There are peoples who like keep their own counsel and are reluctant to express their thoughts to others. Jamaicans are not among these. Any opinion we have is worth sharing, and at the top of our voices. Of course verbal remarks that prove wrongheaded are easily denied or forgotten. Printed mistakes are permanent black and white embarrassments.

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’.

In my May 22 2000 column I wrote about my phone conversation with Romeo Effs about his work with Food For The Poor. Romeo spoke passionately about the personal satisfaction he got from helping the less fortunate and the inspiration FTTP founder Ferdinand Mahfood had been to him.

It did it again. Every time I decide to give up completely on West Indies cricket another thrilling drama drags me back into the camp. In 1999 it was the magnificence of Brian Lara at Sabina Park and Kensington Oval. Last year it was the thrilling one wicket win over Pakistan (though the umpires really gave that match to the Windies). And Saturday it was Ridley Jacob’s last ball heroics at Sabina Park.

Anyone grateful for the benefits liberal democracy has conferred on this country – due process, a free press, and the opportunity to choose our leaders – has a moral responsibility to vote. Those who don’t vote obviously don’t care who governs them and have no right to complain about anything the government does.

Jamaica is not a country of comfortable certainties. Take the recent Braeton shootings where police killed seven youths. Like most people my first reaction was “Yes, seven gunmen less on the streets!” But when some reports cast doubts on the police version of events I began to wonder if it had indeed been a case of extra judicial murder.

The North East St. Ann by election was a minor triumph for Jamaican democracy. For once there were no cries of bogus voting. And from all reports violence was almost non-existent, continuing the trend towards peaceful campaigns that has became quite noticeable over the past few elections. We’ve come a long way baby since the near civil war of 1980.

“Big a yard and small abroad” goes an old saying. And since I was in Canada on March 8^th it certainly rang true for me about the North East St. Ann by election. The Jamaican newspapers that week talked of little else, but in the Canadian media it warranted no mention at all. Which is hardly surprising. After all Jamaicans don’t pay attention to Canadian by elections either.