Fake outrage is all the rage these days. It fuels cancel culture, which broadly refers to the practice of ostracism, or withdrawing support for public figures, and/or companies after they have done and/or said something considered objectionable.

Cancel culture seeks to minimise, by taking away any public platform by reducing, disparaging, denigrating, and ultimately destroying, perceived and/or real power. We must take great care not to fall prey to cancel culture. How? We must first be able to spot it from a mile away.

While speaking at the ground breaking for a $175-million police station in Frome, Westmoreland, two Fridays ago, Dr Horace Chang, the minister of national security, said, among other things: “In the old days they used to criticise the police for extrajudicial killings, at the same time what some used to praise the police for is when they form some special squad and shoot down a badman, but we equip the police, they operate professionally. They not out there shooting down people like that. There are fatal shootings because man shoot gun after dem. I not telling police not to fire back and a say it right here in Westmoreland, I not sending no ambulance out there either.

“Any time a man take up a gun after police, I expect commissioner to train the police when they fire they must not miss. Don’t want them come give trouble at hospital. When they get hurt, they get hurt. Once you pull a gun on a police officer, you must prepare to deal with the consequences. You know, at the hospital it cost $10 million to save the life of a gunman who shoot people and shoot at police. Not into that.

“When criminal see police come, they must surrender and come in. They are entitled to a fair trial. That’s why I emphasise we are providing the court with what they require to operate. An efficient system.

I can’t tell the judges what to do but I can give them the laws and a good court house and that is what we are doing and we training the police officers to prepare the cases well so that [they] have a good forensic lab and the tools to work. And I want to assure the country that I take that job personally seriously and the Government takes it seriously.”

Their endgame?

With formulaic regularity, human rights groups began torturing Dr Chang’s presentation, doubtless to have it conform to their agenda. Then, like madmen and women, they took off into the highways and byways, bellowing: “Shoot to kill,” Dr Horace Chang says the police must “Shoot to kill.” Dr Chang did not give any such directive.

Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ), hot on the heels of Dr Chang’s presentation, complained in sections of the media that: “Such an order and instruction to the security forces as a means for cracking down on crime is not only irresponsible, but a clear violation of the right to life and security, as it could lead to further killings in the country while still not moving the country closer to addressing the high crime rate.” The excerpts mentioned show that Dr Chang did not give a directive to the police to “Shoot to kill.”

By the way, what does JFJ recommend that our security personnel do when they are fired on by men who have no compunction about committing murder? Should they mollycoddle criminals? It seems to me that JFJ and similar human rights groups are interested only in preserving, by any means necessary, the lives of those who commit murders, mayhem and monstrosities.

Today is just two months shy of two years since 81-year-old Iciline McFarlane and her granddaughters, 10 and six-year-old Christina and Mishane McFarlane, were executed by fiendish predators at their Tryall Heights home in St Catherine. The absence of condemnation from certain sectors of our society, including human rights groups like JFJ, is deafening and frightening.

I could list dozens of other brutal murders that have been committed over the last decade by marauding gunmen and yet not a single, solitary word of condemnation has come from the several performative human rights groups in our midst. At a minimum this is irresponsible and alarming.

Stand Up For Jamaica (SUFJ) says Dr Chang’s comments are “irresponsible and unfortunate as they stand as a clear violation of the right to life”. The executive director of SUFJ, Carla Gullotta, says, “We are in a low place when our leaders express the zeal to take the lives of criminals instead of finding sustainable measures to deal with the issue of crime.”

SUFJ ignores the fact that Dr Chang specifically referenced criminals who pull guns on the security forces while they are carrying out their lawful obligation to protect law-abiding Jamaicans.

These human rights groups are evidently all gung-ho about defending criminals, but seem always sedated about the human rights of the majority of peace-loving Jamaicans, who have no wish to live by the sordid and ill-gotten proceeds from the nozzle of M16s and/or other weapons which are used to kill, main and destroy the lives of well over 1,000 Jamaicans — every year since 2004.

Many of those who have been murdered were the breadwinners for their families. I could make a list here, but I do not have the space.

Thousands of Jamaicans, single mothers especially, are today in excruciating emotional pain because their loved ones were viciously murdered by gunmen. The absence of even a whiff of concern for victims of rape, robbery, and other heinous attacks by criminals is always palpably absent from the statements of groups like SUFJ. Why?

I think I know. Their mandate is massively skewed in the direction of perpetrators. These human rights groups seem obsessed with every pinprick, twitch and pinch meted out to criminals.

