As our young nation grapples with the cancer of crime and violence, it is quite clear that our social and economic problems are intertwined. Our underperforming and failing education system feeds into the crime and violence problem; our failing domestic family arrangements characterised by poor parenting and neglected children, feed into our education problems; poor housing in slum conditions or rural deprivation with many-to-a-bed (often with mixed genders) feeds into poor family life, including incest, domestic violence and early sexual initiation; 'plenty children' combined with low income equals poverty and often misery for households; and food and schools and health care and jobs have to be found for everyone.
Television and the media dangle consumer goods and services in front of the poor, mostly far out of reach. This must be a source of almost uncontrollable frustration, for looking ahead, poor uneducated, low-skilled persons must realistically admit that they have little chance of living that kind of lifestyle, and that they are trapped! Those with the appropriate values (some would say without the appropriate values) will turn to crime to achieve the level of consumerism they are led to believe they must grow accustomed to.
Learn to take shortcuts
The psychologists tell us that by the time children are five years old they have a fully formed value system. Having been shouted at and beaten by their parents for various slight and serious offences, they learn certain methods of conflict resolution early in life. They learn that playing by 'the rules' takes too long and draws too much sweat, and that 'shortcuts' take you there faster, even if they draw blood.
It is senseless to seek a solution to 'the crime problem' that will leave everything else unchanged. Crime is not the root problem; it is only the bursting forth, the external manifestation, of the deeper problems. Were it possible to assassinate all the present batch of gunmen, thieves and rapists (I know some of my readers favour this 'solution'), it will only be a matter of time before a new batch emerges, since the conditions that created the criminals in the first place will still be there.
Students of Jamaican history may feel along with me that what we face today is not 'crime' pure and simple, but social protest - geared at challenging the very foundation of Jamaican society, rooted in inequality and the unjust use of one set of people for the enrichment of another set. We have been here before: St Mary in 1760, St James in 1831, Morant Bay in 1865, the Kingston waterfront in 1938, for example. When people are unhappy with their lot, and with the lot of their peers, they find a way to express their feelings. Not all social protests have been violent: the Great Revival of 1860-1861; Bedwardism in the 1890s; the rise of Pentecostalism in the 1920s; Garveyism; the rise of Rastafarianism in the 1930s; the rise of reggae music in the 1960s.
Different sort of protest
All of these were movements protesting inequality and injustice, but proposing different solutions, including religious escapism, waiting for the afterlife, going back to Africa, and revolution. The protest in this new millennium is of a different sort. Something has to change or the situation will deteriorate further. We are not going to find a solution to 'the crime problem' leaving everything else unchanged. There has to be a profound overhaul of our social situation.
There has been a tremendous groundswell in Jamaica in this direction for a very long time; this is the origin of the 'Portia Factor', the amazing phenomenon where a majority of PNP delegates supported a black woman from 'the bowels of the working class' rather than the series of 'brown men' from the 'Drumblair faction' supported by the vast majority of PNP MPs. I find it hard to explain the popularity of Senator Barack Obama within the United States Democratic Party other than because there is a similar groundswell for change there also!
Since our problems of underdevelopment are integrated, the solutions must also be integrated. And we can't wait for the effects of social interventions to be felt; the society might fall apart during the long lag time. We have to work on several fronts, and we have to learn to whistle and chew gum at the same time.
More anon.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist andconsultant in rural sustainabledevelopment. For feedback, email: columns@gleanerjm.com.
