Live Wire: Opposition adopts swinging position on hanging

Scene: Office of the Opposition Leader

PNM Senators Faris Al-Rawi and Fitzgerald Hinds walk in and stiffly shake hands with Opposition Leader Keith Rowley. Al-Rawi sits closest to the door, which is slightly ajar.

Rowley walks behind the two seated Senators and slams the door shut.

Keith Rowley: You two think you’re in a savannah?! You don’t respect this office?!

Faris Al-Rawi: My good sir, it was only my intention to permit the free exchange of oxygen through your esteemed bureau, so as to deliver a metaphor as we provide life to a position of the highest prominence.

Fitzgerald Hinds: He still feels a little nervous about being in an enclosed setting with you, boss. I told him that he shouldn’t worry and you’re a great guy, once he gets to know you better.

Rowley glares at both men.

Rowley: Well, what is it? I still don’t understand why it is taking two grown men to deliver one point. You think this is a URP job or what?

Hinds laughs loudly and slaps his knee.

Hinds: Good one, boss.

Rowley: I wasn’t joking.

Photo: Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley (Courtesy Jyoti Communication)
Photo: Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley
(Courtesy Jyoti Communication)

Al-Rawi: Sir, we are here to appeal for some clarification regarding our official location on capital punishment in our wonderful republic.

Hinds: Do we support hanging?

Rowley: Listen, we all have our jobs to do. What are you here to ask me that for? So you didn’t run for PRO, Faris? Just do your job, man. Do what you think is right. And so help me God, you’d better get it right.

Al-Rawi looks confused and nervous.

Al-Rawi: I cannot say that it is within my jurisdiction to do so and I am not minded to step outside my boundaries insomuch as my position within the party allows. While, from a professional capacity, I feel it prudent to take notice of the precedent set with the lovely Miss McIntosh in a previous caucus.

My job, if I may be so bold, is to convey precisely the stance of the party and not my own. And I think it injudicious to speculate on morality from a professional standpoint.

Hinds: Boss, we are lawyers; he means that our client tells us what is right.

Rowley: I can tell that I will have real trouble filling my Cabinet, oui.

Al-Rawi: The matter of the hanging bill is now before us and it is within the realm of possibility that a scribe might put before us a query regarding our own outlook on capital punishment. How are we to retort?

Hinds: Suppose the media asks our position, boss?

Rowley: Tell them we support the law.

Al-Rawi: If I might be so bold as to proffer this juxtaposition, sir: The section 34 was in fact law at a certain juncture. Would this in fact make our position regarding observance of the law to be one of elasticity?

Hinds: Ahmm… He thinks you have a great tie, boss.

Rowley: Listen, my wife is a lawyer, eh. It’s a 20 minute debate just to change the channel in my house. Sometimes I take her side against myself, just so I can win every now and again. You trying to take away the sanctity of my work space, Faris?!

Al-Rawi: No, sir. I only meant that…

Rowley: Free advice from me, Faris. And I know that is not something you say too often. Being a successful politician is about bonding with the people, not making them feel silly with a bunch of flowery nonsense. And we are with the people in supporting the law on this matter.

Al-Rawi: Insomuch as we supported the people then in their opposition to Section 34?

Rowley: Exactly.

Al-Rawi: Even though that was contrary to the law.

Rowley: It was not a popular law. That is the key thing.

Al-Rawi: So, we support the hanging bill because it is the decree of the people?

Photo: Is no noose good noose?
Photo: Is no noose good noose?

Rowley: Of course not. Don’t be silly.

Al-Rawi: So why do we support the hanging bill?

Rowley: We are not supporting any hanging bill. The law works just fine as it is. Ramesh was hanging people like he was in an all fours tournament.

Al-Rawi: So, our desire is to see the government recommence capital punishment based on existing legislation?

Rowley: Who said that? How hanging people going to improve anybody else’s life? The people want hanging. They also want an extra week for Carnival and half day every Friday if you give them the chance.

Al-Rawi: So then we support legislation that is in step with the immediate needs of the people?

Rowley: Jezu Webb! Boy, we not giving the people anything. We just don’t want to be seen to be not giving them something.

There is a minute of awkward silence.

Hinds: Boss, I think your stewardship is going wonderfully well and I get excited thinking about how well we will do as Cabinet colleagues.

Rowley: Faris, you’d better not mess this up, eh!

Al-Rawi: I beg your pardon.

Rowley: Steups. Crack the door next time.

Al-Rawi: I don’t think I follow…

Rowley: Listen, the country’s in the worst state that I can ever remember seeing it. You think anyone could survive another five years with those pirates? We just have to keep quiet and let them continue burying themselves.

