The worst thing one can do is to misdiagnose what has happened to Mr. Colwyn Harding and cast most of the blame on specific individuals and/or institutional relations and so look for solutions in the form of judicial penalties, compensation and specific institutional reforms. All of these are of course necessary, but in my opinion, outside of the proper political context their effect will be minimal if not useless.
This is the way the regime expects us – as normal people who have been brought up to believe that we live in a normal political society – to view matters and behave, and it can agree to some institutional reforms (which it may or may not implement) and compensation (which is usually minimal) until the next time. In this context, the only thing that may be difficult for the regime to contemplate is giving up the actual wrong-doers, as to do so would put the entire trajectory of its design in jeopardy.
Make no mistake: neither the PPP/C nor the police hierarchy directly encouraged the police to brutalise Mr. Harding by beating him in the manner they did or by allegedly raping him with a baton. They have nothing to gain and much to lose from such excesses. These kinds of outcomes are a dysfunction of the politics of domination. Acts similar to what has
