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Out of many, one divided people
HENLEY MORGAN
Thursday, February 14, 2008
JAMAICA is at war with itself. This is neither a positive nor negative statement. It's a truthful one. So entrenched and protracted is the warfare, war stories like those we see on cable television are beginning to emanate. Readers who enjoy these real-life sagas will have a treat reading the blood-curdling accounts by Observer staff reporter Karyl Walker. The most recent one appeared in the February, 10, 2008 Sunday Observer under the caption "Bulbie's ruthless reign shielded by politicians".
The killing spree has been with us for over a generation. According to Walker, "Just after the December 1944 general elections, former Prime Minister and National Hero, Alexander Bustamante, set the stage for the dog-eat-dog style of Jamaican politics when he rewarded his party's supporters with jobs, political favours and other scarce benefits. Since then, the dog fight for political spoils has never ended."
The casualties from the internecine warfare are staggering and mounting daily. The official body count, which exceeds 15,000 between 1995 and the present date, is pretty impressive for wars of limited engagement (not involving whole armies) and limited feedstock (small number of people available to be killed). Those who believe this talk of us being at war is at best a dramatisation and at worst an exaggeration, need only look at the comparative figures for the number of murders committed in Jamaica and other countries. In 2005 when we reached 1,674 murders, the murder rate for Jamaica was 64.4 for each 100,000 persons in the population. The 2006 murder rate for the USA was 5.7 per 100,000 and Canada 1.85 per 100,000. The comparative figure for other Caribbean countries in 2005 was: Trinidad and Tobago 35.7 per 100,000, the Dominican Republic 26.7 per 100,000 and Haiti 11.5 per 100,000. By everybody's estimate, Jamaica has the second or third highest murder rate in the world.
For there to be a war there has to be opposing sides to a conflict. As Karyl Walker rightly surmised, the conflict is over the distribution of scarce benefits among desperate people on the one hand and the desire among power-hungry men and women for political supremacy on the other. The role of tribal politics in dividing citizens into warring factions is well known in Jamaica. The intricate methods used to perpetuate the divisiveness among a seemingly homogenous people are not as easily understood.
While I have been focusing on politically conspired garrisons as the means of institutionalising political tribalism, I was recently awakened to a more sinister method that is practised away from the glare of criticism. At the Second Annual Restorative Justice Conference last week, executive director of the Dispute Resolution Foundation (DRF), Donna Parchment, drew the audience's attention to the practice of constituency caretakers. She characterised the practice as the single most divisive in Jamaican society.
Ms Parchment pointed out that in other mature political democracies, at the end of a contest for a seat in parliament, the loser returns to being an ordinary citizen and the winner goes on to be the representative of all the people in the constituency. Not so in Jamaica. The caretaker, who has become entrenched in our politics, remains prominent, with a seat at the table to ensure his tribe gets a share of the scarce benefits and spoils. As a reward for his/her contribution toward the continuing hostility among adherents to the different political parties, he/she is rewarded with an opportunity to run for the party in the next general election. And so the band plays on.
A system that is so intricately wrapped in evil can only be redeemed through a thorough cleansing. At the highly successful and well-attended two-day conference on restorative justice, the consensus centred on the need for some form of truth and reconciliation. In Mr Bruce Golding, we have a prime minister with whom this sentiment will resonate. The Roadmap to a Safe and Secure Jamaica, a study he commissioned while in opposition, speaks to the need. "Restorative justice elicits from the perpetrator a confession and from the victim, hopefully, forgiveness.
Putting in place the legislative and other requirements for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Jamaica would start a process that would allow us to understand and overcome the present effects of the political tribalism of the post-independence period".
It's over to you, Mr Prime Minister.
HENLEY MORGAN
Thursday, February 14, 2008
JAMAICA is at war with itself. This is neither a positive nor negative statement. It's a truthful one. So entrenched and protracted is the warfare, war stories like those we see on cable television are beginning to emanate. Readers who enjoy these real-life sagas will have a treat reading the blood-curdling accounts by Observer staff reporter Karyl Walker. The most recent one appeared in the February, 10, 2008 Sunday Observer under the caption "Bulbie's ruthless reign shielded by politicians".
The killing spree has been with us for over a generation. According to Walker, "Just after the December 1944 general elections, former Prime Minister and National Hero, Alexander Bustamante, set the stage for the dog-eat-dog style of Jamaican politics when he rewarded his party's supporters with jobs, political favours and other scarce benefits. Since then, the dog fight for political spoils has never ended."
The casualties from the internecine warfare are staggering and mounting daily. The official body count, which exceeds 15,000 between 1995 and the present date, is pretty impressive for wars of limited engagement (not involving whole armies) and limited feedstock (small number of people available to be killed). Those who believe this talk of us being at war is at best a dramatisation and at worst an exaggeration, need only look at the comparative figures for the number of murders committed in Jamaica and other countries. In 2005 when we reached 1,674 murders, the murder rate for Jamaica was 64.4 for each 100,000 persons in the population. The 2006 murder rate for the USA was 5.7 per 100,000 and Canada 1.85 per 100,000. The comparative figure for other Caribbean countries in 2005 was: Trinidad and Tobago 35.7 per 100,000, the Dominican Republic 26.7 per 100,000 and Haiti 11.5 per 100,000. By everybody's estimate, Jamaica has the second or third highest murder rate in the world.
For there to be a war there has to be opposing sides to a conflict. As Karyl Walker rightly surmised, the conflict is over the distribution of scarce benefits among desperate people on the one hand and the desire among power-hungry men and women for political supremacy on the other. The role of tribal politics in dividing citizens into warring factions is well known in Jamaica. The intricate methods used to perpetuate the divisiveness among a seemingly homogenous people are not as easily understood.
While I have been focusing on politically conspired garrisons as the means of institutionalising political tribalism, I was recently awakened to a more sinister method that is practised away from the glare of criticism. At the Second Annual Restorative Justice Conference last week, executive director of the Dispute Resolution Foundation (DRF), Donna Parchment, drew the audience's attention to the practice of constituency caretakers. She characterised the practice as the single most divisive in Jamaican society.
Ms Parchment pointed out that in other mature political democracies, at the end of a contest for a seat in parliament, the loser returns to being an ordinary citizen and the winner goes on to be the representative of all the people in the constituency. Not so in Jamaica. The caretaker, who has become entrenched in our politics, remains prominent, with a seat at the table to ensure his tribe gets a share of the scarce benefits and spoils. As a reward for his/her contribution toward the continuing hostility among adherents to the different political parties, he/she is rewarded with an opportunity to run for the party in the next general election. And so the band plays on.
A system that is so intricately wrapped in evil can only be redeemed through a thorough cleansing. At the highly successful and well-attended two-day conference on restorative justice, the consensus centred on the need for some form of truth and reconciliation. In Mr Bruce Golding, we have a prime minister with whom this sentiment will resonate. The Roadmap to a Safe and Secure Jamaica, a study he commissioned while in opposition, speaks to the need. "Restorative justice elicits from the perpetrator a confession and from the victim, hopefully, forgiveness.
Putting in place the legislative and other requirements for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Jamaica would start a process that would allow us to understand and overcome the present effects of the political tribalism of the post-independence period".
It's over to you, Mr Prime Minister.
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