Dredging up the fingerlings

Faced with evidence of abuse of the anti-gang legislation, the Government has lobbed the scholarship issue into the crowd mainly to distract. The scholarship issue is about race and misbehaviour which should not go unpunished. But before it ends, the State of Emergency is a more urgent discussion. It has done nothing the law in its usual course could not have done and has failed to treat class, connections and privilege with indifference.

In east Port of Spain the State has freely experimented with the grey tones of anti-gang legislation and emergency powers. It will not do the same in Westmoorings, Valsayn, Gulf View and Lange Park. The State will not shutter Frederick, Queen, Charlotte and Henry streets and search business premises but it will lock down and purge Beetham, Enterprise and Sea Lots. The State will not sweep through the yacht clubs, marinas, down-the-island homes and waterfront homes with boat slips, but will kick down Nelson Street doors. The irresistible conclusion is that the creators of the State of Emergency narrowed its ambit from the outset.

There are more dangerous consequences to the Government's selectivity than the current rancour over the State of Emergency. The diagnostic images show no change in the status quo, we having avoided the more serious treatment. For 18 months the Government has tinkered with legislation aimed at fingerlings but has developed no lure for the big fish. Race and proportionality will provide inflammatory discourse but we cannot go there for answers.

Rather than solve, the emergency has highlighted the class-centred problem.