Barbarians at the gate
By KEVIN BALDEOSINGH
THE reaction from the general public after last Friday's hangings was, to put it mildly, instructive. The comments reflected satisfied triumph, sadistic pleasure, or a ghoulish glee. Some people wanted to see the bodies. Others said Chadee should have been hanged in public. Several wanted to do away with appeals, so hangings could happen faster. One man wanted beheadings, another wanted hands chopped off. It seems, then, that those abolitionists who thought that these multiple hangings might backfire, causing the citizenry to engage in sober reflection, were dead wrong. (Pardon the pun.) But those who felt that the resumption of hanging would coarsen our sensibilities were right on the money. And, watching and hearing all these average citizens baying for more blood, I wondered: If this is the reaction of "decent people", what then will be the reaction of the criminals? But the unleashed savagery of ordinary Trinidadians is not really surprising. Generally, people are sheep. They lack the time, and the inclination, to think deeply about the issues that affect their lives. They therefore take their ideas from their leaders, whether in politics, religion, entertainment, business, media or academia. As a result, we find that no progressive society makes the will of the people paramount; but we also find that no society progresses unless its elites have a moral commitment to the will of the people. The paradox here is only apparent. You see, the "will of the people", meaning the desires of the people, are always fairly basic: food, shelter, security and pleasure. Everything else flows from that. But these needs are not necessarily fulfilled in ways the average citizen believes they can be fulfilled. For example, you do not build economic prosperity by paying everyone huge salaries. You do not attain social harmony by catering to everyone's racial insecurities. And you cannot create a crime-free society by hanging criminals. So the average citizen, being constitutionally incapable of seeing beyond his nose, needs to have certain decisions made for him. When a society has a sufficient core of morally committed leaders, those decisions benefit the entire society. When that core is too small or absent, the decisions only benefit people like Ish Galbaransingh. Our society has never lacked for intelligent and talented leaders. But we have always lacked persons ethically committed to improving the lot of the ordinary citizen. Dr Eric Williams had this commitment, but did not insist on it from the people around him. Basdeo Panday, having attained Prime Ministership, has revealed all his years of grassroots rhetoric to be totally bogus. Our business managers want $15,000 monthly stipends. Our trade union leaders live just like filthy capitalists. Our religious leaders mostly quote those scriptures which bolster ignorance. These are not the attributes of a progressive society. And, since a society's nature is defined either by its masses or its elites, the resumption of hanging has now placed all civilised Trinidadians on the society's fringes. No rational and humane person can support capital punishment. Therefore, all rational, humane Trinidadians now make up the smallest minority of our many minorities. Last week's Issues Live panel on TTT provided a perfect microcosm of what we have become. On the abolitionist side, there was the fiercely rational Denis Solomon and the pleasant-spoken Sister Regan. On the pro-hanging side, we had the boorish Israel Khan and the arrogant Pundit Rambachan of the Maha Sabha. Solomon and Regan argued from evidence and reason. Khan and Rambachan argued from venom and ignorance. And it was to their side that the callers rallied. Thus, we cannot look to the people and we cannot look to our political leaders to restore whatever civilised attitudes we had been inculcating. The 1990 coup attempt has already stripped away our illusions of political maturity. Last week's hangings removed any notion that we are an essentially civilised people. All we have to wait for now is racial or religious violence. The question is, can we reverse these trends? Well, fortunately, politics is not the sole purview of politicians. If we are not to return to the bush-for, make no mistake, that is exactly where the Panday regime is carrying us-influential organisations must begin to flex their muscle. Capital punishment is the thin end of the wedge, and the gates have been cracked open. But a society is something like an alcoholic: it cannot be helped unless it wants to be helped. The Catholic Church has already begun exerting pressure to stop the hangings (though I find it quite ironic that the Church has attained its enlightened position largely through the efforts of Freethinkers). Other religious bodies, NGOs, university groups, media houses, Rotary Clubs, and so on must now take a decision. As the old saying goes, evil flourishes when good people do nothing. But, quite frankly, that may only mean that this is the most pointless column I have ever written. 
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