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'If we must die, let it not be like hogs.'
Franklin JOHNSTON
Saturday, July 05, 2008
It is crunch time for Jamaica. We may be killed pleading for our lives or die resisting evil men, as Jamaican-born Claude McKay urges in his sonnet, If We Must Die. But there is a third way. Some 40 years ago I met Sun Tzu. He lived in China in 500 BCE and his book, Art of War, is relevant to Jamaica. Our army or police (aka forces) command should read Sun Tzu daily, as it is better than Sandhurst or Citadel.
We have treated people like animals and some are now behaving thus. Our healing will begin when we value all our citizens, equally. As a nation, our sense of self and our veneer of civilisation are fragile. Many dance to the tunes others play and our self-esteem is defined by the foreign press and such. Some are complicit in the killing of our people so long as we are the "flavour of the month" with Amnesty. We live by poster truisms. Consider the silly mantra that "Jamaica never defaults on debt". What is this to us? Has it made us secure, happy and prosperous? If we did default we might learn to live modestly; we would dig deep, find local solutions; buy local, eat local and prosper. Many states in Europe were bankrupt, recovered and are now developed.
Debt is not our worst nightmare. More Jamaicans are dying by distress, tension and fear, than by the gun. We get a new Cabinet, a new murder record; a new crime plan, a recycled crime chief and old ideas. Thinking out of the box requires our best minds - experts and ordinary folk, "blue sky" ideas to elicit options and brains for deep analysis. Crime can be curtailed.
We must begin with "the low-hanging fruit" viz, locate and fix the things that promote and sustain crime and promote and pursue those things that can cauterise crime and violence. This is primarily brain work; not drill, spit, polish and pretty uniforms.
Foundation strategy
This has seven elements viz: (1) Publicly admit we are in crisis. Ignore the foreign press. They don't live here and we need this to mind-ready our people for action. (2) Define the situation, prepare specs for the chiefs then find the right people. Our chiefs may be expert on policing and war, but do not believe your own hype as you gave them the titles and medals as promotion; not so Master Gunner Sergeant Jones. Mr Jones' job is to kill targets to order, at 1,000 m, then disappear and he is good at it. His title tells us his skill; it is not for promotion. Our security command needs new people with diverse training, skills, experience and ideas. We have citizens who can plan, motivate forces and outmanoeuvre gunmen, but our government can't see them as they don't wear uniforms. (3) Empower citizens. If we can't trust our decent citizens with guns, our path is dark as we need their help now. (4) Make gunmanship a high-risk career so it loses its glamour. The present life expectancy of a gunman is longer than the citizens'. (5) Citizens must be ready to be tactically, put "in harm's way" to get the job done. The solution is not easy as "there will be blood!". (6) Create an intelligence agency. How Jamaica exists with no fit-for-purpose covert agency defies reason. In the Cold War era, some agencies recruited from UK campuses. A few Caribbean graduates were trained, deployed and at demob, these faceless experts went to the USA, UK and Israel. Men in Jamaica's forces did not fit the profile, as these agencies needed high-quality, trainable operatives for varied intelligence tasks. The Oxford presence of graduates (none studied police or army subjects) in the UK's Police and Covert Agencies today is no accident. Civilians are chiefs and main intelligence operatives in most intelligence agencies in the West. (7) The state must publicly affirm the gun permit holder as the ally of the forces. Please note, the majority of marksmen on Jamaica's shooting teams (precision and action) are civilians.
Tactical actions
Crime is like other national disasters. It kills, breeds fear, causes mayhem and disrupts investors, tourists and life in general. To cope, we must be self-reliant and expect the state to infringe our freedoms for a time. There is no long term without the short term, and no easy answer. Here are some immediate choices:
. Curb the supply of guns. We may try, but supply is not in our control. Also, our borders are porous and guns can be landed anywhere on our coast.
. Take the guns from the gunmen. We tried this for 30 years with no success. Incidentally, we should use "acid disposal" to destroy the guns we recover.
