There are a few statistics that starkly define our current social environment. When he was head of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), I once heard Dr Wesley Hughes say that, an estimated 60% of Jamaica’s economic activity and gross domestic product is not captured by official statistics. That means that the underground economy plays a significant role in providing employment and social mobility. I give you three guesses as to the main means of production.

In Jamaica, the lives of over 750 people have already been snuffed out this year; some in the most barbaric ways. It reminds one of the Poll Pot and Idi Amin regimes. Our national murder rate averages more than 62 per hundred thousand. The weapon of choice used to commit 80% of these killings was the gun. The police further inform us, 80% of these fatal confrontations are gang related.

This situation did not mysteriously descend upon us, like the plague of locusts (God’s Army), in the biblical book of Joel. We have all watched as it slowly devolved to this. Too frightened, too tribal, too complicit, too benefited to do anything about it — until now — now, when it envelopes all our social activities and threatens our very survival.

Now don’t get me wrong, I whole heartedly support any effort to rid of us this mobster rule and return Jamaica to more peaceful times. The security forces have shown more resolve than ever before and we have already begun to see positive results from the brave, onerous efforts on our behalf. Whereas, in the past, I doubted their capacity and ability to take decisive, effective, prolonged action, I now believe that, given the support and perseverance of civil society, they can, to a large extent, rid of us this spectre.

The problems we face have to be attacked on other layers as well. Three questions immediately arise. Even if the police and soldiers are reasonably successful in purging our communities of this crop of terrorist/criminals, with the drug trade being an economic imperative, won’t a new set of goons just replace them, as we have continually seen occur, over the decades since the 1970s?

How do we substitute the income and reorient the minds, especially of our youth, from the violent and mendicant mentality, that tribal politics and easy drug money have inculcated in them? What are we going to do about the widespread, brazen, corrupt practices by our political leadership, which created and fosters the atmosphere that breeds and engenders this backward cultural manifestation?

Over 30 years ago, Ernie Smith asked some potent questions in his song, We the People/ The Power and the Glory, and they still go a begging for answers: We de people want fi know/Just where we’re going/Right now we hands are tied/Tied behind we back while certain people/If and buttin’/Where do we stand?/We have too far to go/Not to really know/Just how we’re getting there/And if we getting anywhere/We have too much to change/Not to know the range/Of possibility/And changeability/Violence and crime are common place/Within this said times/No man walk free/Prophecy come closer to fulfilment/In these dread times/Why should this be?/And as we fight one another/Fi de power and de glory/Jah Kingdom goes to waste.

Although spurred by the unfortunate shooting death of Voicemail’s O’Neil Edwards and the gun wounding of Mad Cobra, the recent activism of the dancehall fraternity in the cause of peace and against criminality, is a welcome turn of events. Marcus Garvey did warn us that “til our backs are against the wall, will we not know ourselves”. I hope that the postponed peace march — planned by them — which is to proceed from the Police Officers Club on Hope Road to National Heroes Circle will still take place, soon after the lifting of the state of emergency.

The music industry in Jamaica will have an important part to play if we are going to succeed in taking back Jamaica. We have to clean up our own act, and also hold the feet of the politicians firmly to the fire, this time. More than any other sector of civil society, we have the ears and hearts of everyday persons. Through our songs, talks and social interaction, we can motivate and mobilise them to lend support to the united cause of civil society, in pressing for the transformation required in the social architecture of our communities; and of the political superstructure, in a clearly defined, committed and reasonable time-frame. No more “if and buttin”, while Jah Kingdom goes to waste.

While most other business sectors have regained relative normality, the entertainment sector continues to bleed, and will do so for some time still. Our sector has suffered the main brunt of the current security operations. As a consequence, there has been a drastic fall-off in business for all those concerned: from the recording studios that have lost significant bookings from overseas customers, who have cancelled their trips to Jamaica; to live concerts, the night clubs and other places of entertainment, activities have been postponed, scaled back or cancelled. Most entrepreneurs’ income streams have either ground to a screeching halt or all but dried up. [In the national interest (pun intended)] we have to reverse this recurring decimal, once and for all, before we are totally decimated.

Email: che.campbell@gmail.com