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How do we curb crime when we keep honouring/glamorizing criminals/terrorists?
DEAR EDITOR,
In the words of philosopher George Santayana, ‘those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’. These words were frequently cited by the late Forbes Burnham and the late Jim Jones whose acts during their reign over their respective subjects haunt us to this day.
Honouring criminals and terrorists is not a new phenomenon. We are re-living some elements of Guyana’s past by paying tribute to criminal elements. The current APNU + AFC administration’s honouring act/paying tribute to criminals in the National Assembly is just re-living some elements of Guyana’s past. While this latest act may come as a surprise to the young Guyanese, such behaviour has been on the PNC’s (the forerunner to and integral part of APNU) agenda for a long time.
Looking back at the string of similar acts by the leaders of this political party over the last few decades would likely reveal a trend. Those who are old enough would remember the acts of former President, Hugh Desmond Hoyte, who later as Opposition Leader, draped the coffin of a rogue member of the Guyana Defence Force who had been plundering, terrorizing and murdering Guyanese.
Perhaps, some are too young to remember this notorious Linden ‘Blackie’ London who was hunted by the police for several months, and who was later gunned down in a hail of bullets after an 11-hour siege at his hideout at Toucan Suites in 2000.
Yes, Hoyte, the PNC leader who called for ‘slow fire, mo fire’ after he lost the 1992 General Elections, draped London’s coffin with the Guyana flag as the procession paraded our streets. He honoured this bandit with our Golden Arrowhead, the symbol of our nationhood.
It can be argued that the current government seems bent on continuing the trend of promoting criminals in our society. This latest criminal/terrorist honouring is a testimony. One can understand the difficulty facing this nation and our police in curbing crimes when our leaders at the highest echelon continue to honour criminals. Further, how should the young react/view these political acts which run counter to our values and what we preach/teach?
In a nutshell, the latest criminal/terrorist honouring act in our National Assembly is becoming a hallmark of APNU, and appears to be the common thread linking it to the former PNC.
At the same time, it poses major problems for our police in curbing/reducing crimes in our society. It also poses other serious threats to our value system and the kind of society we seek to advance.
In essence, this honouring act questions not only the sanity of our leaders but the very concept and their sense of justice. Which sane person(s) would honour a convicted terrorist? Finally, how do we deter our young minds from glamorizing crime/terrorism and related acts when we keep honouring heinous criminals?
Yours sincerely,
Ronald Singh
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