AS REPUGNANT as aggressive and unwelcomed sexual approaches might be, whether homosexual or heterosexual, the response of the students at the University of the West Indies to an alleged homosexual proposition was barbarous. We are at a loss to understand how university students, the beneficiaries of a tertiary education and the future leaders of the nation, could spontaneously partake in such an unthinking and savage response to the situation without any due process or proof of the allegations.
What happened was not a reasoned protest against what they consider deviant homosexual behaviour, but rather so violent an overreaction that the police in riot gear had difficulty controlling the mob. Shots had to be fired in the air while some students reportedly hurled missiles at the police. It seems clear that if there had not been strong and timely intervention by the police, the alleged homosexual would probably have been beaten to death.
Many in the society will no doubt see this as appropriate righteous indignation, failing to see that this is but another example of barbarous stupidity.
This brings to mind an even more ugly incident at the University of Technology a few years ago, when an alleged car thief was chased by a mob of students and forced to take refuge in a storm drain. The students lit a grass fire in a circle around the drain, and even when the man raised his hands in surrender, they continued to stone him until he drowned in the fetid water. What is common to both outbursts of violence is the total lack of awareness that vigilante killings are morally wrong and no different from the lynching of black persons in the American South during the height of segregation.
Regardless of one's personal judgement about the morality of homosexual behaviour, the principle of human rights remains a paramount consideration in any nation which calls itself civilised. That there should have been such a student outburst of bloodlust is abhorrent. The university authorities need to establish protocols on human rights and take steps to ensure that the student population knows what is and is not acceptable behaviour on campus. The frenzied mob behaviour displayed at the UWI was an appalling descent into anarchy.
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