ONE of the most distressing moments I have encountered in my work with people is to listen to adults whose storyline is punctuated with experiences of pain from their childhood — pain which never seems to abate.

One such experience which many adults carry with them is the lack of affirmation from their parental figures which has left them with a fractured sense of self. These are adults whose parents were not evil but misguided, and who believed that if a child was offered praise and affirmation the child’s head would “swell” and become conceited. Longing for the affirmation of parents, these children would try their best to win the same, but each accomplishment was never enough for the parents.

So, a child scores 80 per cent in a test or places second in his or her class, and the only response forthcoming from the parent is, “What about the 90 per cent and 100 per cent, or what about the first place?” Never a word is uttered to the effect that “You have done well and I am proud of you”.

Not surprisingly, many of these children eventually give up in frustration and defiance, while others spend a lifetime pursuing the parental approval which will never be forthcoming. The truth is that parents who find it difficult to offer affirmation and praise to their children carry in a self-perpetuating way the same fractured self and deficits which they picked up from their family of origin.

As is true of families, so is the case of the society. The events of the last two weeks have served to demonstrate that we are a people who find it difficult to offer affirmation to each other. On the eve of Labour Day, this nation was in a state of panic and anxiety. It was a day on which we were hearing of the attacks on 14 police stations and the gutting of several by fire.

Each newscast carried chilling reports of increasing gunfire all over the city of Kingston and other townships. Most of us needed no news reports to get a sense of what was happening as we could hear the gunshots as if we were in a war zone. That night, several policemen were ambushed, two of them were killed and others injured as they came to the rescue of a motorist on Mountain View Avenue.

The police were also put on a state of high alert as the word was out that any police officer should be shot on sight. All of this was taking place against a background of the barricading of Tivoli Gardens, with police intelligence reporting a stockpiling of weapons and a concentration of criminal elements from all over the island in Tivoli Gardens, in order to resist an attempt by the security forces to serve an arrest warrant on Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.

Up to this point, what the country was witnessing was the criminal element challenging the forces of law and order and, by extension, the very democratic process by which our society is ordered. In addition, as we now know from the statistics released, we were already accounting for nearly 650 murders in five months, and most of us were living in fear and trepidation, wondering who would be the next statistic to have his or her head severed, as simply shooting a victim was now apparently deemed too easy and too civilised.

The decision by the Government to declare a limited State of Emergency in Kingston and St Andrew was a direct response to the prevailing situation. Without doubt, the declaration of the State of Emergency is a drastic action and should not be invoked lightly. Neither should the invocation be treated lightly by citizens. It is by definition not a baby-sitting exercise or a Sunday School class.

What we are in fact doing is asking the members of the security forces to put their lives on the line for us as they seek to restore order to what has become a violent and deadly situation. In putting them on the front line while we stay in the safety of our homes, we forget that they are spouses, parents, children, colleagues and family members like everyone else.

Yet it appears that once we have placed them in the line of fire we step back and leave them to face the bullets, and from our safe positions, withhold or withdraw whatever support, praise, or affirmation they would expect or deserve. Nevertheless, we expect them to carry out their duties with diligence and zeal, and with due regard for the rights of citizens.

Within hours of their assignment, the members of the security forces had become the villains in a strange twist of fortune. Although they were the ones carrying the legal weapons in a confrontation with those with unlawful weapons, they were the ones being required to justify each decision to use a weapon when faced with a life-threatening situation.

Others expected the media to have cameras accompanying the security forces each step of the way so that the society could have the action live and direct and be able to assess the legitimacy of their actions. The barrage of criticisms which have been forthcoming have sent a demoralising message to the members of the security forces. Many citizens have sought to justify the position they have taken in relation to the members of the security forces by pointing to the serious undermining of trust between the police and members of the society which has developed in recent years.

If there is one thing that can be learnt about the damaging of trust from the marital relationship, it is that it is one of the most difficult things to restore. Furthermore, those who see themselves as the victim can set in motion an oppressive cycle of tests which ends up leading to the demise of the relationship.

