http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20050605/focus/focus4.html
Published: Sunday | June 5, 2005

MAYBE IT'S wishful thinking. But I get the increasing feeling that Jamaica is undergoing a mental revolution. The Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) lockdown and Emancipation Park Declaration seem to have struck a chord, at least with the chattering classes. A friend asserts that Monday's Jamaica House discussions among the People's National Party (PNP), the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), the PSOJ, and civil society leaders are the first such multi-partisan meeting to put political garrisons squarely on the agenda. It seems the powers that be have finally woken up to the reality that crime threatens to destroy the very fabric of the nation.

SCEPTICISM

I certainly hope so. Two weeks ago a school bus was shot up. Last weekend it was any public bus moving on Mountain View Avenue. If we don't do something - and images of Tuesday's angry mob in Mobay are flashing before me - soon it will be tourist buses being machine gunned. And where will our supposedly booming economy be then?

But based on what I hear, john public is dismissing these pronouncements and meetings with hand waving scepticism. We've heard and seen similar things so many times before that it's difficult not to take the headlines about 'A new era in politics' and 'Dismantling the garrisons' with a grain of salt. Because our top politicians are always talking the talk, but they never walk the walk. They boast about their integrity, but then embrace known gunmen at political rallies. They rail against garrison politicians protecting criminals, but then criticise senior police for singling out suspects from their constituency. I hope they're wrong, but who can blame cynics for dismissing the latest pronouncements as just more eyewash?

Yet our murder rate has gone up 400 per cent in 15 years and is now the highest in the world. We may have fooled ourselves in the past, but it must be obvious now to everyone that fundamental changes are needed in every aspect of our society. Just as there's no single cause for the frightening rise in our homicide count, there's no single magic bullet that will instantly solve the problem. It will take a concerted effort by all of us, big and small, to kill this hydra headed monster. We are all in this thing together.

Self-righteous finger-pointing never solves anything. Politicians, businessmen, journalists, civil society, car driver, walk foot ­ we are all at fault in some way, so let's stop the ridiculous blame game.

Bullets don't care if you are rich or poor, black or white, uptown or downtown. So we will all have to make sacrifices. When laws are passed - as they should have been long ago - to ban all tinting of cars so criminals can't operate completely incognito, all car owners will just have to suck it up and accept the inconvenience as part of the price we have to pay to get crime under control. An accumulation of small measure like this is just as necessary to fight crime as big sweeping changes like building more prisons.

Even our entertainment industry will have to adjust. It's high time for 'disturbing the peace' charges to be levelled at deejays and artistes who, either live or on record, advocate things like killing police and informers. Guys who talk about 'Only three police dead? You no see nuttin yet!' should be hauled before the judge to at least explain in court what they meant. Examples must be set. We can't afford to accept the 'is part of we culture' excuse anymore, unless we want Jamaica to become permanently branded not only as 'the land of reggae', but 'the country with the world's highest murder rate'.

LEADERS SHOW THE WAY

Yet our elected leaders must show the way. For it will take decisive stewardship to make 'the new dispensation' which the media keeps talking about a truly broad based national reality. The time for politicians who declare that garrisons are a natural outcome of a culture, or that they don't represent a garrison, so it is not their problem has passed. With Mr. Seaga in retirement and Mr. Patterson's pending, the next generation of leaders must show us that they realise a sea of change is necessary.

Now I've learnt never to condemn a man till you walk in his shoes. And I don't buy the argument that all our politicians are greedy power hungry villains without any scruples who will do anything to get to the top. People like Bruce Golding and Omar Davis and Peter Phillips and Portia Simpson are not evil beings. They may possess that innate urge for limelight and power shared by all politicians, but they have sacrificed a great deal of time and effort to serve their country. No doubt all consider themselves patriots who want Jamaica to be a place where people can walk free and not have to cower behind burglar bars.

So how is it that the four people from whom our next prime minister will almost surely come also preside over four of the most notorious garrison constituencies in the land? None of them have created the political conditions in which they now find themselves. But why haven't they done more in their seats to end the rule of the gun and enforce the written law of the land? Because to me a garrison is not a place where people overwhelmingly vote for one party, but one where it is not Jamaican's constitution, which is the ultimate source of power, but an unelected don. I don't understand how persons of integrity can preside over such a situation and do nothing to try and change it.

ACTION IS IMPORTANT

Leaders lead and actions speak louder than words. So I would dearly love to see Bruce Golding, Omar Davis, Peter Phillips and Portia Simpson Miller make common public cause and together declare their intention to do everything possible to see that the rule of law is re-established throughout the boundaries of their constituencies. We're not only talking about the freedom of every citizen to vote for whoever he/she chooses. Even more critical is the right to be able to bring charges in the court of law against persons doing harm to you or your loved ones, to see them properly tried before a jury of their peers, and to have the court render a judgement which all must abide by.

We all know that in many communities in Kingston West, St. Andrew South, St. Andrew East Central and St. Andrew South West none of this exists. Too often a person's fate is decided by brutal thugs carrying out the orders of an unelected don against whom there is no recourse. If our four potential prime ministers in waiting haven't realised that the time for self-righteous, passing the buck excuse is gone, well as they say, 'Dog nywam Jamaica supper'.

So Bruce, Omar, Peter and Portia, show yourselves to be true statesmen and patriots by not just signing the PSOJ code of conduct, but by calling a joint press conference and publicly affirming your intention to no longer attend the funerals of or associate with known or even suspected criminals. Declare that you will inform the police of any criminal activity you have knowledge of no matter which party the perpetrators belong to. Stop playing petty politics and pointing fingers at each other, and collectively admit your guilt in the past and your commitment to a future garrison free Jamaica.

DREAMING

Maybe I'm a dreamer. But our murder problem cannot be solved unless every Jamaican does everything within his or her power to tackle it. To be sure the Pollyannas who believe our crime is all politically related and our politicians can put and end to it with a snap of their fingers are living in dreamland. Our troubles are far more deeply rooted than that.

Yes, we need to alleviate poverty in the inner city and improve our education system and reform our courts, and pass three strikes you are out legislation and build more prisons. But multi-dimensional problems require multi-pronged solutions. Dismantling the garrisons is surely one necessary step in the long hard battle that lies before the country. And who better to spearhead the fight than our most prominent 'garrison' MPs in a united band?

So to Bruce Golding, Omar Davis, Peter Phillips and Portia Simpson Miller, I say - if not now, when? If not you, who?