Don Robotham, Contributor
The prime minister has not risen to the demands of the moment.
This is Jamaica's moment of truth. The situation is out of control and deteriorating rapidly. Not even the rains can cool it down. A paralysed prime minister advises a shell-shocked nation that the development of a crime plan is not his responsibility. The bloodletting in Jamaica has gone way beyond crime plans. Events have overtaken us.
Over 660 people have been murdered, and what is Golding's response? A lecture on the amendment to Section two of the Jamaican Constabulary Force (JCF) Act? Is this not ludicrous? "Bruce a happen" as one cynic derisively observed. My own seven-year-old grandson chimed in: "I have a new name for the prime minister: Crime minister."
Jamaican society is in deep economic, social and political turmoil. People are gripped with fear and fleeing their homes. Golding complacently hints that new measures will be forthcoming from his Security Council. But we should be clear on one thing. The day has long since passed when 'crime plans' and 'targeted community social interventions' will cut it. The youth will laugh at this monkey money and these fanciful plans. A much deeper and comprehensive approach will be needed. Every level of Jamaican society is suffocating with fear.
real leadership
Commissioner of Police Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin stepped up to the plate at the Police Federation Conference and began to provide real leadership. Minister MacMillan reached out to the rank and file in a conciliatory manner. It's only a start - they need to do this more and better. Dr Peter Phillips and other politicians from all sides need to support them actively in this endeavour - not snipe from the sidelines.
The People's National Party and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) need to be more aggressive at the local levels and on the detailed step-by-step collaboration with the security forces against gunmen. The security forces need and deserve every ounce of our support, especially at the community level. Decisive action from above and below is urgently needed.
But Golding has not risen to the demands of the moment. It is not too late and I sincerely hope he will. But more than a few special measures will be needed. A radical change in his entire approach is required.
MURDER AS PROTEST
Oh for the political talents of a Michael Manley in this our hour of need! No one would have had to explain to him the reasons for the current wild upsurge in violence. He would have understood instinctively that in the absence of any clear political channel, the surge in youth alienation must flow into murderous protest. Same as in the violent murder of African immigrants in South Africa, we are experiencing a furious spontaneous protest against the hellish economic pressures being experienced by our youth. It is an anarchic indictment of Jamaican society as a whole.
Murder as protest, mayhem as critique. It must be repressed. This only appears to be apolitical but in fact has deep political implications. In this sense, Commissioner Lewin is bitterly correct: it is bound to get worse. We should not underestimate the economic and social depths of this crisis. We should not fail to grasp its deeper political significance just because it takes the form of a ruthless struggle over criminal turf.
decisive action
Golding and others need to remove the scales from their eyes. The prime minister needs to act decisively. He needs to lead the whole society to reach deep into the rural and urban communities where a desperate hardship is the daily bread, and where a deep alienation and a desperate criminality are feeding off each other in a vicious spiral with no end in sight. Out of these 'groundings' real and meaningful economic relief must be provided. This will require increased taxation of the better off and a totally different political approach.
Golding seems to be a secret admirer of many of Michael Manley's policies. But the chief thing about Michael was not his policies. The most important thing about him was his ability to relate directly to the people from their very midst - this scion of the hated Drumblair. It was his audacity and ability to touch people of all social classes and ethnic backgrounds, including his political enemies, which were his greatest qualities.
Golding needs to get out of Jamaica House and get in touch with the daily grinding reality of the everyday life of the Jamaican people. Who cares about all these travels and meetings and plans and reports and interviews with Tom, Dick and Harry? Who cares about call-in programmes or the BBC? We want leadership and we want it now.
GAY AND LESBIAN RIGHTS
Golding and all political forces - JLP, PNP and National Democratic Movement (NDM) - also need to open a dialogue with their gay and lesbian fellow citizens - is he not their 'chief servant' too? Courageous sections of the media and J-FLAG need to keep up their good work - progress is being made, Golding's chronic lack of leadership notwithstanding.
His backward response to Stephen Sackur was made worse by the letter to The Gleaner shortly thereafter. Golding had a duty to uphold the rights of all Jamaicans. Instead, he simply parroted rubbish about 'incesters' [sic] and prostitutes not being allowed in 'his' Cabinet either.
The letter to The Gleaner was written in the cool light of day outside of the hothouse BBC atmosphere. It can therefore reasonably be taken to reflect the prime minister's considered views. It revealed a man who is self- righteously truculent in depriving his gay fellow citizens of their fundamental rights. A mind whose liberalism is superficial - mesmerised by a dry-as-dust constitutionalism but otherwise vacuous.
In this hypocritical Old Testament moral universe, adulterers, fornicators, wife beaters and 'Young Turks' are welcome to 'flaunt' in their publicly provided SUVs, in or out of Cabinet. But God forbid that a homosexual 'flaunts' his or her sexuality. That is a deep dark secret which must remain repressed at all costs.
Flaunt not! We are a God-fearing people who go to church, but do not try us, oh. It is true we have a slight problem with greed, corruption, bling and murder. But we love the sinner while hating the sin. We love you so much we will murder you, for your own good, of course. We might grudgingly concede you some limited space on a deserted island, out of the goodness of our Christian hearts. After all, we wish to pass through those pearly gates. But only if you do not flaunt. Full and equal rights? Tufiakwa! Abomination! I don't have a clue what to do about crime, says our 'Crime Minister'. Ask Lewin. But I know exactly what to do about flaunters. Not in my cabinet!
NOSTALGIC NONSENSE
This is a truly shameful lack of leadership, and not only from Golding. It is part of the idea that the solution to our values problem lies in a return to some mythical pristine past when the society upheld a wholesome biblical morality before things fell apart. Which past was that - during the slave trade in Africa or during slavery itself? Or the semi-slave post-emancipation period which led to 1865? Or the end of the 19th century in which the people were driven off the land and our inner- city ghettos were formed? Or the starvation which produced 1938? Or the have and have-nots crisis of the Norman Manley era? Or the wonderful '60s when the Dungle was rebaptised as Tivoli - that mother of all garrisons - and thousands scattered from Riverton to Bull Bay? Which is the happy era to whose selfless values we yearn to return? Tell me. I need to know. Complete and utter nostalgic garbage!
restoring colonial values
Such reactionary talk about restoring lost colonial values is connected to the failure to give leadership in general - on crime, on the economic crisis, on the youth problem - on all our key issues. How woefully unprepared for office this JLP government has proven to be! How empty its manifestos and its pompous constitutionalism! How absurd its fanciful inflation projections and its opportunistic budget! Now it has come to this: knee-deep in our own blood.
Our present crisis will not be addressed by a false nostalgia, by media gimmicks, by posturing in Parliament, Cabinet meetings, national security councils, commissions of inquiry, by plans and reports or by regurgitating loathsome Old Testament dogma. It will not be solved by self-serving sniping from the PNP either.
What is really needed now is firm and decisive action combined with open-minded leadership collaboration at the community level, free from all dogma and partisanship. Captains on the bridges of their ships inspiring their crews. An audacious general leading the charge on the very front line of attack. Instead, we seem to have been landed with a political pedant who can recall the details of the Jamaica Constabulary Force Act at the drop of a hat. Action now, not a bag of mouth!
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