WHERE ARE WE NOW? The fugitive is still on the run… We’re arguing the crime bills… We’re trying hard to paper over some of the cracks… We want to build a new Jamaica, as soon as possible. We’re determined to get back to normality – but what’s really normal round here?

Everybody has their own questions without answers. Mine is to find out whether young men – some say boys – from other parts of the island did come in to town as mercenaries, guns for hire, to take part in the Battle of Tivoli. If it is true, that’s scary. I don’t even want to think that we could be breeding child soldiers.

At the moment, there are persons determined to “take back Jamaica” from the evil ones. In some (happily, not all) of the discussions, however, there is an element of naiveté. To hear some persons talk, if we can just get cracking now, we can sort it out in no time. Other wiser heads caution that it will take time and resources, even more than we have to give. We have a right to dream big for a better future, but there is something to be said for the old caution “tek time mek haste”.

Some of the theories for fixing what’s broken include the dream to convert Tivoli into a middle-class community, according to the lead story in last week-end’s Sunday Observer in which seven JLP politicians shared their views on the future for the community, generally referred to as a party stronghold. Minister of Education Andrew Holness articulated a middle-class vision. He is quoted as saying, “At the end of the day, Tivoli will emerge as a middle-class community with middle-class values and social attitudes… In time, Tivoli will change their attitudes and embrace a new vision that Jamaica will ultimately be proud to embrace.”

With all respect, I’m not sure if it is middle-class values which will qualify this or any other community to become acceptable to the rest of the country. Class alone won’t save us. It will have to be new attitudes towards integrity, honesty, decency, self-sufficiency and all the other qualities which seem to be eluding us now – not only in the so-called garrison, but even in the most upscale enclaves which are not without their share of dark secrets. It might be good to remember that it is not only the people below the hill who renege on utility bills and mortgage obligations.

The other six politicians in the Sunday Observer story, as quoted, all seemed to see Tivoli’s future as having to do with infrastructure and physical “things”. Agriculture Minister Christopher Tufton is quoted as wanting to see a Tivoli “where the people are prosperous”. Mr Karl Samuda wants a model of development which could be copied.

I was interested most in Dr Horace Chang’s observation that the urban renewal model on which the community was founded “should have been extended to neighbouring communities like Denham Town, Fletcher’s Land and surrounding communities”. Truer word was never spoken. It is a hopeful sign that even one person in a position of power is willing to admit that part of Tivoli’s negative legacy is its favoured isolation which has served to separate it from the reality of life around.

A LOT OF HYPE is being given now to all kinds of grand ideas about how social transformation is to take place. People seem to be expecting it to happen any day now, almost as if we were mixing instant coffee into hot water. We are all desperate for ease from the crushing weight of lawlessness which has us beaten down, from lower to middle to upper class. (Yes, even that last group has been paying the psychic price, never mind the parties which fill the social pages.)

Neither the constituency of West Kingston nor any other area can go forward in isolation, especially founded and sustained by political nepotism. If the plan is to rescue only some chosen spots from the terrible blight which is not selective in who it diminishes, then we are only asking for more trouble. Whether PNP or JLP, all the rotten, bruck-down areas which deface the nation need urgent attention.

One has to wonder if some of the persons who are offering all kinds of ideas for a brighter tomorrow have ever really looked at the reality of today. “Pop-down” is a mild word for what you find in too many areas where people live amid rotting buildings, broken streets and a woeful absence of even basic facilities for civilised living. No wonder there are so many angry young men there who are willing to wage war and believe the promises of dream-peddlers.

Experiments of social transformation have been tried before, in case we’ve forgotten. Talking of “middle-class community”, no one is speaking of the experiment launched by the National Housing Trust from 2003 to 2007, as an initiative of the then government to construct some 300 housing units in the Kingston Metropolitan area, specifically to transform “pop-dung” communities.

New units which could pass for middle-class uptown apartment complexes were erected in what some would call “unlikely places”. Ninety-four units now stand at little King Street, Denham Town, 186 at 88-100 Spanish Town Road and 248 at 231 Spanish Town Road, not far from Tivoli. We hardly hear how they’re doing.

There’s a scheme called Monaltrie off Half-Way-Tree Road with 48 units. Trench Town got 256 units and Denham Town (Block J) got 344. Repair work was carried out in Tivoli Gardens as well as other “Gardens” extending to August Town, East Kingston and Fletcher’s Land in the other direction.

It is expansion of this type of community development which we should be talking about, as we go to borrow money once more to build yet another dream, with little thought of its real future. Notice how little is said about encouraging and insisting on people’s sense of honour in shouldering their responsibilities when they are brought into a new and improved situation. The overall objective, surely, should be to do all that is possible to improve conditions in as many of those neglected, rundown areas and to involve the citizens in their own salvation.

The business of “getting a bly” because of political affiliation or donman patronage has to be discouraged and stopped. If we are to end the preckeh, we all know where we can begin this time round, don’t we?

gloudonb@yahoo.com