http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20050529/focus/focus3.html
Published: Sunday | May 29, 2005

"JAMAICA IS a failed state". I used to suck my teeth when I heard anyone say that and dismiss the speaker as an ignorant fool. Only a dunce could talk like that about a country with one of the planet's most stable democracies, a combatively free press, and the world's 63rd highest healthy life expectancy.

If Jamaica is a failed state, what is warlord-ruled Somalia which has been without a central Government since 1991 and has no justice system, electricity, running water, health services, education system or road network? (Though amazingly it has cellular telephone service).

Lately, I find myself changing my tune. As our murder count has climbed from 429 to 690 to 848 to 1,467 I've begun wondering if such pessimists are not on to something. Whatever Jamaica's other attributes, a country with the highest murder rate on earth is doing something drastically wrong.

Which is why I supported Wednesday's Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica's (PSOJ) crime initiative. I didn't like the idea at first. It seemed to suggest that the business class had only been galvanised into action because one of their own had been killed.

Why hadn't they got upset at any of the other 600-plus murders to have taken place this year? Yet the ad reading "If not now, when? If not us, who?" convinced me to come on board. Yes, I would have liked to have seen a more broadly based initiative with the schools participating. After all, no recent incident has been as frightening as the school bus shooting up.

Last year I read about a student crime march around the Savannah in Trinidad led by Brian Lara. I would have loved to see a similar Courtney Walsh-led mass march held in conjunction with Wednesday's peace activities. Perhaps it can still be done at a later date.

Still nothing is ever perfect and you have to start somewhere. So I applaud PSOJ President Beverley Lopez for bravely championing this initiative. And hopefully the 2005 Declaration of Emancipation Park will be the start of a larger national outcry against the crime monster that's increasingly making our beloved country a prison for law-abiding citizens.

NO COHESION

Sadly, however, the effect of the lockdown was watered down by a lack of unanimity. Those businesses which remained open and those which closed only for a few hours no doubt had their reasons. But many people I talked to were disappointed. As one security guard commented to me "Them man too greedy! Imagine them can't even make a little sacrifice to send a message. If it not costing you anything then what kind of statement you making?"

One academic friend was even more scathing. "See what I mean? These guys have no social conscience. Even when one of their own gets gunned down they put money before everything. Just like Lenin said, the capitalist will sell you the very rope you intend to hang him with."

Frankly, the business community missed its chance to give Jamaica a taste of what a true failed state is like. Had every bank and retail store and restaurant chain been closed for an entire day and people been unable to withdraw cash or buy groceries or order meals perhaps this society would have briefly realised how much we take normalcy for granted. A normalcy that will surely disappear soon if our murder rate keeps rising inexorably.

Since I returned to Jamaica in 1989 our murder count has increased almost 400 per cent. Yet this country's lifestyle seems to have changed little ­ indeed Kingston has never had so many night clubs. Sure, everyone gets excited whenever some uptown prominent person is gunned down or there is a massacre downtown. But after the nine-day wonder breast beating, it's as if nothing ever happened. Who remembers the Tuvalu 27 gunned down in three days a few years back?

The crime situation here reminds me of the frog in hot water story. Put a frog in warm water and he keeps happily swimming away even as the temperature is slowly raised, until, of course, he is boiled to death. If Jamaica doesn't wake up soon, we might one day open our eyes and find ourselves in a mini Somali run by don warlords. Yes it's a far-fetched notion. But who in 1962 could have imagined that we would one day have the highest murder rate on earth?

NO TIME TO GIVE UP

Still it would be irresponsible to say that the future looks completely bleak. The other day, for instance, I was invited to speak at a National Youth Service graduation at Cobbla which left me quite optimistic. Though I supported the National Youth Service idea of taking youths from all over Jamaica and introducing them to a pleasant and structured environment, I had no idea what to expect. So when I drove in and saw a disciplined line of uniformed youngsters in berets slowly marching in line I was most impressed.

I was even more so when I entered the hall and felt the sense of order among the 350 graduates. They were all immaculately attired, sat ramrod straight, and clapped in unison when appropriate. A number of them gave impressive speeches testifying to how much they had gained from the camp and expressing their appreciation of what they had been taught and a regret that they could not stay longer. Their Jamaica Defence Force instructors had certainly done their jobs well.

MANDATORY PROGRAMME

NYS Executive Director Rev. Adinhair Jones says that while they will graduate 3,100 youths in 2005, they need to graduate 10,000 per year to make a full impact. There are also plans to implement a mandatory programme for grades 10 and 11 using NYS trademark soft skills training in re-socialisation through the utilisation of HEART Trust/NTA funding. The plan is to engage approximately 110,000 students islandwide via school clubs and societies and enable them to become more efficient and more prepared for the demands of the current labour market.

Before witnessing this graduation I might have pooh-poohed all this as wishful thinking. But what I saw in that hall was exactly what is missing in so many of our youngsters. It was very impressive that in only a month such a sense of order and discipline could be instilled even in so-called 'inner-city irredeemables'.

If some of this can be instilled directly at the school level, then perhaps all is not lost for this country. It might not be a magic bullet cure-all, but surely it's a heartening step in the right direction. And I hope the private sector steps in to assist in any way it can. It's a simple equation really ­ every inner city NYS graduate is one less potential gunman.

THE MEDIA

Rev. Jones also mentioned that he has a very difficult time getting the press interested in the NYS programme. There certainly were no media houses present at the graduation I attended. And this jibed with a conversation I had recently with Barbara Gloudon about a function she recently attended highlighting the New Horizons for Primary Schools Programme.

This involves a partnership between the Jamaican government and USAID to transform 72 low performing primary schools using a multiple pronged approach involving teacher professional development, nutrition, teaching methods, school governance, parenting skills and educational technology.

Miss G told me that she had been amazed to watch students from the supposed 'back a bush' happily engrossed on computers and sending and receiving e-mails to and from colleagues on the other side of the island. She was stunned by the excellence of some of the student projects. The parents she talked to were all effusive in their praise of the programme and vowed to make it self-funding even if aid grants were scaled down. But again not a single media house was present to report on what apparently is considered 'soft' news. I'm a big fan of the Jamaican press who I think pound for pound are as good as any in the world. Yet surely it's not only gunshots and murder and road blocks which are newsworthy.

The sometimes seemingly endless parade of bad news we see in the headlines and on our TV screens at night can get depressing. But all is not lost in this country. There are still bright rays of hope. And despite my moments of gloom I can never agree with the 'Woe all is lost!' doom and gloomers. A people who could endure all that the Jamaicans have, and yet come out with spirits and ancestral memories unbroken, will surely not be defeated by temporary transitional difficulties. A country with Jamaica's abundant human capital, strong democratic traditions, and astonishing creativity will surely in the end prevail.

Reggae is the heart beat of this country, and no song sums up Jamaica's experience more vividly than Toots Hibbert's 'Never Get Weary'

'I was walking on shore

And they took me in the ship

And they throw me overboard

And I swam right out of the belly of a whale

And I never get weary yet

They put me in jail and I didn't do no wrong

And I never get weary yet

Say they put me in jail and I didn't get no bail

And I never get weary yet

Yes I was from before Christopher Columbus

And I was from before the Arawak Indians

Trod in creation before this nation

I'll always remember, I can't forget

Never get weary yet'

If we never get weary yet, why should we get weary now?