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Only the garrisons can solve the garrison problem
Mark Wignall
Thursday, January 10, 2008
From Kingston and Port Royal in the east to Central Clarendon close to mid-island, there are 10 constituencies where the voting is pretty much set long before election day. In addition to some garrison pockets in the western section of the island, these areas are the main crime incubators and they remain so by providing safe havens for killers with guns and assorted criminals in the lower ranks.
Whenever politicians confer and pressure is brought on them by the politically naive to "dismantle the garrisons", the responses are few if any, and instead our politicians run off to attend prayer breakfasts where they and their cronies in big business meet to lead the population around the mulberry bush.
While they lift their eyes to the heavens and the religious flavour-of-the-month personality gets to loudly invoke the name of God, and speak to Him, quite probably through a direct cellphone link, the politician's eyes are on the bottom line - the vote - and the prayer breakfast and the joining of hands are simply added tools to get him his earthly desires.
Violent crime recognises no man-made dates, so the murders have crossed seamlessly from December 2007 into January 2008. And their ferocity has been no less intense than in the latter part of 2007. Almost every police officer knows that violence associated with garrison communities occupies two levels. One, there is the internal turf war or long-term vendetta killing. At another level, the killers leave home base and commit robberies or murders (some hit jobs for outsiders) after which they slip back into ghetto hell (haven) where sometimes, even the police are afraid to follow them.
In this scenario the level of fear is assured, and only the connected and the stupid would want to venture into these enclaves. Some years ago, I wrote a story about a man who received two bills from the Water Commission (NWC). One bill for $600 for his house in Harbour View was acted on late and his water supply was disconnected.
The other bill was for a property in Arnett Gardens. The last time his father visited the property to collect rent was in the mid-1970s and he was warned by the "tenant" never to return. The bill from the NWC was over $1million.
When he visited the NWC to pay the $600 and the reconnection fee, he pointed out to the clerk that the Arnett Gardens property had been "captured" and not even the police could help. He asked the clerk if she would be despatching a team to disconnect the supply. The lady laughed and said to him, "You know how it goes, Sir. That's Arnett Gardens."
Now I am certain that there are decent people living in Arnett Gardens, but the fact is that in communities of this nature, the laws which apply to us unfortunates on the outside - that is those of us who must pay or else - do not exist in these zones of exclusion. Where the politicians have failed to pull these communities closer to mainstream Jamaica, and excessively high rates of unemployment (60%) exist among young men (with guns), the free-for-all in stealing electric power and water (and property) is seen as a sort of subsidy to the poor and a benefit from the politician.
As long as the politician plays the pretend game and allows the community to carry out this wholesale theft, the pressure on him or her is somewhat lessened, and the crude relationship continues, all the way to the next elections. Now, let me ask you this. Were I a politician, why would I want to cease this arrangement and run the risk of a major paradigm shift and losing my seat?
Some years ago I befriended a man from Arnett Gardens. His name was Horace Murphy. In the two or so meetings we had, his entire focus was on seeing change in Arnett Gardens by using what was staring the politicians in the face.
At the time I visited Arnett Gardens the times were troubling, and even though no shots rang out during the hours I was there, the fear was not just in my head, but in the darting eyes of some of the residents I saw, spoke and drank with.
Murphy would point out to me, "Bob Marley lived over there, Peter Tosh over there." The place was a treasure trove of living history. It was Murphy's idea to take tourists to Arnett Gardens/Trench Town, the most visible birthplace of reggae music. Murphy even believed that the "rude boy" culture which sprang up in the early 1960s could be capitalised on and exploited. "We would not be in the business of whitewashing history. Instead, we would be replicating that culture, even employing young men to 'chuck badness' on specific streets with sounds of gunfire like a Hollywood sound stage."
Something called niche tourism.
I appeared on a TV programme (Impact) with Murphy where he launched into a strident attack against the political leadership in Arnett Gardens. I remember saying to host, ace journalist Cliff Hughes, that in all of my years of listening to community activists I had never heard a more straight-talking man than Murphy.
By then some began to say that Murphy was attempting to fill the vacuum left by Arnett don George Phang, and some were even hinting, deliberately, that Murphy wanted to be the next don. My experience with him indicated differently. To Murphy's way of thinking, MPs like Omar Davies were not up to the new approach, that is, allowing the mixture of the sordid and exciting history of the community to define a brighter future for it. Murphy was an impatient man.
He grew up in the community but escaped to "foreign" where he was educated. He was back to give of himself in developing the troubled community. In a particularly troubling moment, the police seized his licensed firearm. A few days afterwards, he was against a wall in Arnett Gardens talking with some people when a man calmly walked up and shot him dead. They killed him and his ideas because, seemingly, they preferred squalor and criminality.
I am not one of those who will be holding my breath when the Vale Royal talks reopen. In fact, it is my belief that these talks are like prayer breakfasts. Meet with an uptown elite, drink Blue Mountain Coffee and eat boring rolls. Then pray and send the foolish Jamaican people a little further.
I am certain that when the matter of garrisons is mooted, the talking heads will do the expected. Those who think "outside the box" like the Horace Murphys of this world will be either silent or dead.
And we will be no further to finding solutions to these havens for criminality. The politicians know what to do, but as in local government reform, to make it workable is to hand over too much power to the people, and in similar fashion, take the same amount away from the politician.
The politicians will have no part of that. Pardon my pessimism, but those Vale Royal talks will be just that. Talk, talk, talk.