Al-Rawi: Is the hanging bill an attempt on their part then to reconvene a covenant with the electorate?

Rowley: Who tell you that they want to hang anybody? Kamla can’t even hang Jack. Who she going to hang? What that going to solve when they know fully well who the criminals are and they not charging them in the first place?

We’re just not getting caught up in any poorly drafted legislation again. No more damn slip-ups!

Al-Rawi: So this bill is a ruse?

Rowley: They’re just trying to get us to hit our own wicket and get the man on the street talking about something other than the FBI. They’re hoping we get a case of the Gumbs too. You can say what the hell you like, Faris, but just make sure that you don’t say anything that would fit in a headline. Why you think we made you our public relations man?

Al-Rawi: Sir, it is against my better nature to expatiate on my own precious value as an orator but it behoves me to say…

Rowley: Yes, yes. Not on me, Faris. Keep it for the reporters. Okay fellahs, have a good day.

Hinds: Let me say sir, on behalf of us both, it was a great pleasure to have this time to get further acquainted with your goodly self and to be further appraised of the future of the PNM, which, I am sure, we all will play a great part in; and as we, the party, seek…

Rowley: Get out.

Hinds and Al-Rawi: Yes, Opposition Leader.

Editor’s Note: This column is pure satire and all conversations are faked. No offence is meant at parties named; although they probably deserve it.

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33 comments

  1. Boy I feel is serious talk them talk oui

  2. Earl Lovelace; Errol John; Live Wire.

  3. People will be licking their own spit..

  4. Put the noose around the necks of all those who kill the spirit of citizens who are denied a food card even though they are most in need.

  5. With the existing detection rate that (hanging) will be just ink on paper.

  6. more material for my queen Karene Asche

  7. Though this another satirical piece, it has a strong Explicit fact in it: [Aunty] Kamla can’t hang [UNCle] Jack…. Lasana, u real good yes (y)

  8. I remember the last time they make hanging a big issue was for Chadee and his gang, i remember it was not a year yet after their conviction and they was so adamant to hang them quickly, when i have a family on death row for the past 30 years around that time, but at one point Ramesh used to be Chadee’s defense lawyer, then talk nah say that when Ramesh saw they would lose a case he advised his client ‘well, no witness no case’, so it was the beginning of witness killing in Trindad. But anyways, after they hang Chadee, they didn’t pursue it further, never hung another convicted killer, like it was only necessary at that time because it was beneficial for ‘someone’ for Chadee to be dead.

  9. John Wayne like you have court clothes.

  10. as soon as they bring back hanging the first 2 to go is anil roberts and anand ramlogan and the doctor from siparia for all them children he kill

  11. Lasana Liburd, thanks for serving well and selflessly in Journalism. Now arise and receive the Trinity Cross.

  12. I could think of a few people i’d like to hang. Lol! Great satire as usual Lasana.

  13. With our broken and corrupt police force and judicial system, can we even be reasonably sure that we will be sending the correct, i.e. guilty party to their death?? There’ll be no chance for “oops” once they swing…. Or will it be a case of, “oh well, he was a pest anyway, even if is not he who do it, he snatch 2 gold chain last week”?? And when we going and hang some financiers???

  14. Clever esp the responses of Faris….

  15. I do not support hanging …. kill the bastards the same way they kill their victims …. eye for an eye ….. and yeah … let the whole world go blind if we cannot see a way to get along.

  16. Hahahah! Yeah, complete sense.

  17. Like Courtney Walsh with a bat… If that makes sense :-/ Lol

  18. you can’t hang ppl who aren’t convicted, the system needs to cleaned up from top to bottom…

  19. Need to catch them first….we need to work on that.

  20. Will it help though? Especially with the low detection rate…

  21. My issue with hanging is simple, like Lasana pointed out, the detection rate of murders in this country is very low, we also should draft some legislation or someone speak to the judiciary about imposing the death penalty on people who rape minors. With regard to hanging, you can’t hang 2 persons every 3 years and expect it to deter crime. i’d say and this will sound very harsh, but in order to truly deter people from a life of crime, no less than 50 hangings a year.

    But that is one side of the coin, I honestly believe there is a story behind every murder (not always a good story as in the case of Dana Seetahal where I honestly think there is a very sinister plot) but I don’t think every murder and murderer should be hanged and I always believe in the capacity of people to change even if they are the most vile of people. When we think about God’s love for us and how he forgives and even blesses us despite what we do to let him down, we should try to implore some of his virtues so to speak. But my stance is still this if you’re going to hang, don’t hang to please the public, hang to send a message to those in the criminal underworld because with Dana Seetahal’s murder you can bet your bottom dollar that was a message and then some that was sent to the citizens of this republic.

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