plices to arms se­cre­tion are to be held li­able. If the re­cal­ci­trant op­po­si­tion and their co­horts can­not sup­port the SOE peace­ful­ly, the emer­gency pow­ers of the Gov­ern­ment must be brought to bear as a so­cial im­per­a­tive in law. The air­waves are be­ing open­ly abused to fan racial and po­lit­i­cal flames at a crit­i­cal time, and the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion and broad­cast­ing laws must now be in­voked.

Patrick Man­ning's vi­o­la­tion of ra­dio rights at a time of nor­mal non-emer­gency state was wicked and it is now shame­less that his par­ty would sup­port open law­less­ness for po­lit­i­cal mileage in cri­sis. The Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil must not flinch in its re­solve and re­main fear­less in its dri­ve to erad­i­cate crime step by step. The whis­pered threat of crim­i­nal al­liance against the Gov­ern­ment is rea­son enough to main­tain the war on crime. Such an al­liance is an ac­knowl­edge­ment of the con­fi­dence of the crim­i­nal el­e­ments which the op­po­si­tion sec­tors are pre­pared to sup­port. All law-abid­ing cit­i­zens must stand firm in sup­port of Brig Sandy and his forces.

MF Rah­man

Via e-mail