Toxic rhetoric

GIVEN the complexity of crime, it can be hard to say what needs to be done to address the situation.

But what can be said for sure is what we do not need: inflammatory, counterproductive rhetoric.

That’s precisely what we got from two figureheads on Wednesday as a group of religious officials gathered at Aranguez at the site where businessman Cheval Ramjattan was murdered.

On the one hand, a few days ago the country got a regional symposium which was almost too diffuse in its complex exploration of the crime issue, on the other hand Satyacharya Pundit Dr Bramanand Rambachan and Pundit Satyanand Maharaj congressed to give us the opposite: overly simplistic views.

When it comes to crime, emotions can run high. Pundit Maharaj grew up in Aranguez and it is distressing to witness the suffering being experienced there.

Pundit Rambachan also alluded to the state of our politics which has frustrated citizens, even if there are occasional moments when the PNM and UNC do work together, such as the recent approval of a new commissioner of police.

Both individuals are, as citizens, entitled to hold views.

Yet, we believe they failed to live up to standards expected of religious leaders at this moment in our country’s history.

While temples, mosques, churches, and places of worship are not as packed as they once were, there is still a vital role for modern religious bodies to play in the various social interventions needed if communities are to recover from and prevent crime.

We need religious leaders who inspire confidence, who offer the population a safe harbour and who can be antidotes to the animosity evident on political platforms. The polarising conduct evident at Wednesday’s event fell far short.

Pundit Maharaj blamed crime on “urban youth,” specifically the “the miscreants who occupy the East-West Corridor,” while Pundit Rambachan claimed recent crimes have been “directed predominantly at East Indians.”

Neither individual presented statistics shedding light on the demographics relating to the perpetrators of crime. Nor did they present any statistics relating to the demographics of victims. There were no figures relating to geographic variables. And there was no explanation of why any of this is relevant at all.

Criminologists might tell you there is a time and a place for statistical analysis. But in their carte blanche declarations, both individuals have overgeneralised entire segments of the population in offensive ways.

It was just a few years ago, in the Selwyn Ryan Committee Report, that the country was warned, by Dr Indira Rampersad, against focusing only on young black males while ignoring other vulnerable groups.

We feel both individuals should heed such warnings about treating with demographics.

And they should listen to their fellow pundits who, on Wednesday, bravely and openly rejected their toxic rhetoric and instead called for solutions.