ONE OF TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO’S best known journalists, Raoul Pantin, who passed away earlier this year, had among his provocative contributions for the Express newspaper a column titled Talk Is Free.
At times it was quite informative and hilarious in the encouragement of diverse opinions. After all, free speech is a most cherished right in any democratic state and the media systems are expected to reflect this reality in the interest of fostering and preserving fundamental human rights and ensuring good governance, based on free and fair elections within a multi-party democracy.
Current reports in the local media, and the Nation newspapers in particular, have served to remind me of the value of free speech and why it should be sustained as a “basic right” for all and sundry – without circumscribing the equal rights of others, in accordance with the law.
The current spate of gun-related killings and various crimes have provoked cries of anguish, across the social and political divide, with politicians not missing an opportunity to score points in support of “their side”.
Smuggling
Take, for instance, a scenario resulting from a surprising observation by Acting Commissioner of Police Tyrone Griffith that “officials” of the country’s Customs Department “might be assisting with smuggling illegal guns” into the island.
It baffles me to comprehend why, in the first place, the commisioner – distressed as he may be in having to contend with spreading criminality and lawlessness involving the use of guns – should have opted to go public with such a claim, without, that is, first sharing confidence with senior top officials of the Customs Department, also a vital arm of regulated good governance.
Not unexpectedly, Customs officers reacted angrily, enhanced by expected support from their respective trade unions. However, at the end of the day, this public “war of words” may well do more harm in finding a practical resolution to the unnerving problem of illegal guns entering Barbados and, inevitably, aggravating the crime scene amid spreading fear and social instability.
Enter now the Attorney General, Adriel Brathwaite, known generally for his careful public statements befitting his office – save for some occasions when so-called Bajan ‘yardfowl’ politics triumphs.
Speaking this time to “knock crime misinformation” (as headlined in last Monday’s Daily Nation), he was dismissive of related comments by the normally loquacious, controversial Anglican priest, Rev. Charles Morris – a known strident critic of the governing Democratic Labour Party.
Crime
But the attorney general also extended his criticisms to comments recently made by University of the West Indies political scientist and Nation columnist Dr Tennyson Joseph for linking the local prevailing crime problem with policies of the ruling Dems. More pointedly, Mr Brathwaite took time also to expediently remind Barbadians that the experienced academic was a citizen of St Lucia where, he claimed, the crime challenges “were more serious than in Barbados”.
Meanwhile, in a prevailing Bajan version of the “talk is free” culture, there were some hilarious “gems” in very recent editions of the Nation. For example, “weed (marijuana) is the solution” to the cause of violence, according to “Roughhouse”, a youth of the “Wrong Turn” block in Silver Hill, Christ Church.
The previous day, the Sunday Sun had presented an article, suitably laid out with photographs, headlined Rum Shop Just As Essential As Church. Well, for an ordinary fellah like me, that’s a stunning equivalent and too much to embrace.
Right now I am reflecting on the “wisdom” generously shared by the inimitable Saturday Sun columnist Mavis Beckles. Loudly warning that there’s “no ease in hard times”, she cheerfully recalled (to her ‘Ann girl): “But you say ya gine fight? Well, fight . . . .”
• Rickey Singh is a noted Caribbean journalist.
