JUSTICE WRITES

The grasshoppers versus the giants

"...At the end of 40 days they returned from scouting the land. ...'We came to the land you sent us to; it does indeed flow with milk and honey.

However, the people who inhabit the country are powerful, and the cities are fortified.'

Caleb hushed the people before Moses and said, 'Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it.' ...But the men said, 'We cannot attack that people, for it is stronger than we... The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are men of great size... we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.' The whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night." ­ (Numbers 13.1 - 15.41)

IN THIS passage the Israelites looked out through eyes of fear, seeing everything out of proportion. Instead of looking at the real fruits of peace, the scouts are frightened, and they frighten everyone else, dwarfing them with the outsized monsters of their despair and fear.

People are living in very potent fear for their lives in downtown Kingston where they are pawns in the violent game of guns, fire and persecution. Even if we do not live there, their fear is ours too, because we are living in a state of inner violence. We all suffer for our judgments, criticism, divisiveness, silent collaboration, and even our natural instinct for self-preservation. And our fear magnifies the very real problems. Somewhere deep inside, however, we know that we are all victims and perpetrators of this violence.

I fear the violence downtown because I am afraid of living through the violence of the 1980 election campaign again, the campaign that turned my childhood into a valley of doubt and fear. I am afraid because no one takes responsibility. I do not mean responsible for the shooting, but for speaking the truth of this game of power, corruption and deception.

During the 1970s, I did not sleep at night unless my mother stayed with me. I remember the blackouts and the sounds of gunshots. I think most people were afraid to speak up for peace because we felt that the separate politics could either condemn or save us. We threw our lot in with whoever could be our Saviour. But for every saviour we supported, there is a demon created too, and the cycle of separatism continues.

I still have the feelings of fear 20 years later, expressed in the same images. So little has changed. I feel powerless, like those fearful scouts, no bigger than grasshoppers. I think many of us feel no bigger than a grasshopper in the face of the immense violence, corruption, and power brokering that is happening in our inner cities, rumoured to be upheld and supported by politicians of every stripe.

Like those scouts, we, the silent majority, are looking through eyes distorted by fear. Ninety-nine per cent of people in Jamaica want peace and are tired of being coerced, killed and held ransom by fear, drug dons and their hired guns, and by the politics of separation. But though the threats are indeed great, the power of the silent majority is greater still. No scary giants can withstand the united power of this silent majority. But if we keep silent and watch from afar, we will be like those people in Europe who mutely watched the trains trundle by full of dead people on their way to the furnaces of the Nazi camps. It is time to break old habits of divisiveness, of acquiescence, of silence, of avoidance. By opening our minds and our mouths, and by being fearless in our actions we could make peace a reality.

Everyone needs to act based on his or her clarity of vision and purpose and on a deep truth. Not a sectarian truth, but a truth that furthers all people. Peace is one such truth. Joining together, as Caleb urges, 'we shall surely overcome...' because peace is the will of the silent majority.

You may contact Jamaicans For Justice at ja.for.justice@cwjamaica.com or visit their web site at http://www.jamaicansforjustice.org

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