There is a psychological phenomenon known as repetition compulsion which may manifest itself in individuals. Repetition compulsion, as defined by Wikipedia, is a psychological phenomenon in which a person repeats a traumatic event or its circumstances over and over again.

This includes re-enacting the event or putting oneself in situations that have a high probability of the event occurring again. To give some concreteness to what may seem like a strange idea to some; we may say that individuals are prone to re-create the circumstances and behaviours of the past which were sources of stress in an earlier period of one's life.

Accordingly, a person who grew up in a family that was dysfunctional and abusive may go on to marry a person who abuses his spouse or be the one who perpetuates abuse in his family. Or, a person who has been sexually abused as a child may go on in later years to behave in ways which seduce partners who will perpetuate abuse on them.

I have always understood repetition compulsion to be a phenomenon which manifests itself among individuals. In recent weeks it has become clear to me that institutions may manifest the same reality in their modus operandi.

This is the only way in which I can understand the actions of the RIU Group and the Spanish investors who have entered into the hospitality industry in recent years. Let me see if I can explain more clearly.

It has been the practice of the business sector in Jamaica to do all in their power to avoid bad media publicity as it is perceived to be bad for business and for generating and maintaining public confidence. It is, therefore, common practice for many financial institutions to hide from public view the fact that funds have been embezzled from their accounts by employees or breaches of confidentiality have taken place.

I have discovered that even schools which have suffered a similar fate do everything to deal with the situation quietly in order to keep the media and public attention at a distance. Indeed, the only way to get good service from some private sector companies these days is to threaten to make public the poor quality of service which one has received from their staff or the goods and services which they provide.

Many Jamaicans who know not a word of Spanish and who were unaware of the influx of Spanish investors into the hotel sector of the nation have now been made aware of their presence in the most startling ways.

The early mutterings of hoteliers that the Spanish hotels were coming to undercut the prices offered by the existing all-inclusive hotels and would decimate the already beleaguered small hotel sector were ignored by the general public or treated merely as the selfish and self-protective strategies of these owners and operators.

Things really started to come to a head when environmental groups started to protest the process by which approval was being given for the construction of these hotels in locations in which building activities were perceived to have potentially serious consequences for the environment.

From early the response from the Government was that we need the jobs and the investment which these persons were making and that the various government agencies had acted appropriately. Environmental groups were treated as mere busybodies and obscurantists who do not understand the realities of economic development.

Then followed the collapse of the partially constructed building at Bahia Principe, resulting in the death and injury of workers, the controversies surrounding the construction of the new hotel in Lucea, and now the construction of the RIU hotel at Mahoe Bay.

All along the way, the public image of RIU and the other Spanish hoteliers has not been a good one and has been filled with a number of accusations. Accusations of attempts to circumvent Jamaican laws, violations of building codes, antagonistic industrial relations practices, and now suggestions of criminal violations which have resulted in the call for investigation of the involvement of an officer of the St James Parish Council in the Mahoe Bay affair.

How is it possible for these investors to find themselves in these situations? There are those who argue that these are simply the actions of former Conquistadores who are now on a path to reclaim lost territory and to re-colonise. I believe that it is much more than this.

Part of the reality confronting our nation and those in this area of the Caribbean and Central and South America is that we are being seen as a new gold mine for investors who have long exhausted such opportunities in Europe and the Mediterranean, and which present alternative living sites to their home base in the North.

Throughout the various territories of our Caribbean, including places like Belize, a kind of gold rush is on from the perspective of the investors of the North with large tracks of real estate being gobbled up. These investors are not without money and, as such, are not without the means to employ locally the best practitioners such as architects, engineers, construction managers, and public relations officers. The nation needs, therefore, to disabuse its mind of notions that what has been transpiring has been sheer ignorance or simply oversight on the part of these investors.

The truth of the matter is that a stranger cannot come into another person's home and do as he pleases without respect for appropriate boundaries. But if mothers and fathers are prepared to hand over their daughters to philandering men because of the money that can flow from such activity, then violations can run amuck without sanctions.

So, while Jamaica needs investment and all the jobs it can muster, the people of Jamaica and the Government, which represents the people, must set boundaries of acceptable standards and behaviour within our national borders.

It is my opinion that we are being guided and governed by a philosophy of pragmatism in this regard, which is taking us into dangerous waters, and those who do not agree are simply being marginalised and treated as irrelevant or anachronistic.

It is left to be seen if current strong pronouncements on the Mahoe Bay case will stand or be met later by expedient compromise that settles the issue with a fine and a slap on the wrist. Already there are voices now whispering but are soon to increase the volume, saying that we ought not to take any action that scares off investors.

One may also ask the question, how is it possible for the construction of an unauthorised fourth floor at Mahoe Bay to have reached that stage before the violations were spotted? The reality is that our parish councils are not doing their work. The high fees paid for securing an approval of building plans is not just about providing the Government with another source of income. It is to pay the cost of having building inspectors make periodic visits to every construction site in order to ensure that what is being constructed is what was approved.

Simple-minded folks like myself would have imagined that a project as large as the one at Mahoe Bay would receive frequent visits, but such are the fallacies of simple-minded people. It may very well be also that, having employed some of the best professionals in the business, the RIU Group has learnt that no violation of building codes is ever demolished.
All they need to do is check with the KSAC and ascertain when last have they demolished a building that has violated the codes? And if this meets with silence, they can ask the same question of the other parish councils.

It may be the case, however, that the Spanish investors have been reading the reports of northern moral exemplars who have ranked us among the corrupt nations of the world in which to do business and so they have figured that in coming to Jamaica they could come with two building plans, the public and the private.

Apparently some persons within the system have vindicated their thinking. Another truth from which we cannot escape is the fact that corruption is a two-way process contrary to the pronouncements of our northern moralists. To this end, while we pursue criminal investigations against agents of the parish council, we must understand that those criminal investigations must be understood to involve implications for the hoteliers, if proven.

So far, the RIU hotels and the other Spanish ones have been attracting a large clientele and offering a good product.
It should be evident to these investors, however, that if the environment is not hospitable the clientele will feel its impact and withdraw their business.

It is incumbent upon these Spanish investors and their hotels that they read the signs well and understand that we seem to be coming back to the same place and seeing the same stresses and traumas being re-enacted, and that this is not acceptable to the Jamaican people.

It is true that in the case of individuals, who are prone to repetition compulsion, they need a source of external intervention to help them break the cycle and, perhaps this is what is needed to help our Spanish investors bring a new dynamic to bear on the existing situation.

The other side of this reality, however, is that no external source of intervention can break the repetition compulsion cycle for persons and, I dare say, institutions which do not acknowledge that they have a problem on hand.

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