Editorial: Dual obligation

The members of the government rightly enjoy heightened security.

They have a duty to ensure that same protection for citizens with the taxpayers’ own money, the very money with which they pay for their own security.

It is inconceivable for the government to deny citizens this basic right, which is fundamental in any well-governed state, to allow untrammeled crime, and to leave the citizenry unprotected.

Security is directly linked to liberty in a society, as we have previously underlined. Fear and liberty are incompatible concepts.

A society whose members daily come into contact with Kalashnikovs, wooden clubs, and iron bars is not free.
Whoever goes to bed at night thinking that his or her home may fall victim to a break-in by robbers and burglars is bound by a paralytic sense of fear.

The competent minister has exhibited impertinence towards the victims, by attributing the rise in the crime rate by to the fact that the world is not angelically crafted.

His role, however, is not to offer observations, but rather to do all he can to fend off a crime wave, so that citizens will not feel as if they are being treated like a sack of potatoes, as a deputy mayor who fell victim to a burglary stated.

Being absolutely protected, the competent minister has both a governmental and a moral obligation to marshal all the forces of the police.

There is absolutely no excuse if he does not do so.