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The place to which we have come
Geof Brown
Friday, December 28, 2007
Last week's column "Unsafe any and everywhere" brought an interesting and thoughtful rejoinder from reader Kadene Porter in a letter to the editor under the headline, "After our inaction, how will we silence the guns?" (Observer, December 24). And I happen to agree with most of her observations except where our estimates of the depth of the problem vary to a certain extent. She quoted my piece, that the society has "come to a place" where there is a "pervading sense of lack of safety". But she then points out that this place to which we have come is a place which has been "a way of life for some Jamaicans for years". And Ms Porter buttresses her telling observation by graphically citing the pervading reality of violent crime plaguing our inner-city communities.
"Many families have been cowering under their beds for fear of a stray bullet or the spray of bullets that come after the door has been kicked off," she states. "Mothers have silently and desperately packed their belongings and fled... to escape the demands of the area don when his fancy turns to their pubescent daughters."
Continuing, Ms Porter observes: "Children in some schools have learnt how to fall flat on the floor at the sound of gunfire, some of them shaking and trembling for hours afterwards." Then making her central point, Kadene Porter noted that: "Yes, Jamaica has been at 'this place' for a long time" and added, "We uptowners blithely ignored it, for the crime had nothing to do with our gentrified areas and our quiet streets." It could not have been better said or more truly observed, and I thank the reader for writing directly to the editor, thus sharing her views with the wider public. Where we differ is the extent to which the "pervading sense of lack of safety" is true, not just for some newly awakened uptowners who now feel personally threatened, but for the society at large. Take the following quote from the editorial in this newspaper on Monday, "The lesson from Gobay - crush the criminals now".
"That a few criminals - drunk with their capacity to terrorise - have brought an entire rural farming community to a standstill, with even the school being closed as a result, should leave us all hanging our heads in shame". And supporting Ms Porter's point about the fruits of inaction, the same editorial observed, "Even as crime has surged over the years, the authorities have not seen fit to match the surge with the necessary resources." But not simply leaving the total blame there with the authorities as some simplistic one-track politically biased critics are wont to do, the editorial concludes, "While we all 'talk the good talk' about crime being our number one problem, we have never as a society been prepared to make the necessary sacrifices". The Gleaner editorial of the same date (December 24), "Waiting for the action now, Admiral Lewin", addresses the new commissioner of police with the following quote, inter alia:
"There is little doubt that we exist in Jamaica in a deep sense, if not in absolute fact, of insecurity. Nearly 1,600 homicides in a year and a murder rate of 60 per 100,000 are more than sufficient to concentrate people's minds on their state of insecurity. Put baldly, we are afraid in Jamaica." This fear which has brought an entire rural community to a standstill is not just about uptowners finally awakening to a situation they have neglected. The barefacedness of the present crop of youthful gunmen to which my column alluded last week explains why two people who work for me and who ride the buses every day, now tell me they are afraid as never before. They have always been my reliable barometer about the state of things "out there", quite apart from my own professional gleanings. This is how leading entrepreneur and businesswoman Thalia Lyn addresses the pervading fear in an interview with Jean Lowrie-Chin in the latter's column, of December 24:
She told the interviewer "this increased incidence of crime" has affected several businesses she knows which have seen dips in evening and night sales. "If this continues it could put people out of business," Mrs Lyn observed. She was referring to the fear of night movement related to the brutal rape and murder of a staff team member in a branch of her business in May Pen, Clarendon. This, like other country towns, has seen a dramatic escalation in barefaced murders and daring robberies. Such is the place to which we have come that criminals have posted their own hit lists of targeted cops, and in the second city of Montego Bay are evidently acting on their threats in daring murders of several police recently. So what we are seeing is not merely the spread of crime from downtown to uptown. It is urban as in the bigger cities, semi-rural as in country towns and deep rural as in remote villages. This is what is new about the problem, dear Kadene Porter, and this is why it calls for our collective will and our collective effort for remedy. That was my plea last week and will continue to be my plea.
