FUNERALS FOR the dear departed sometimes tell how well the person lived and earned the love and respect of family and community. More often than not the bereavement is tinged with regret at the passing because of a record of good works. But sometimes notoriety takes centre stage.
Such was the case with the reputed gang leader who died by the gun and left fear in his wake in the Old Capital of Spanish Town on Monday. Police say he was killed in St. Andrew in a hail of gangland bullets; but the mourning was centered on Tawes Pen where the sadness was unconfined.
The funeral was staged amid heavy security presence provided by policemen and soldiers. The authorities were taking no chances after the so-called One Order Gang was said to have ordered respectful obeisance by all and sundry in honour of their leader. So business shutters closed earlier than normal, not out of fear, a business leader said, but because the usual slew of shoppers stayed away.
Therein lies the society's dilemma. The old historic town which in recent weeks has been crippled by gang warfare had to make room for grief by those who were moved to mourn one whom they saw as benefactor, regardless of his crimes. And so, despite the presence of the security forces, significant numbers of potential patrons stayed from the area fearing retaliation and possible violence. In a sense the lawless succeeded in gaining their way, even if not totally.
Those who mourn may be vaguely aware of the Robin Hood legend of the medieval forest outlaw who robbed the rich for the benefit of the poor. Or they may be more familiar with modern-day mobsters glamourised by the movies and localised as dons in our own genre of political garrisons. Whatever the source there is something rotten in a community moved to celebrate a life consumed in extortion and other misdeeds. Surely the decay of the civic sense about what is right and lawful is a matter of national shame.
We wonder what effect the criminal warfare in Spanish Town must have had on the children whose schooling would have been disrupted; and then to absorb the trauma of a community made dysfunctional by warped values about right and wrong.
Spanish Town must surely be a primary target for the Government's latest effort to restore public order. Civic society must, at the same time, keep up the pressure on public officials at various levels insisting that they distance themselves from criminality and ensuring that there is no ambivalence in the minds of the public about whether they are on the side of law, order and justice.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
