Dear Editor,
The debate swirls about whether to get vaccinated or not, with both sides hardening. I think that this could have been avoided, if leaders in the PPP Government had acted courageously and left no room for all this misunderstanding and back and forth.
The courageous thing for government leaders to have done was to say in clear, firm, unflinching language that vaccination is mandatory, that it was going to engage in the broadest national push to facilitate this, and that those who still refuse to be vaccinated will be locked out of all public places (including houses of worship), and that this would be vigorously enforced. Government leaders did not do so authoritatively and unambiguously. Instead, leaders played these games, which left room for all kinds of way-out interpretations, and merely added to the prevailing uncertainty and anxieties surrounding vaccinations. I discern the government playing it cute. The objective had to be get citizens vaccinated, or get locked out. But, instead of coming straight-out and make this operative, there was what is pointed to in sections 13 and 17 of the ‘Order’ in the Official Gazette of September 4th. One position is that the government has not mandated closing of places of worship. A clip circulating is that Minister Juan Edghill visited some houses of worship over the last weekend, and made it clear that his government seeks to have places of worship open. It goes without saying that the underlying conditions (come vaccinated and armed with card) operate.
I think it would have been more constructive and helpful, in general, if the government made its mandate absolutely clear: come out with vaccination card, or don’t come out at all. Indeed, it is heavy-handed and reeks of the unilateral, but so are most things coming from government in this society in the last year. This cleverness of halfway measures, and seemingly contradictory ones, give the resistant room to roam, and fosters anger among the vaccinated. In the Roman Catholic Church, with its decision to close, there is the sharp sense that Peter (vaccinated) is being made to pay for Paul (unvaccinated). The word from other churches is that the sanctuary has been shut. Not so long ago, it was safe haven for accused criminals, beyond which thresholds, pursuing authorities of the State (king) could not venture.
And, when I think of the Gospels’ renditions of lepers in Jesus’s day, I labour over the rightness of any decision to close. I would make the case that the unvaccinated are today’s outcasts. Aside from that, I think the government has a right and duty to be unequivocal in rolling out what should have been its position: this is the way it is. Now do it. Instead, it is trying to get four sweetness(es) from one bone: please private sector, appear to be doing something, provide exit strategies, give deniability. Regarding constitutional protections, public safety and greater good, let it settle there. Or in the courts.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