The constant need for assurance that each moment of the day, each telephone call, and each encounter with another person is not another manifestation of a violation of trust becomes too much for the other party to withstand. Many of us have reached a point in our relationship with the police that we believe any negative report which is carried about them in the media. And we distrust or dismiss any release which they offer concerning an incident in the public domain.

The truth is that the police and the military, in the exercise of the current operations under the State of Emergency, will never get any support or affirmation from us, and any news report, even if prefaced with the disclaimer “unconfirmed reports suggest that”, we opt to accept this assessment of the situation.

I want to affirm the work that the police and the military have undertaken as crime fighters in the present situation, and to encourage them in their very challenging mission. It is not a statement of endorsement of every action which takes place during the operation, as there will always be room for error and a wrong call in a situation where split-second decisions must be made and when one’s life is threatened.

It is for this reason that along with the declaration of the State of Emergency there has been put in place a review committee, and there is a public defender who can deal with issues of excesses and the abuse of the rights of citizens.

What I believe has happened is that we have suddenly become aware that what is confronting us is not some kind of surgical operation in which we remove a cancerous mass and then restore health to the body. We are now realising that behind all of that criminality stand young men who are barely in the prime of their life, parents, spouses, partners and children, who not only love these criminal young men, but benefit from their criminal activities and are loyal to them regardless of the cost.

The body count after the entry of the security forces into Tivoli Gardens and other parts of Western Kingston, as well as the outpouring of emotions from the families and other residents of these communities, have made us vividly aware of the humanity of these citizens. Suddenly, people whom we have ignored or simply dismissed have now taken on a human face. Rather than face our complicity with the system which has created this monster and cancer, we have resorted to certain diversionary tactics.

The first of these is to find a scapegoat on whom to cast the blame. For a long time we have simply attributed the blame for all the evils of our society to the politicians, but that has now lost some of its novelty, and so we have found in the security forces the persons and institutions to blame for what has gone wrong and is now confronting us. So many of us have become experts on policing and the rules of engagement in a State of Emergency. We do not even need to listen to anything from the spokespersons for the security forces because we have already determined what is the truth.

The second strategy which has emerged is that of profiling. Individuals, groups and institutions are now jostling for position as the defenders and advocates of the victimised of Tivoli Gardens and Western Kingston. New groups with euphemistic names arise daily, and even the political party officials who have created the conditions for the cancerous criminality now manifested in Tivoli Gardens and Western Kingston, but which stalks just about every constituency in this land, have now become the defenders and advocates for these poor victimised people.

I continue to affirm the fact that a coup has taken place in Jamaica over the Government’s handling of the extradition request and the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips affair, and we have given expression to a level of consensus which has brought about an unprecedented apology from the prime minister, and which signalled to the Government that we are not prepared to continue with the level of corruption and criminality which now plague the land.

To that extent, I believe that we must claim some responsibility and alliance with the declaration of the limited State of Emergency as a first step toward the transformation of our society. What seems to be emerging at this time is a dissipating of our energies as a society, leading to a possible abortion of what could be the birthing of a new era for our country.

I recall that as a boy entering high school we were timetabled for Physical Education. The late Al Phillips was the sportsmaster and coach at the time. Most of us who had come from primary schools had no experience in playing football in a constructive manner. We played what the then headmaster called “scrimmage” in which each boy was his own team and was out to score a goal. Al Phillips had to take us from a background of “scrimmage” to an understanding of the game of football.

The transformation involved understanding what it means to be a part of a team and not the team. The second thing he taught us was how to keep our eyes on the ball at all times. It took quite a while for us to learn this lesson and to put it into practice. Sadly, some of us probably never internalised that lesson.

My great fear for us as a country today is not the criminal, but the rest of us who want to function solo as the team, and also that we will take our eyes off the ball and, in so doing, forget the game plan which is about transformation rather than the restoration or maintenance of the status quo of criminality and corruption.

— Howard Gregory is the Suffragan Bishop of Montego Bay