Rape: Enough Talk Already!

I recently listened to the rape debate on RCI’s Newsspin and, I must say, it has left me to wonder whether there is any ounce of hope for progress in this nation of ours. While I understand the argument of host Timothy Poleon to call on “the powers that be” to issue statements or to condemn the heinous act of the recent rapes, I cannot help but ask, why? Now, don’t get me wrong – in no way am I in agreement with a callers who defended the Minister of Health and the Prime Minister. I am not saying that you should not call upon “the powers that be”. What I am asking is: Why?

You see, we have always been calling upon them to speak out or do something about our crime situation. The Opposition party or parties do it. NGOs do it. Citizens do it. Talk show hosts do it. Most of us do it. After all, we did elect them into office to do something about it, no? But, you see, I am beyond that argument, and I think I speak not only for myself but for many of the young, critical, thinking Saint Lucians. I have gotten to a point when I don’t even want to call on the powers that be to issue statements or to condemn an act. What can that do for me?

When a statement is issued or a minister condemns an act of crime, how has that solved the problem? How will a statement prevent someone from repeat offending? If you have committed a crime and no one has been able to catch you – the police are still operating with constraints and limited resources: CCTVs are still down, no finger print database exists, the crime lab is still closed – and all you hear is a statement to condemn your crime, wouldn’t that make you more confident to commit yet another crime knowing the chances are still high for you to get away with it?

What I want to see is action. I warn you: if all that keeps happening is talk and no action, crime will continue because criminals know that nothing will come out of the talk. why? Because we have some people in authority who, for whatever reason, cannot do their jobs. They are not action type of people. They are lackadaisical and a waste of the state’s money. Saint Lucians need to fire these people.

Enough talk! We need action! Action! Action!. So I don’t want to hear people say call on the powers that be to speak out. We are tired of hearing talk with no action. We just need to see things are done. We expect that they will speak less and do more. If they don’t then we need to fire them and hire people that are more capable.

This is why I think a prime minister should not appoint Parliamentarians as ministers. Parliamentarians should be given a salary to manage their constituency. A PM should appoint qualified people to lead the various ministries and if after a year or two they cannot get the job done, they should be fired and replaced. But that topic is for another show.