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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>Cry from a cop, cry for a country</SPAN>
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Tuesday, January 23, 2007
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<P class=StoryText align=justify>Corporal Raymond Wilson, chairman of the Jamaica Police Federation which represents rank-and-file policemen, has touched us with his heartfelt appeal to our elected political representatives to go into the communities to help unite our people.<P class=StoryText align=justify>This cry from a cop is truly a cry for our country.
Corporal Wilson made it clear that his plea was primarily motivated by his desire to see a reduction in the high crime rate, and we are sure that he was further pushed by the pain of the fact that yet another colleague - Woman Detective Corporal Melissa Francis of the Ocho Rios Police Station - had been shot and injured.<P class=StoryText align=justify>But, we believe, there is something deeper in Mr Wilson's cry than just the crime rate and the shooting of a colleague, sufficient as those might be as reasons for such a call.<P class=StoryText align=justify>There can't be many Jamaicans who do not lay much of the blame for our cancerous polarisation at the feet of our politicians. We want to suggest that it is this belief that is at the heart of the corporal's desperate call.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"I believe our elected representatives need now to come out of their dark corners. come out of the quiet mode not only to speak, but to go into these communities just as when they are going there to seek votes, whether on the JLP side or the PNP side." Corporal Wilson was quoted as telling our reporter in yesterday's edition of the Observer.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Of course, we are not among those who blame politicians for every ill that besets this country. Moreover, we can say without fear of successful contradiction that much of the good that has come to this country has come through the selfless actions of politicians.<P class=StoryText align=justify>But in the quest for political power, our politicians have wittingly and unwittingly bequeathed to our nation the terrible scourge of political tribalism. In its worst form, this scourge has manifested itself in political garrisons in which residents vote for the other side on pain of almost certain death.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The political divisions have run so deep that we find it almost impossible to discuss any issue without becoming violent, verbally or otherwise. In fact, to use the words of the president of the Jamaica Council of Churches, Rev Karl Johnson to last week's National Leadership Prayer Breakfast: "We come to the table with daggers drawn."<P class=StoryText align=justify>It is obvious to us, as it clearly is to Corporal Wilson, that our politicians can play a decisive role in helping to remove those barriers that they helped to mount in the first place.
If our politicians work to promote unity among our people, many ills, not just crime, would be solved. And they must begin with themselves in the parliament of our land, where they are setting an example of hooliganism in the way they treat each other and the terms they use to describe each other.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Sadly, our politicians seem to think that they can't legitimately or effectively oppose each other without keeping the country divided along party lines. It's long past time now that as a country we demand a new quality of political leadership.
We hope that this policeman's cry will not go unheeded this time.
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Tuesday, January 23, 2007
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>Corporal Raymond Wilson, chairman of the Jamaica Police Federation which represents rank-and-file policemen, has touched us with his heartfelt appeal to our elected political representatives to go into the communities to help unite our people.<P class=StoryText align=justify>This cry from a cop is truly a cry for our country.
Corporal Wilson made it clear that his plea was primarily motivated by his desire to see a reduction in the high crime rate, and we are sure that he was further pushed by the pain of the fact that yet another colleague - Woman Detective Corporal Melissa Francis of the Ocho Rios Police Station - had been shot and injured.<P class=StoryText align=justify>But, we believe, there is something deeper in Mr Wilson's cry than just the crime rate and the shooting of a colleague, sufficient as those might be as reasons for such a call.<P class=StoryText align=justify>There can't be many Jamaicans who do not lay much of the blame for our cancerous polarisation at the feet of our politicians. We want to suggest that it is this belief that is at the heart of the corporal's desperate call.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"I believe our elected representatives need now to come out of their dark corners. come out of the quiet mode not only to speak, but to go into these communities just as when they are going there to seek votes, whether on the JLP side or the PNP side." Corporal Wilson was quoted as telling our reporter in yesterday's edition of the Observer.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Of course, we are not among those who blame politicians for every ill that besets this country. Moreover, we can say without fear of successful contradiction that much of the good that has come to this country has come through the selfless actions of politicians.<P class=StoryText align=justify>But in the quest for political power, our politicians have wittingly and unwittingly bequeathed to our nation the terrible scourge of political tribalism. In its worst form, this scourge has manifested itself in political garrisons in which residents vote for the other side on pain of almost certain death.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The political divisions have run so deep that we find it almost impossible to discuss any issue without becoming violent, verbally or otherwise. In fact, to use the words of the president of the Jamaica Council of Churches, Rev Karl Johnson to last week's National Leadership Prayer Breakfast: "We come to the table with daggers drawn."<P class=StoryText align=justify>It is obvious to us, as it clearly is to Corporal Wilson, that our politicians can play a decisive role in helping to remove those barriers that they helped to mount in the first place.
If our politicians work to promote unity among our people, many ills, not just crime, would be solved. And they must begin with themselves in the parliament of our land, where they are setting an example of hooliganism in the way they treat each other and the terms they use to describe each other.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Sadly, our politicians seem to think that they can't legitimately or effectively oppose each other without keeping the country divided along party lines. It's long past time now that as a country we demand a new quality of political leadership.
We hope that this policeman's cry will not go unheeded this time.