The Editor, Sir:

Peter Espeut certainly did not dance around matters of national importance in his Wednesday column titled 'Avoiding the Issue'. Just stopping short of calling names, Espeut squarely faces and cites one of the nation's fatal flaws: facing the facts and then pretending they do not exist.

The links Espeut enumerates regarding politics and crime are no secrets, but what is remarkable is the perennial absence of sufficient public outrage to bring a nation to its feet and initiate meaningful change. We have given successive governments wide berths to do whatever they saw fit to manage the nation's affairs, and even after we became aware of their nefarious activities, we applauded them and they awarded themselves the nation's highest honours.

We lent legitimacy to the criminal underworld when we openly give them 'area leader' status in certain communities, and glamour has been conferred on their lifestyles through portrayal in the media. Sadly, we are still rewarding the politicians, these architects of Jamaica's demise, with high-profile appointments, their laurel wreaths, as it were, for destroying a nation's innocence.

Is redemption out of reach? Now that Espeut has raised the thorny issues, is there anyone brave enough to bell the cat? Or must radical levels of violence be unleashed before we can expect change? The choice is ours.

I am, etc.,

KADENE PORTER kadene26@hotmail