The prime minister’s let’s-fight-crime-together proposition to the opposition St Lucia Labour Party this week might usefully have been earlier extended. Alas, some now deceased might well be alive today had both sides of the House recognized, say, even two years ago, that when it comes to fighting crime there can be no room for division and political bickering, that the eradication of a common deadly enemy demands the combined awesome force of an army unbreakably united for good.
It was no surprise that Kenny Anthony was uncharacteristically silent following the prime minister’s address and that not once during Tuesday’s parliamentary session did the opposition leader comment on the invitation, not even when the prime minister revealed he had responded positively to the Labour Party’s demand last October that the government set up a
special bi-partisan committee to consider action in the face of
alleged threats against former SLP vice chairman and Straight Up host Claudius Francis.
Might the opposition leader’s silence on Monday be related to the fact that the cited October letter to the prime minister was signed by the SLP’s
deputy leader Philip
J Pierre and delivered when Kenny Anthony was off island?
Hopefully the leaders of our two political parties, leading members of the police force and concerned regular citizens will nevertheless recognize the urgent need to come together, perchance to determine the way forward on crime. As I say, while single-minded politicians pontificate and point accusatory fingers at their shared failure to arrest crime in our time, the worst among our murderous criminals remain free to continue their deadly activities, undeterred and undetected. Meanwhile the rest of us are left to mourn our dead—as ever divided by suicidal politics. It is high time we united for the common good—and despite our self-seeking politicians!
Which reminds me: On Monday the Chinese mainland’s Taiwan affairs chief Wang Yi extended Lunar New Year greetings to Taiwan compatriots around the world. To his “brothers and sisters of the same blood,” Wang Yi expressed gratitude to Taiwan business people living and working on the mainland for their contribution to its economy. He encouraged them to seize “the opportunities presented by the peaceful development of cross-Strait ties and the acceleration of the transformation of the mainland’s economic development.”
Wang Yi, director of the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, extended New Year greetings to Taiwanese living “both on the island and overseas,” urging them to continue their contributions to the peaceful development of cross-Strait ties and “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”
Meanwhile, in Saint Lucia some of us still insist on fighting each other over a one-China policy that clearly does not in any way prevent Taiwan compatriots and mainlanders from respectfully treating each other as “brothers and sisters of the same blood!”
When will we ever learn?
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