Don’t blame us for all your failures!
Dear Editor,
Based on pronouncements preached from bully pulpits in recent months, one gets the impression that we, the common people, are solely to blame for the ills that plague our society. It is as if there are some elitist groups in Jamaican society, not least among them our politicians, who are apparently quite content to look down on those who elected them to lead as criminals and as nasty, lazy, no-good Jamaicans.
We are told we are the cause of the crime rate, which is out of control because we are aiding and abetting criminals. We are accused of failing to provide the police information on criminals who occupy our communities. And we are blamed for a host of other failures. For good grace, I suppose, the Independent Commission of Investigations has also been linked with us, the ‘people’, for the apparent ineffectiveness of the police.
If there is a non-collection of garbage, and the streets, gullies and open fields have become the new dumping places, it is again all due to the people because they are nasty. The cause, of course, is not the government agency charged with the collection and disposal of the same, is it?
Likewise, there is carnage on our roads and our leaders simply introduce new laws and stiffer penalties, as they do so often with similar out-of-control situations. If the ‘natives’ cannot drive within the law with the penalties that exist for driving offences, then simply impose stiffer penalties, and hey presto, we will now all drive within the law!
Of course, in this context we have to ask whether those who have not been enforcing the laws will do so now because the penalties are more severe. And if there is no change, are we going to further ramp up the penalties? Did we not try this severe punishment approach with the Gun Court Act? Did it bring gun crimes under control? Given where we are today with gun crimes, was that piece of legislation a failure?
Isn’t the missing focus in all of this enforcement? Aren’t the police — not the agency of government — charged with enforcing our laws? Certainly, it cannot be that because we live in an “allegedly corrupt society” it is acceptable for our police to be allegedly corrupt?
Finally, to the political elite: Please understand that we, the people, are not nasty; we are not criminals, and we are not corrupt; we are simple, but not stupid. And obviously we are very tolerant and forgiving, but please don’t continue to blame us for all your failures!
Colonel Allan Douglas
alldouglas@aol.com