Nearly three months have elapsed since the throats of 31-year-old Kemisha Wright and her four children — 15-year-old Kimana Smith, 10-year-old Shemari Smith, five-year-old Kafana Smith, and 23-month-old Kishaun Henry — were slit by a relative at their house in Cocoa Piece, Clarendon.

I do not recollect that SUFJ uttered a single word of condemnation and/or commiseration.

Again, I could list dozens of other barbaric murders that have happened in this country over many years and yet the human rights groups have maintained a stony silence.

The “milk of human kindness” for victims (Macbeth 1:5), to borrow the words of William Shakespeare, has all but completely dried up from their breasts it seems.

Close Allies?

A close ally of the human rights lobbyists is a section of the clergy. Many of these bleeding heart liberals are often locked in a social and economic bubble, which separates them far from the realities of most Jamaicans.

They do not seem to understand that most Jamaicans do not live in gated communities, cannot afford to hire a private security company or have a licensed firearm and/or a pack of pit bulls to help defend person and property. They seem oblivious too of the fact that hundreds of our fellow citizens are literally held hostage by criminals.

I am not surprised that some of the clergy came out swinging against Dr Chang. The renowned philosopher Voltaire said: “There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times?

Presiding bishop of Christian Holiness Church in Jamaica, Dr Alvin Bailey, for example, says the national security minister should resign “over ‘desperate shoot to kill’ comments”. To me, either Dr Bailey did not read Dr Chang’s presentation before he issued his broadside or he did, but did not understand it.

Last Sunday, while some Jamaicans were enjoying a friendly game of football in Spring Village, St Catherine, criminals invaded the space and sprayed some of the spectators with bullets. This newspaper reported, among other things: “Three people were shot dead and at least six others injured after gunmen attacked spectators at a football match in Spring Village in St Catherine on Sunday afternoon.

“Reports reaching Observer Online say those killed are a woman and two men. Their identities have not yet been confirmed. Police said the incident happened shortly after 5:00 pm while a football match was going on at a community field.”

I do not recollect seeing one word of condemnation by Dr Bailey and/or the Jamaica Council of Churches (JCC). The ruthless cowards had no hesitation to kill and maim innocent Jamaicans to settle personal vendettas, according to reports in sections of the media. I do not believe in babysitting the feelings of criminals.

Shub dem out!

“Every single time that the police and gunmen engage, the police must win,” said Police Commissioner Major General Antony Anderson during a visit to Spring Village last Wednesday, where he met with grieving families. I agree 100 per cent.

Those among us who believe they should eat bread from the sweat of other people’s brow are in the minority, yet we have allowed this minority to make us cower in almost permanent fear. I have been saying in the space for a long time that the day a critical mass decides not to be silent about criminals and their activities will be the day we really begin to collar the crime monster.

Those who are committing crimes are known. Contract murderers in Jamaica are not aliens from space. They hide, sometimes, in plain sight. Those who are abducting, kidnapping, and raping do not disappear into a black hole after they commit their heinous acts. They are known; sometimes to whole communities. Some delude themselves that silence will buy safety. They must remember that criminals have no loyalty; they eventually turn on the silent and devour them.

We are being devoured, too, by the devilish deeds of those who consciously invest in the fetishising of gangsterism. This must be dealt a mortal blow, once and for all. Those who have brought and continue to force this plague upon our land must be smoked out of their dark places and exposed.

Notwithstanding the existing trust deficit, I am not one of those who foolishly believes that the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) and Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) are so bad that we are better off taking our chances with the criminals.

The choice is clear. “You can’t ride with the cops, but root for the robbers,” said Antonin Scalia, late Supreme Court justice of the United States of America. Admittedly, the JCF and the JDF are not perfect. I have fiercely criticised several of their actions in previous columns, but I have also poured high commendations on them on many occasions when I felt they earned plaudits. Those who do not recognise that the JCF and JDF are one of the few remaining barriers between us and marauding criminals/merchants of death are living in a massive bubble within a bubble. We must not delude ourselves.

There are some super predators in Jamaica who have decided to live from the proceeds of crime. Those who aid and abet them are just as dastardly. Recently, Dr Chang said that some hardened criminals cannot be rehabilitated. I agree.

It is time to shub dem out (the criminals), as they say in the streets. Dr Chang, Commissioner Anderson and like-minded Jamaicans must not allow the disciples of cancel culture to silence them.

The proponents of fake outrage have a right to speak. However, I do not accept their position that those who do not agree with them must resign, be fired, or be sent to the Island of Elba like Napoleon.

Garfield Higgins is an educator, journalist, and a senior advisor to the minister of education & youth. Send comments to Jamaica Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com.