. Take the guns from everybody. We have never tried this. But it would be counterproductive as we would be disarming the good guys only.
. Do nothing, let gunmen exhaust their blood lust. This has not been tried (I think), and is not recommended. Death is not the end, but do not expose people to more abuse.
. Build permanent, physical cordons. Israel built a wall around millions of people and Northern Ireland's cordons were only dismantled recently. Examine this!
. The Citizens Defence Act. Enact a Law, expiring every three years, to empower citizens and amend laws that favour gunmen. Gunmen know that there are few legal guns, so this benefits them; they know that the law emasculates a permit holder; that police on a power trip may seize a gun and slap charges on him. Our security is irrational. If you don't trust our citizens why give them a gun permit? If you trust them, incorporate them into the solution of crime. Most nations in crisis would automatically deputise a gun permit holder, not Jamaica; we would rather die first, and so we may!
. Enhanced police work. The police must enforce all laws against anti-social behaviour - drivers, pedestrians, public and private order, etc. The little things matter. If they can't catch gunmen, they must be excellent in small things. We must also end "off-duty" status as officers are killed on or off duty; they may as well be alert at all times.
. Citizen self-defence manuals. We must write home, kidnap, work, car, and other self-defence manuals. These must be printed and serialised in the newspapers.
. Arm citizens. In some countries, citizens are required to bear arms to defend their nation: a rifle is over the fireplace or secured in the house. Jamaicans with a long-term stake (a mortgage, land title, etc) in our land should have arms on the premises; not a concealed weapon or handgun, but a rifle or shotgun with a 34-inch barrel. A gunman may steal them, but he can carry only one and needs both hands to aim a 710 mm, shoulder-fired shotgun. If he kicks in a door he will face a barrage of community shotguns. We would stand and defend our families. Citizens would not cringe or hide under beds. Never again! Let us think out of the box and try new things.
Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston and is currently on assignment in the UK.
franklinjohnston@hotmail.com
Franklin JOHNSTON
Saturday, July 05, 2008
It is crunch time for Jamaica. We may be killed pleading for our lives or die resisting evil men, as Jamaican-born Claude McKay urges in his sonnet, If We Must Die. But there is a third way. Some 40 years ago I met Sun Tzu. He lived in China in 500 BCE and his book, Art of War, is relevant to Jamaica. Our army or police (aka forces) command should read Sun Tzu daily, as it is better than Sandhurst or Citadel.
We have treated people like animals and some are now behaving thus. Our healing will begin when we value all our citizens, equally. As a nation, our sense of self and our veneer of civilisation are fragile. Many dance to the tunes others play and our self-esteem is defined by the foreign press and such. Some are complicit in the killing of our people so long as we are the "flavour of the month" with Amnesty. We live by poster truisms. Consider the silly mantra that "Jamaica never defaults on debt". What is this to us? Has it made us secure, happy and prosperous? If we did default we might learn to live modestly; we would dig deep, find local solutions; buy local, eat local and prosper. Many states in Europe were bankrupt, recovered and are now developed.
Debt is not our worst nightmare. More Jamaicans are dying by distress, tension and fear, than by the gun. We get a new Cabinet, a new murder record; a new crime plan, a recycled crime chief and old ideas. Thinking out of the box requires our best minds - experts and ordinary folk, "blue sky" ideas to elicit options and brains for deep analysis. Crime can be curtailed.
We must begin with "the low-hanging fruit" viz, locate and fix the things that promote and sustain crime and promote and pursue those things that can cauterise crime and violence. This is primarily brain work; not drill, spit, polish and pretty uniforms.
