Progress and the Moral Complicity of a People in Crime

It is our reasoned judgment that large segments of Dominica’s population have lost their moral compass. I state this after another theft of a nation election by vote rigging, bribery and the illegal purchase of voters by airlift and marine transport of voters win an election. I also include in that moral blindness the unwillingness of large segments of our population to accept the criminal conduct of the regime in selling diplomatic passports. That practice exposed to the world on Al Jazeera Television has not been credibly rebutted by the Prime Minister or any of his ministers or legal counsel. As a result, it is now time to assess the complicity of our people in the ruin of the nation. It has happened before in nation’s like Haiti and Zimbabwe that morally repugnant elites who benefited from a regime condoned its wrongdoing. In that practice the regime became emboldened and continued its rampage until those nations became poverty stricken, dictatorship friendly, failed states. That is where Dominica is today. How does such complicity manifest itself?

In his 1968 article on collective responsibility Joel Feinberg presents the Following example:

 Suppose C and D plan a bank robbery, present their plan to a respected friend A, receive his encouragement, borrow weapons from B for their purpose, hire E as a getaway driver, and then execute the Plan. Pursued by the police, they are forced to leave their escape route and take refuge at the farm of E’s kindly uncle F. F congratulates them, entertains them hospitably, and sends them on their way with his blessing. F’s neighbor G learns of all this, disapproves, but does nothing. Another neighbor, H, learns of it but is bribed into silence.  Clearly participants C and D are the perpetrators of the crime, and they can be regarded as the principal actors in this scenario. But six other Individuals are involved as well in a variety of ways.

 What can be said About their status as participants in crime?

Those who are involved as contributors in a sequence of events like the one described but not as principal actors are commonly referred to as accomplices. As such, they can be said to be complicit in the events or complicit in the outcome to which these events lead.

 One of the central themes of this article is that complicity carries with its ethical consequences. A person who is complicit in what another does is morally accountable.

When a well-educated Dominican economist can get lost in the weeds by arguing the UWP lost votes since the 2014 election, but make no condemnation on how the regime rigged the poll, then that economist is morally accountable for the lack of progress on Dominica. That economist did not aid persons in scheme to transport voters, nor did she offer a bribe. However, by not making one condemnation against bribery and treating she is complicit in the ruin of Dominica. Such is the morally complicity of all civil servants and police officers who witness treating or bribery and utter not one word of condemnation or act to arrest that criminal conduct.

We all have an ethical responsibility to make sure right is done in the governance of our country. That is the ethical duty of citizenship. That economist whose name will remain unmentioned lives in the United Kingdom. She teaches at a university and I am sure is a learned person in the basic tenets of good governance. She well knows that Roosevelt Skerrit, with his record of fraud in the bin bobol and selling diplomatic passports could not stand for election where she lives. She knows he would have been prosecuted and jailed for his many actions which evinced lack of probity in office. Yet she has never once asked him to resign. That economist may have made valid criticism of the Parliamentary Opposition on Dominica as to their lack of leadership or other flaws. However, the Parliamentary Opposition is not in government. The failure of that economist to call out wrong is evidence of the moral bankruptcy that sealed the fate of many nations, dooming the people to poverty and oppression. It is high time that Dominicans who reside in democratic countries where rule of law prevail stop their complicity in supporting the regime on island when they well know its practices would have led to its removal. Such would have been the case in any country with an independent judiciary and professional police service untainted by bias or political control by the ruling party.

The point is one does not have to be actual driver of the getaway car in the scenario outlined above or the actual bank robber, to be an accessory to the crime. Witnessing the crime and not speaking out against it is complicity enough.

Where Dominicans cannot engage the relevant moral introspection and civic duty to arrest the dictatorship that has arisen in our land, then progress towards democracy will remain uncertain. Progress in any nation is not certain. Progress only takes place where there exists a solid moral compass among any people, coupled a commitment to industry and wise leadership. No one does serious business in a country where dishonesty and morally bankruptcy rules the roost.  That is why countries where rule of law is absent remain poor and/or oppressed. All Dominicans, and those who profess to love Dominica and democracy at this time, must act now to condemn the stolen elections of December 6, 2019 before dictatorship becomes entrenched in our once fair land.