Editorial
A week ago today the BBC broke the news that British Conservative Member of Parliament Sir David Amess had been physically attacked and brutally stabbed a number of times while holding a meeting with members of his constituency. Not very long after the incident MP Amess was pronounced dead. The whole country experienced a shock that was both emotional and frightening. It was particularly riveting because there had been several physical attacks on parliamentarians in fairly recent times, more often than not resulting in either their deaths or that of persons who tried to protect them. At page 12 of this edition we carry a learned article which seeks to address the causes and effects of these and other acts of violence against politicians. Some of the conclusions indicate that there is a growing distrust of politicians in general, and this has led to a serious loss of trust in our systems of governing.
Such trust, once lost, is never easily recoverable. Beyond any shadow of a doubt, the loss of trust in politicians is directly attributable to practices of deceit, hypocrisy and corruption. The deliberate misleading of people eventually results in public behaviours exemplified by the attack on The US Congress which took place on 6 January of this year. There are many lessons to be learned from all of this, and here in our beloved St. Kitts and Nevis we have experienced some of those horrors as we struggled to lift ourselves out of conditions of deprivation and abject poverty. We call on our people to remain mindful of those very painful experiences, and to continue in their preparations and efforts to take back our country in a peaceful and legitimate way. We also call on those in office to cease and desist from all practices which can push our people into patterns of behaviour as highlighted in the referenced article. People are only human, and when pushed too far, they sometimes resort to measures that are undesirable. Let us all take heed and firmly resolve to govern ourselves accordingly.