One clear call to ever end this “culture of impunity”
View(s):I’m in two minds. Or, if you prefer it, at my wit’s end. On the one hand: when I hear about how holy, happy, and humble our cricketers are, I think the lark’s on the wing, the snail on the thorn, God in His heaven, all’s right with the world. On the other: when I read that a conscientious traffic policeman was brutally beaten by a gang of heavies a few days after he dared to stop and fine a speeding politico on the southern expressway doing circa 150km/h, I begin to suspect that a glory has passed from the earth. Ichabod! And that’s just the tip of the trash can as concerns violence against – and by – the law in this land.
So, what is a would-be neo-republican idealist to do but rant and rave… as your favourite columnist usually does on a Sunday? Well, this week, let me suggest another fantastic (as in, “the stuff of fiction”) or fabulous (like, “in your dreams”) remedy. It doesn’t hurt to dream, dears, if only as an escape from – and not an embrace of – reality. Today, yours truly moots the formation of an all-new civic mindset or country psyche. To arrest (no pun intended) and charge-sheet the juvenile, puerile, dangerous, and downright ungodly if not diabolical trend of attacking our legally mandated (but often illicit themselves) guardians. For some of whom, btw, I’m starting to garner a sense of sympathy, and even sneaking respect – especially who say: “Stop. You shall not pass. You will surrender your 
documents. It doesn’t matter who you are. The law is the law.” It is to safeguard their ilk that we need this sea-change into something rich and strange.
Why do we need a new national mindset?
Simple. The one we have at present is below par (as the actress said to the bishop) – or sucks, if you will pardon the street jargon or gutter argot. Sometimes, to think on it too long is to begin to subscribe to our old or existing country psyche – for it certainly appeals to the baser side of all our human natures, created a little lower than that of the angels. Though it defies definition, this flawed ethos (all pathos, very little logos) betrays itself by its attributes. Here are some of its more unsavoury aspects, which will no doubt be immediately recognizable to the more contrite, confessional, and honest among us.
A country can be run well and a nation governed wisely only by the maximum good of the maximum number in mind (ergo, favoured demographics and protected philosophies and their patrons and patron saints)
An increasing number of citizens is required to be converted to the thinking that might is right, that power is proper; and since it is the majority that counts anyway, this is more than right, even if it is not all proper
The best thing to do is agree with the powers that be on all points; and the worst is to disagree, differ, dissent
That this is the common good, the commonwealth, and the common- or garden- rule by which everyone is expected to live, let live, and live and let die
There are exceptions to the rule, but there are no rules (except the rule by law, and not the rule of law) as to who is exempt – or how and why they are exempt
Those who are different and dissident may be done in or done away with in any number of ways, with impunity, and that is all right by the majority and the silent minority, since the done-away-with were disagreeable to begin with
These are the rules, until further notice – or not; but you’ll find out soon enough, anyway
What nature will the counter-psyche take?
Slightly more complex an issue, this. Thankfully we can take the default worldview above and try to remodel it by design along constitutional, commonsensical, and countercultural lines:
A country (as long as it is not a empire on the make or an imperial enterprise on the take, a banana republic, or a failed or failing state) can be run well and a nation governed wisely by affirming and attempting the safeguarding of the interests of all its citizens
It does not matter who thinks might is right and that the majority rules; but magisterial, parliamentary, and civil-society checks and balances must come back into play
The nobler aspects of a real democracy are cordial debate or dialogue based on mutually conceded disagreement; the right to and concomitant joy in being different; the celebration and not suppression of dissent and law-abiding opposition
The common good and the commonwealth are negotiated by minorities of all types in tandem with countervailing majorities, thereby actualizing the best that is inherent in a representative, republican form of government in a pluralistic secular state
There are absolutely no exceptions to the rule of law – not for dear old family, dubious but should-be indulged friends, friendly neighbourhood mafia bosses, lucrative drug lords, two-bit thugs, useful but louche politicos, or hoodlums masquerading in ministerial attire
Those who don’t shape up to any or all of this must ship out or be shipped out under the full extent and ambit of the law with the extensive participation or cooperation of a functioning democracy, not a kleptocracy in which everything is ‘relative’ (if you’re related, you’re in for life)
As the Bard would have had it, it’s a consummation devoutly to be wished. Isn’t it, dears? In Cloud Cuckoo Land today, you’d be forgiven for thinking that pigs might fly.
Who can make this thing happen?
The toughest question yet in our triad for reflection today. Even though the prospects seem bleak, there is hope. Happy is the brave cop who did his duty and damned the cost. He could not claim to be ignorant of the possible fallout from his boldness and its awful personal consequences. There are no doubt others of his stripe and calibre. These need to step up, speak out, sit down in protest, until the deed is done and the tide begins to turn. We need a cynical philosopher to shine a light in broad day and seek these kindred spirits. I and thou are enough. There may be a cracked head or half a dozen; but under the bludgeonings of cruelty and caprice, if we remain bloody but unbowed, the burden of our proof and passion can bring about the change we so desire – but fear to take up cudgels on behalf of for want of solidarity, significance, and surety of success.
Oh, I almost forgot. While we’re waiting, why not garland that sterling duty-doer there with a medal for valour in the face of a whole culture of impunity?