“All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.” Samuel Johnson

A few days as a tourist doesn’t make anyone a foreign expert. As the old proverb says “Come see me and come live with me are two different things”. But even hurried sight seeing abroad can leave strong impressions. And while glad to be home after a month in China, Singapore and Thailand with a group of fellow Jamaicans, I can’t help feeling a little sad and angry. Because we Jamdowners abroad all agreed that the biggest difference between these distant lands and our native isle was the sense of safety we felt there and lack here. Why, we kept asking ourselves, were we able to roam these foreign streets freely even at night while back a yard we are literally afraid to walk to our gates after sunset?

It’s certainly not a matter of poverty. True Singapore is in the global average income top ten. But the World Bank ranks Jamaica 95^th out of 208 countries on per capita GDP, while Thailand and China rank 103^rd and 142^nd. Yet they have far lower crime and murder rates than us.

Of course Jamaica is far more democratic than any of these. For all its economic liberalization China remains a dictatorship - the Communist Party derives its power not from the will of the people but from machine guns, as it proved in Tienamen Square. Singapore may be an economic ‘miracle’, but it is still a one party state whose government regularly sues and bankrupts opposition members who dare to challenge it directly. And Thailand has had 17 often bloody military coups since 1932.

None of these places have a free and independent press. Nor can their citizens challenge the government in the courts and have any expectation of winning. And all three publicly execute criminals for murder and drug smuggling. Singapore has the highest per capita rate of executions in the world, with China ranking third.

By western liberal standards then, Jamaica is in theory a freer nation than any of these. And yet their citizens can walk around in safety while we often seem to be living behind bars at night. So who is really free?

We Jamaicans on tour had many discussions about this. One vocal man had no doubts as to the source of our violent woes. “We have too much damn democracy and spend too much time worrying about these blasted human rights people! How can you call a country free if its people are afraid to walk where they would like? What about the human right to feel safe?”

So what if China was a dictatorship? Look at its fantastic economic progress. (This is undeniable. The city of Shanghai alone has more cranes operating than the rest of the world put together.) All the talk about human rights abuses hadn’t stopped foreign investment from pouring in. And the people we saw talking and laughing with each other certainly didn’t seem oppressed. No, the Chinese government was doing something right.

As a matter of fact, he joked, when he went back to Jamaica he was going to launch a new political party modeled on it - the People’s Revolutionary Party of Jamaica, or PRPJ for short.

Its mottos, he said, would be “Clean up the streets, cut crime, and grow the country” and “Get rid of the criminals and get rid of the crime” His platform was simple. 1) All homeless people and street boys would put in detention centers where they would be kept for a year. Repeat offenders would be kept for 5 years and third offenders kept for life. 2) Anyone convicted three times for any violent crime or armed robbery would be jailed for life. 3) All murderers and anyone found with an illegal gun would be publicly executed.

“I guarantee you” he continued “that these measures would cut crime by a half in two years. And once crime fell investment would pour in, educated Jamaicans would come back home, and the country would boom and start growing at 8% a year. Forget that rubbish about the cure being worse than the crime. Singapore executes 20 people a year and probably doesn’t even have 20 murders. We execute none and have a thousand. Now tell me who is better off.”

The liberals among us laughed disconcertedly. But having seen first hand what a firm hand could accomplish and enjoyed the sense of freedom which a lack of fear brings, a surprising number of the group agreed with him.

To be sure even the harshest punishments never completely eliminate crime. For all China’s draconian crime control measures, it was quite noticeable that in many cities even 10 story apartments buildings were burglar barred from top to bottom. Clearly there were a lot of very determined thieves around.

The point was though that even if one’s property might not be totally safe, there seemed to be little physical threat. The tour guides warned us about pick pockets when we walked around at night, but the hordes of people on the streets clearly felt in no personal danger.

And frankly it is not the danger of being robbed that makes Jamaica and especially Kingston such a foreboding place after dark, but the fear of being shot. And it is ridiculous to pretend, as some do, that this fear is irrational. Last year Jamaica had the fifth highest murder rate in the world. And if we keep doing what we are doing – and murder is up over 10% this year and on pace for a grisly new record - it can only a matter of time before we are number one. Indeed Kingston may already have surpassed Bogota and Johannesburg as the murder capital of the world.

I love my country. It is the most beautiful island God ever made and at their best Jamaicans are the warmest, most laughter loving, and most entertaining people on earth. (My month in China with 23 fellow members of the Chinese Jamaican Friendship Association was a case in point. With black, white, Chinese, Indian and even Arab members we truly were out of many one people, and I have never spent a more enjoyable 30 days.)

But even the charms of the most beautiful woman pale if she grows unfaithful. And Jamaica increasingly evokes not beauty and warmth but violence and fear. We are doing something dreadfully wrong.

I have always considered myself the most liberal of democrats. But after enjoying the safety of the Far East I must confess that my absolute faith in the untrammeled free will of the people has been shaken.

More to the point the hardcore “damn the human rights, eradicate the gunmen” argument seems increasingly popular with the Jamaican man in the street these days. And I wonder. If there really was a PRPJ, how many votes would it get? changkob@hotmail.com