Foundation strategy
This has seven elements viz: (1) Publicly admit we are in crisis. Ignore the foreign press. They don't live here and we need this to mind-ready our people for action. (2) Define the situation, prepare specs for the chiefs then find the right people. Our chiefs may be expert on policing and war, but do not believe your own hype as you gave them the titles and medals as promotion; not so Master Gunner Sergeant Jones. Mr Jones' job is to kill targets to order, at 1,000 m, then disappear and he is good at it. His title tells us his skill; it is not for promotion. Our security command needs new people with diverse training, skills, experience and ideas. We have citizens who can plan, motivate forces and outmanoeuvre gunmen, but our government can't see them as they don't wear uniforms. (3) Empower citizens. If we can't trust our decent citizens with guns, our path is dark as we need their help now. (4) Make gunmanship a high-risk career so it loses its glamour. The present life expectancy of a gunman is longer than the citizens'. (5) Citizens must be ready to be tactically, put "in harm's way" to get the job done. The solution is not easy as "there will be blood!". (6) Create an intelligence agency. How Jamaica exists with no fit-for-purpose covert agency defies reason. In the Cold War era, some agencies recruited from UK campuses. A few Caribbean graduates were trained, deployed and at demob, these faceless experts went to the USA, UK and Israel. Men in Jamaica's forces did not fit the profile, as these agencies needed high-quality, trainable operatives for varied intelligence tasks. The Oxford presence of graduates (none studied police or army subjects) in the UK's Police and Covert Agencies today is no accident. Civilians are chiefs and main intelligence operatives in most intelligence agencies in the West. (7) The state must publicly affirm the gun permit holder as the ally of the forces. Please note, the majority of marksmen on Jamaica's shooting teams (precision and action) are civilians.
Tactical actions
Crime is like other national disasters. It kills, breeds fear, causes mayhem and disrupts investors, tourists and life in general. To cope, we must be self-reliant and expect the state to infringe our freedoms for a time. There is no long term without the short term, and no easy answer. Here are some immediate choices:
. Curb the supply of guns. We may try, but supply is not in our control. Also, our borders are porous and guns can be landed anywhere on our coast.
. Take the guns from the gunmen. We tried this for 30 years with no success. Incidentally, we should use "acid disposal" to destroy the guns we recover.
. Take the guns from everybody. We have never tried this. But it would be counterproductive as we would be disarming the good guys only.
. Do nothing, let gunmen exhaust their blood lust. This has not been tried (I think), and is not recommended. Death is not the end, but do not expose people to more abuse.
. Build permanent, physical cordons. Israel built a wall around millions of people and Northern Ireland's cordons were only dismantled recently. Examine this!
. The Citizens Defence Act. Enact a Law, expiring every three years, to empower citizens and amend laws that favour gunmen. Gunmen know that there are few legal guns, so this benefits them; they know that the law emasculates a permit holder; that police on a power trip may seize a gun and slap charges on him. Our security is irrational. If you don't trust our citizens why give them a gun permit? If you trust them, incorporate them into the solution of crime. Most nations in crisis would automatically deputise a gun permit holder, not Jamaica; we would rather die first, and so we may!
. Enhanced police work. The police must enforce all laws against anti-social behaviour - drivers, pedestrians, public and private order, etc. The little things matter. If they can't catch gunmen, they must be excellent in small things. We must also end "off-duty" status as officers are killed on or off duty; they may as well be alert at all times.
. Citizen self-defence manuals. We must write home, kidnap, work, car, and other self-defence manuals. These must be printed and serialised in the newspapers.
. Arm citizens. In some countries, citizens are required to bear arms to defend their nation: a rifle is over the fireplace or secured in the house. Jamaicans with a long-term stake (a mortgage, land title, etc) in our land should have arms on the premises; not a concealed weapon or handgun, but a rifle or shotgun with a 34-inch barrel. A gunman may steal them, but he can carry only one and needs both hands to aim a 710 mm, shoulder-fired shotgun. If he kicks in a door he will face a barrage of community shotguns. We would stand and defend our families. Citizens would not cringe or hide under beds. Never again! Let us think out of the box and try new things.
Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston and is currently on assignment in the UK.
franklinjohnston@hotmail.com