The Editor, Sir:

As criminal offences continue on an upward trend, especially murder, Jamaicans should pause and take a hard look at family life.

In a healthy family life, we experience some of the fundamental elements of peace - justice and love between brothers and sisters, the role of authority expressed by parents; loving concern for the members, who are weaker because of youth, sickness or old age; mutual help in obtaining the necessities of life and a readiness to accept others and, if necessary, to forgive them.

Family as teacher

The family is the first and indispensable teacher of peace. The family enables its members, in decisive ways, to experience peace. Whoever, even unknowingly, circumvents the institution of the family, undermines peace in the entire community, national and international, since he weakens what is in effect the primary agency of peace.

Everything that serves to weaken the family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman, everything that directly or indirectly stands in the way of its openness to the responsible acceptance of new life, everything that obstructs its right to be primarily responsible for the education of its children, constitutes an objective obstacle on the road to peace.

Family needs home

The family needs to have a home, employment and a just recognition of the domestic activity of parents, the possibility of schooling for children, and basic health care for all. When society and public policy are not committed to assisting the family in these areas, they deprive themselves of an essential resource in the service of peace.

It is essential that we should all be committed to living our lives in an attitude of responsibility before God, acknowledging Him as the deepest source of our own existence and that of others.

By going back to this supreme principle, we are able to perceive the unconditional worth of each human being, and thus to lay the premises for building a humanity at peace.

I am, etc.,

CLINTON L. HUNTER

cljhunter@hotmail.com