Jamaicans love to revel in bad news, and there’s been a lot of it lately as the dollar falls, the national debt rises, and Gulf War II decimates tourism. Then of course there’s the continuing cynicism and hypocrisy of our politicians. It’s disheartening to see Omar Davis – who whatever his faults has been widely considered a man of integrity – disingenuously try to blame our budget deficit and resultant weak currency on the war in Iraq when he knows very well they are a direct result of last year’s re-election spending spree. And I don’t know which is more sickening – P.J. ‘Man of My Word’ Patterson shamelessly breaking his sworn vow to hold local elections by the end of March, or Edward ‘Balaguer’ Seaga indefinitely depriving the country of a credible opposition by selfishly refusing to settle the JLP leadership succession issue.

Yet surely the most significant local story of the year so far is one to which our media has paid almost no attention – the sharp decline in murders. For during the past four months homicides have fallen by 14% over the previous comparative period. (And while they rose in March, this was the month with the fewest murders in 2002.)

This is a significant decline by any standards. Whether this healthy trend will continue remains to be seen, but it’s an encouraging sign. For our appallingly high murder rate is indisputably the most serious problem facing the country, and lowering it significantly would not only greatly increase Jamaica’s quality of life but have a tremendous knock on effect in every area of the economy.

Naturally the nabobs of negativism – and this island is filled with them - will wave away such statistics. “It’s only a temporary drop” they’ll proclaim dismissively. “The murders will soon start climbing again, and anyway even with this fall Jamaica still has one of the world’s highest homicide rates”.

Now even one murder is too much. And it’s quite possible that this drop in violent deaths is only a fleeting lull to be soon followed by a sudden upsurge. But every journey begins with a single step and Rome was not built in a day. So you would think that out of sheer national self-interest – and not to mention professional accuracy - the media would be giving major prominence to perhaps the sharpest decline in homicides Jamaica has witnessed over a significant period since 1981.

When crime is going up it grabs all the headlines and the bad news is broadcast all over the world. So why do we not give the welcome event of murder declining at least the same publicity? The only article I’ve seen on the fall in homicides was the March 28 Gleaner page three article entitled “Murders down since January”. Yet the front page headline on that day ran “Youth crimes on the rise in St Ann”, even though this same story related that overall crimes were actually on the decrease in the parish. Talk about looking for a cloud in every silver lining!

It’s very surprising that our tourism powers that be are not talking about this very encouraging development. For with war in the Middle East and the SARS virus in Asia Jamaica is a natural destination for anyone in the US or Europe looking to get away from it all. But telling the world that crime is rising even when it’s falling is certainly not the way to encourage visitors.

And our news bodies should also be presenting detailed analyses of the areas in which the sharpest declines have taken place, ‘bigging up’ the police in these communities and giving them recognition for a job well done. After all increasing a man’s pride in his work can only make him better at what he does.

I personally am sick and tired of seeing the brave men who try to maintain order in some of the most violent areas on earth continually castigated for mistakes but never given any credit when they do things right. The media’s job is to report both the good and the bad, and it has an especially sacred duty to call attention to and condemn any abuses by those exercising power on behalf of the state. But there is a great difference between attacking wrongdoing and blanket condemnation, and the attitude of many sections of our society towards our security forces too often smacks of the latter.

Yet the media’s inexplicable silence on the drop in our murder rate goes beyond a question of policing, it speaks to the issue of national self-belief. Indeed the inability to recognize any kind of positive event is a sign of clinical depression in individuals, and Jamaica’s complete indifference to what any other country would consider a very welcome occurrence makes you wonder about this island’s collective mental health. Are we are a nation of masochists who only want to think the worst of ourselves?

Yet nothing succeeds like success. And if the Jamaican nation really became convinced that the monster of crime can be tamed, is it not conceivable that a situation like what happened in New York City in the 1990s could develop? There the fall in murder turned into a snowball as both the public and law officials became confident they were winning the war on crime. And in a very short time the public perception of New York changed from one of a permanently crime ridden city to one of the safest metropolitan areas in North America.

“Belief kill and belief cure” old time people say. And Jamaicans need to develop a stronger belief in our capacity to change things for the better. But our national self-confidence will never increase if those whose job it is to inform the country keep fixating on the negative and ignoring the positive. changkob@hotmail.com