Footnote
Greetings of the season to you all in the homeland. I am writing this from Barbados where there are no grilled homes in sight and where the Jamaican neighbour, wishing she could be home in JA, sleeps with her doors open. The soon return of that sense of safety is my new year's wish for our nation.
browngeof@hotmail.com or geofbrown@gmail.com
Geof Brown
Friday, December 28, 2007
Last week's column "Unsafe any and everywhere" brought an interesting and thoughtful rejoinder from reader Kadene Porter in a letter to the editor under the headline, "After our inaction, how will we silence the guns?" (Observer, December 24). And I happen to agree with most of her observations except where our estimates of the depth of the problem vary to a certain extent. She quoted my piece, that the society has "come to a place" where there is a "pervading sense of lack of safety". But she then points out that this place to which we have come is a place which has been "a way of life for some Jamaicans for years". And Ms Porter buttresses her telling observation by graphically citing the pervading reality of violent crime plaguing our inner-city communities.
"Many families have been cowering under their beds for fear of a stray bullet or the spray of bullets that come after the door has been kicked off," she states. "Mothers have silently and desperately packed their belongings and fled... to escape the demands of the area don when his fancy turns to their pubescent daughters."
Continuing, Ms Porter observes: "Children in some schools have learnt how to fall flat on the floor at the sound of gunfire, some of them shaking and trembling for hours afterwards." Then making her central point, Kadene Porter noted that: "Yes, Jamaica has been at 'this place' for a long time" and added, "We uptowners blithely ignored it, for the crime had nothing to do with our gentrified areas and our quiet streets." It could not have been better said or more truly observed, and I thank the reader for writing directly to the editor, thus sharing her views with the wider public. Where we differ is the extent to which the "pervading sense of lack of safety" is true, not just for some newly awakened uptowners who now feel personally threatened, but for the society at large. Take the following quote from the editorial in this newspaper on Monday, "The lesson from Gobay - crush the criminals now".
"That a few criminals - drunk with their capacity to terrorise - have brought an entire rural farming community to a standstill, with even the school being closed as a result, should leave us all hanging our heads in shame". And supporting Ms Porter's point about the fruits of inaction, the same editorial observed, "Even as crime has surged over the years, the authorities have not seen fit to match the surge with the necessary resources." But not simply leaving the total blame there with the authorities as some simplistic one-track politically biased critics are wont to do, the editorial concludes, "While we all 'talk the good talk' about crime being our number one problem, we have never as a society been prepared to make the necessary sacrifices". The Gleaner editorial of the same date (December 24), "Waiting for the action now, Admiral Lewin", addresses the new commissioner of police with the following quote, inter alia:
"There is little doubt that we exist in Jamaica in a deep sense, if not in absolute fact, of insecurity. Nearly 1,600 homicides in a year and a murder rate of 60 per 100,000 are more than sufficient to concentrate people's minds on their state of insecurity. Put baldly, we are afraid in Jamaica." This fear which has brought an entire rural community to a standstill is not just about uptowners finally awakening to a situation they have neglected. The barefacedness of the present crop of youthful gunmen to which my column alluded last week explains why two people who work for me and who ride the buses every day, now tell me they are afraid as never before. They have always been my reliable barometer about the state of things "out there", quite apart from my own professional gleanings. This is how leading entrepreneur and businesswoman Thalia Lyn addresses the pervading fear in an interview with Jean Lowrie-Chin in the latter's column, of December 24:
She told the interviewer "this increased incidence of crime" has affected several businesses she knows which have seen dips in evening and night sales. "If this continues it could put people out of business," Mrs Lyn observed. She was referring to the fear of night movement related to the brutal rape and murder of a staff team member in a branch of her business in May Pen, Clarendon. This, like other country towns, has seen a dramatic escalation in barefaced murders and daring robberies. Such is the place to which we have come that criminals have posted their own hit lists of targeted cops, and in the second city of Montego Bay are evidently acting on their threats in daring murders of several police recently. So what we are seeing is not merely the spread of crime from downtown to uptown. It is urban as in the bigger cities, semi-rural as in country towns and deep rural as in remote villages. This is what is new about the problem, dear Kadene Porter, and this is why it calls for our collective will and our collective effort for remedy. That was my plea last week and will continue to be my plea.
Footnote
Greetings of the season to you all in the homeland. I am writing this from Barbados where there are no grilled homes in sight and where the Jamaican neighbour, wishing she could be home in JA, sleeps with her doors open. The soon return of that sense of safety is my new year's wish for our nation.
browngeof@hotmail.com or geofbrown@gmail.com