Congratulations Chairman Glen Hodge, to you and your team at the Immanuel Methodist Church for creating an opportunity, last week, for much needed dialogue in Anguilla. It should be continuous. The topic could have been posed differently but, generally speaking, Anguilla needs much public discussion and “give and take” on a lot of issues. However, was the question properly put – and could all the presenters make the case within the allotted time? In other words, could they do justice to the substantive subject matter under the existing circumstances? You see, to answer that question based on a sixty-year span is hazardous because what did not happen in a million years could happen in a day. And only time can be blamed for that. Anguilla has changed, the whole world has changed, and culture is ever so subtly dynamic that oftentimes things creep up on us. Communications have created a global village and we all are part of it. Economic betterment has created, as Karl Marx said in the nineteen century, the typical behavior of the “nouveau riche” and of such attitudes that are concomitant with increases in wealth. Anguilla is not unique to this phenomenon. For sure, one thing we can be certain of is that change will come.
For us, here, a simple case in point is our advancement in cricket. We must remember that very recently ANTIGUA celebrated one hundred years of Leeward Islands cricket. Anguilla was then nowhere to be found. Now, who would have thought, comparatively speaking, that Anguilla coming in “the last shower of rain” would produce a man like Cardigan Connor of West End who would develop such cricketing skills that he could come back here and use them to put on Anguilla on the cricketing map by moulding such international stalwarts like Omari Banks. And, more recently, he has contributed to another Anguillian carrying his bat for over a double century for DERBYSHIRE in ENGLISH county cricket. Well times have changed and the empirical evidence reveals, particularly in our small corner of the world, that crime is concurrent with progress – happens simultaneously; and is a rushing tide with tremendous difficulty to build a seawall against.
But here we are looking at crime over a sixty-year period. Therefore, we have to define the nature of crimes, then and now, and look at the incidence of crime before we can begin to address them. It is not easy because of some political reasons like the structure of our communities; the function of government in a democracy; the high cost of meeting our needs; and the importance of self-help and patriotism towards Anguilla. All of these feature in the equation. Then along comes the topic of the separation of the role government and the clergy.
All together, then, the topic was asking for the assessment of the crime situation; the increase and the attention it received over the last sixty years by the three estates: the clergy, government and, most importantly, the people. In fact, it was not a debate but an exposition of opinions. It was not set up for cut and thrust or give and take. The most telling part was how the presenters approached the question. Before you attack crime you got to define it. Take the village of Long Bay where everybody is a relative, or go back sixty years when people were even closer relatives and where everybody went fishing and planted peas and potatoes. Think about what criminal offences may be committed or likely to occur and at what frequency in such an environment? What are you going to do? Thief some peas and potatoes from your uncle and let your cousins tell you off, or beat you up? Or are you going to stick around and wait until she “done cook” and steal some food? Under conditions like those, the possibility of committing a crime of theft is nonexistent and there is nothing to report to the police twelve miles away. All you could do is to tell the neighbours is, what a “worthless” boy he is. But then who are the neighbours? Effectively, no crime has happened here. It’s your worthless cousin taking up your potatoes, and that’s the end of the story. But that was then, and time has changed. We move on to the worthless cousin today because there are more things that are yours around that entice us, and more strange people to take them up. So now when anyone takes up your blackberry or tries to fiddle with your bankcard, you call the police and in one fell swoop the crime rate for theft has jumped one hundred percent. Obviously, it is the system that is breeding the “bugs” and this is where the importance of the three estates comes into play. But how can they?
First of all, in most cases nations only worry about the quality of life when they have money and have become sophisticated, otherwise “who cares or who’s watching?” But this leads us into thinking about social issues and structures, such as how much deviation a community will take before it cries out and demands action from the powers that be according to the system they are under. The panelists, based on what they said, seem to recognise two types of regimes: theocratic and democratic. One based largely on religious principles – the other on humanism and, more recently, the highlighting of human rights. Between the two systems there is vast difference on how we treat crime and punishment. Do we seek rehabilitation at all times, or do we prefer the deterrent approach most of the time? Undeniably, these are tough questions that are not easily answered.
We have some empirical evidence flowing from the many instances in States like Iran and Singapore. Iran is a theocratic state that still sanctions the idea that if you steal something that is not yours, it is ok to chop your hand off. Though it is a most draconian approach to punishment it seems to work. You better keep your hands in your pocket. In Singapore you could go to jail for a very long time if you are found with a joint of marijuana or even for spitting in the street. These are laws designed to stop the spread of crime. But the question posed at West End is about increased crime in Anguilla. Anguilla is a budding liberal democracy under the wings of Britain so what do we do? Should we follow the actions of the Ayatollah Khomeni, and Lee Kwan Yee, or do we do our own thing? You see crime is an international phenomenon and people all over the world commit it. Different counties handle it differently. The church and state could say all kinds of things. They could say everybody must learn the ten commandments, have Junior Guild all-day on Saturday, and let the Government bring back the “cat- o-nine tail’. Make all the dunces in schools stand on the bench on the back row – with a dunce cap on their heads – or even legislate that all women “stay home and mind baby”, and see how much rehabilitation will happen and see who “gon feed the chirun”?
