THE EDITOR, Sir:
THE LAST two weeks have been rather bleak as I try to come to terms with the horrific murder of my friend, doctor and brother Ken Nanton, a man who owed Jamaica nothing, yet gave it his best, and has been senselessly murdered.
As if that is not bad enough to deal with, two ensuing experiences in the aftermath of his death tell me that as a society we are even deeper in the abyss than the murder statistics suggest.
Firstly, just two days after this horrible incident, one of the country's major newspapers saw it fit to publish a cartoon under its editorial label mocking the grief of the slain man's
colleagues.
I hope this was an aberration and not an indication that those who exercise editorial judgement at that paper have become so callused and insensitive that they cannot understand that even trained medical professionals will be traumatised at the senseless slaying of a treasured colleague.
Secondly, almost every other person who spoke to me about the incident in the same breath went on to enquire what he was doing up at Look Out.
The question angers the hell out of me, because at the most charitable, it betrays the kind of escapist thinking that says that in Jamaica, unless you go to certain places, are engaged in certain activities or run with certain company, you are unlikely to be the victim of murder most foul. Well, just take a look at the front page of the newspapers any day.
A less charitable interpretation of course is that we are so into gossip and titillation that we cannot even pause long enough to mourn the tragic passing of a fellow man (one of the finest persons I have ever known) before rushing to defame and besmirch the
reputation of the dead.
The people of St. Vincent and the Grenadine must be cringing at the prospect of sharing a common CARICOM space with a society which sends back to them one of its brightest and best in a coffin.
I am, etc.,
ANSORD E. HEWITT
Ansord1@yahoo.com
Havendale, Kingston 19
