Mick­ela Pan­day

At the time of writ­ing this op-ed, the Gov­ern­ment is on its way to Par­lia­ment, hop­ing to ex­tend the State of Emer­gency. When a gov­ern­ment asks Par­lia­ment to ex­tend a State of Emer­gency, it is ask­ing the peo­ple for more than time; it is ask­ing for trust. Trust that ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers will not be­come or­di­nary. Trust that the sus­pen­sion of free­doms will bring se­cu­ri­ty, not si­lence.

That is why the move by the Gov­ern­ment to seek a fur­ther three-month ex­ten­sion of the SoE re­quires a clear-eyed, hon­est na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion about whether this mea­sure is work­ing, what it has achieved, and most im­por­tant­ly, what comes next.

If the last few months have shown us any­thing, it is that the SoE has not stopped the blood­shed, and the vi­o­lence con­tin­ues. Fam­i­lies are still mourn­ing, com­mu­ni­ties and vil­lages re­main fear­ful, and cit­i­zens are left won­der­ing what dif­fer­ence all this has tru­ly made.

The coun­try was told that the SoE would help the se­cu­ri­ty forces “sta­bilise the sit­u­a­tion”. But an SoE is not a crime plan; it is a tem­po­rary pause, a tool of last re­sort. The ques­tion now is, pause for what? What re­forms, what strat­e­gy, and what plan are be­ing im­ple­ment­ed in this ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od of re­strict­ed lib­er­ty?

The truth is, af­ter al­most 10 years in Op­po­si­tion, this Gov­ern­ment cam­paigned heav­i­ly on the is­sue of crime and on the fail­ures of its pre­de­ces­sor to deal with it. That mes­sage helped bring them in­to of­fice. Yet, months lat­er, we have yet to see or hear a com­pre­hen­sive crime plan, nei­ther short-term nor long-term.

The re­cent na­tion­al bud­get, pre­sent­ed in Par­lia­ment, of­fered the per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty for the Gov­ern­ment to out­line its ap­proach to tack­ling vi­o­lent crime, youth delin­quen­cy, gang re­cruit­ment, and the break­down of com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing. In­stead, the is­sue was bare­ly men­tioned. Even more con­cern­ing, nei­ther of the two min­is­ters now charged with se­cu­ri­ty port­fo­lios, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and De­fence, con­tributed to the bud­get de­bate at all.

That si­lence speaks vol­umes. Cit­i­zens de­serve more; they de­serve com­pe­tent, strate­gic lead­er­ship. Af­ter a decade prepar­ing for gov­ern­ment, one would ex­pect that the day they took of­fice, a crime plan would be ready to ex­e­cute, as the UNC did in 1995 when they hit the ground run­ning with tan­gi­ble an­ti-crime ini­tia­tives. Peo­ple be­gan to feel safer with mur­ders at a record low.

In­stead, to­day we have con­fu­sion, over­lap­ping re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, and a pub­lic re­la­tions ap­proach that re­lies on press re­leas­es rather than re­sults. No amount of press state­ments can give cit­i­zens the com­fort that the Gov­ern­ment knows what it is do­ing. Right now, the ap­proach feels scat­tered, and the ship feels rud­der­less.

We can­not ex­pect a State of Emer­gency, or an­oth­er na­tion’s in­ter­ven­tion, to solve our prob­lems here at home. Se­cu­ri­ty be­gins with strat­e­gy, not de­c­la­ra­tions. Every cit­i­zen un­der­stands the fear that has gripped this na­tion. We have all felt that qui­et dread of hear­ing an­oth­er gun­shot, see­ing an­oth­er head­line, los­ing an­oth­er young life.

No one de­nies that crime must be con­front­ed ur­gent­ly and de­ci­sive­ly. But in do­ing so, we must nev­er for­get that our democ­ra­cy is mea­sured by how we re­spond when fear tempts us to aban­don it.

Emer­gency pow­ers may be nec­es­sary in ex­cep­tion­al mo­ments, but they must nev­er re­place sound gov­er­nance. Every time we turn to an SoE as a short­cut, we nor­malise a dan­ger­ous habit, us­ing emer­gency law to pa­per over the cracks of pol­i­cy fail­ure.

If the Gov­ern­ment is ask­ing cit­i­zens to sac­ri­fice lib­er­ty for safe­ty, then it must show clear­ly how that sac­ri­fice will lead to re­sults. What are the mea­sur­able tar­gets? How many il­le­gal firearms have been re­moved? What com­mu­ni­ty pro­grammes have been ini­ti­at­ed to pre­vent young men from en­ter­ing gangs? What re­forms have been made to im­prove de­tec­tion rates, court back­logs, or wit­ness pro­tec­tion? A gov­ern­ment that asks for ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers must be pre­pared to of­fer ex­tra­or­di­nary trans­paren­cy.

When Par­lia­ment de­bates this ex­ten­sion, the is­sue is not about sup­port­ing or op­pos­ing se­cu­ri­ty forces; all right-think­ing cit­i­zens sup­port them. The is­sue is whether the ex­ec­u­tive branch can jus­ti­fy con­tin­u­ing to op­er­ate un­der emer­gency law with­out a clear ex­it plan.

Par­lia­ment’s role is not to rub­ber-stamp; it is to scru­ti­nise. It is to en­sure that, even in cri­sis, the rule of law re­mains our com­pass. Sup­port­ing the SoE blind­ly is not pa­tri­o­tism; de­mand­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty is.

The pub­lic mood to­day is not one of de­fi­ance but of dis­ap­point­ment. Peo­ple want to be­lieve that their lead­ers have a plan. They want to feel that some­one is in charge, not just re­act­ing to each new head­line. When a na­tion be­gins to feel rud­der­less, that is when cyn­i­cism sets in. That is when hope­less­ness takes root. And that is when crime, cor­rup­tion, and de­spair feed off each oth­er like a slow poi­son.

If this Gov­ern­ment tru­ly wants to re­store pub­lic con­fi­dence, it must be­gin by do­ing three sim­ple things: ta­ble a clear na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty plan with short-, medi­um- and long-term goals, time­lines and mea­sur­able out­comes; in­vest in pre­ven­tion, not just pun­ish­ment, by strength­en­ing com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing, youth en­gage­ment, re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and job cre­ation; and com­mit to trans­paren­cy through reg­u­lar pub­lic re­port­ing on what progress has been made un­der emer­gency pow­ers.

A coun­try does not fail when there is crime; it fails when peo­ple no longer be­lieve their lead­ers can solve it. The State of Emer­gency may ex­tend for three months, but fear can­not be our per­ma­nent state. True se­cu­ri­ty will not come from sol­diers on cor­ners or head­lines about ar­rests. It will come when peo­ple once again feel that their gov­ern­ment is guid­ing the ship, not drift­ing with the tide.

Mick­ela Pan­day is po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front and an at­tor­ney.

Email: pa­tri­ot­ic.front.tt@gmail.com