I used to read a lot of novels. But Jamaica has caused me to lose my taste for fiction. Who needs made up stories when everyday life here is so full of passion and drama? Yet whenever I try to make sense of this country Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Notes From The Underground” comes to mind.

Witness slain at home - “… before day break yesterday, gunmen kicked down her door and pumped several bullets in the body of 50 year old Icylin Vaughn and her common-law husband, 48 year-old Milton Grey… several weeks ago a group of men destroyed sections of Miss Vaughn’s house with stones… She reported the matter to the police and has subsequently been branded “informer”… Yesterday the matter was supposed to be mentioned in the Half-Way-Tree Court.” The Gleaner, September 1, 2001

Whatever else he may be, Edward Seaga is unique. He must be the only non-native born white man ever elected prime minister of a predominantly black country. And has anyone else in recent times played such prominent roles in both the cultural and political development of a nation? A pioneer in Jamaican anthropology; a driving force behind the popularization of ska; an originator of Festival; arguably our best finance minister; the prime minister with the second longest term in office; the longest serving parliamentarian ever - no one else has influenced modern Jamaica in so many ways.

Last year the human genome “Book of Life” project confirmed what every intelligent person already knew, that there is no scientific basis for the concept of race. Only a fraction of the three billion letters in the human genetic code differ among individuals, so biologically we are all 99.99% the same. Persons from different ethnic groups can be more genetically similar than individuals within the same group, and there is more genetic variability within Africa than outside it. Meaning that from a biological perspective all of us are Africans, either residing in Africa or in recent exile.

It’s amazing how many intelligent Jamaicans go around claiming that our murder rate really isn’t that bad since violence has increased all over the world. Well anyone who pays the slightest attention to world affairs knows this is rubbish. As a brief international comparison of homicide rates shows, the violence we take for granted would be accounted astonishing in all but a few countries.

“The ‘good old times’ - all times when old are good –

 Are gone”. Lord Byron

Whenever there is an upsurge of violence in Jamaica there is always much talk about the “good old days” when people could walk in safety wherever they wished at any hour of the night and everyone slept with doors unlocked. Nor is this all nostalgic fantasy. In 1955 there were less than 25 murders committed in Jamaica and our homicide rate was 1.2 per 100,000. In 2000 we had 887 murders and our homicide rate was 34.4 per 100,000, an almost 30 fold increase. It is doubtful that any country not at war has seen such a comparable explosion of violence.

“All my life I have sacrificed everything – comfort, self-interest, happiness – to my destiny.”

Napoleon wrote this in 1807 at the height of his glory when he dispensed laws to half of Europe. And if the most famous political figure in history at his zenith could speak of his career in such melancholy tones, what must be the thoughts of lesser mortals who devote their entire lives to politics and never achieve any real acclaim?

Whatever else it may be Jamaica is seldom boring. In few places is human nature’s eternal battle between reason and instinct thrown so regularly into stark focus. We may be one of the world’s most stable liberal democracies, but our behaviour regularly echoes the most ancient law of existence – might is right.

Maybe it has something to with the way financial institutions are run in this country, but Jamaican bankers seem rather fond of the ‘benevolent dictatorship’ concept. A few years ago it was then CIBC head Al Webb making the call. Now it is BNS boss William Clarke suggesting it as a possible solution to Jamaica’s problems.

On April 12^th I received via fax a copy of a letter to the Jamaica Observer from Patrick Hylton, the managing director of FINSAC LTD. It stated that I “published certain libelous statements regarding this organization” in my article of April 9, 2001 entitled ‘Jamaica Needs the NDM’.