And the garrisons will continue to breed the next set of killers.
observemark@gmail.com
Mark Wignall
Thursday, January 10, 2008
From Kingston and Port Royal in the east to Central Clarendon close to mid-island, there are 10 constituencies where the voting is pretty much set long before election day. In addition to some garrison pockets in the western section of the island, these areas are the main crime incubators and they remain so by providing safe havens for killers with guns and assorted criminals in the lower ranks.
Whenever politicians confer and pressure is brought on them by the politically naive to "dismantle the garrisons", the responses are few if any, and instead our politicians run off to attend prayer breakfasts where they and their cronies in big business meet to lead the population around the mulberry bush.
While they lift their eyes to the heavens and the religious flavour-of-the-month personality gets to loudly invoke the name of God, and speak to Him, quite probably through a direct cellphone link, the politician's eyes are on the bottom line - the vote - and the prayer breakfast and the joining of hands are simply added tools to get him his earthly desires.
Violent crime recognises no man-made dates, so the murders have crossed seamlessly from December 2007 into January 2008. And their ferocity has been no less intense than in the latter part of 2007. Almost every police officer knows that violence associated with garrison communities occupies two levels. One, there is the internal turf war or long-term vendetta killing. At another level, the killers leave home base and commit robberies or murders (some hit jobs for outsiders) after which they slip back into ghetto hell (haven) where sometimes, even the police are afraid to follow them.
In this scenario the level of fear is assured, and only the connected and the stupid would want to venture into these enclaves. Some years ago, I wrote a story about a man who received two bills from the Water Commission (NWC). One bill for $600 for his house in Harbour View was acted on late and his water supply was disconnected.
The other bill was for a property in Arnett Gardens. The last time his father visited the property to collect rent was in the mid-1970s and he was warned by the "tenant" never to return. The bill from the NWC was over $1million.
When he visited the NWC to pay the $600 and the reconnection fee, he pointed out to the clerk that the Arnett Gardens property had been "captured" and not even the police could help. He asked the clerk if she would be despatching a team to disconnect the supply. The lady laughed and said to him, "You know how it goes, Sir. That's Arnett Gardens."
Now I am certain that there are decent people living in Arnett Gardens, but the fact is that in communities of this nature, the laws which apply to us unfortunates on the outside - that is those of us who must pay or else - do not exist in these zones of exclusion. Where the politicians have failed to pull these communities closer to mainstream Jamaica, and excessively high rates of unemployment (60%) exist among young men (with guns), the free-for-all in stealing electric power and water (and property) is seen as a sort of subsidy to the poor and a benefit from the politician.
As long as the politician plays the pretend game and allows the community to carry out this wholesale theft, the pressure on him or her is somewhat lessened, and the crude relationship continues, all the way to the next elections. Now, let me ask you this. Were I a politician, why would I want to cease this arrangement and run the risk of a major paradigm shift and losing my seat?
Some years ago I befriended a man from Arnett Gardens. His name was Horace Murphy. In the two or so meetings we had, his entire focus was on seeing change in Arnett Gardens by using what was staring the politicians in the face.
At the time I visited Arnett Gardens the times were troubling, and even though no shots rang out during the hours I was there, the fear was not just in my head, but in the darting eyes of some of the residents I saw, spoke and drank with.
Murphy would point out to me, "Bob Marley lived over there, Peter Tosh over there." The place was a treasure trove of living history. It was Murphy's idea to take tourists to Arnett Gardens/Trench Town, the most visible birthplace of reggae music. Murphy even believed that the "rude boy" culture which sprang up in the early 1960s could be capitalised on and exploited. "We would not be in the business of whitewashing history. Instead, we would be replicating that culture, even employing young men to 'chuck badness' on specific streets with sounds of gunfire like a Hollywood sound stage."
Something called niche tourism.
I appeared on a TV programme (Impact) with Murphy where he launched into a strident attack against the political leadership in Arnett Gardens. I remember saying to host, ace journalist Cliff Hughes, that in all of my years of listening to community activists I had never heard a more straight-talking man than Murphy.
By then some began to say that Murphy was attempting to fill the vacuum left by Arnett don George Phang, and some were even hinting, deliberately, that Murphy wanted to be the next don. My experience with him indicated differently. To Murphy's way of thinking, MPs like Omar Davies were not up to the new approach, that is, allowing the mixture of the sordid and exciting history of the community to define a brighter future for it. Murphy was an impatient man.
He grew up in the community but escaped to "foreign" where he was educated. He was back to give of himself in developing the troubled community. In a particularly troubling moment, the police seized his licensed firearm. A few days afterwards, he was against a wall in Arnett Gardens talking with some people when a man calmly walked up and shot him dead. They killed him and his ideas because, seemingly, they preferred squalor and criminality.
I am not one of those who will be holding my breath when the Vale Royal talks reopen. In fact, it is my belief that these talks are like prayer breakfasts. Meet with an uptown elite, drink Blue Mountain Coffee and eat boring rolls. Then pray and send the foolish Jamaican people a little further.
I am certain that when the matter of garrisons is mooted, the talking heads will do the expected. Those who think "outside the box" like the Horace Murphys of this world will be either silent or dead.
And we will be no further to finding solutions to these havens for criminality. The politicians know what to do, but as in local government reform, to make it workable is to hand over too much power to the people, and in similar fashion, take the same amount away from the politician.
The politicians will have no part of that. Pardon my pessimism, but those Vale Royal talks will be just that. Talk, talk, talk.
And the garrisons will continue to breed the next set of killers.
observemark@gmail.com
one don!)
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