I HAVE a confession to make. I am suffering from a new disease… PDSTS… Post-Dudus Stress Trauma Syndrome. How do you recognise it? It is when you cannot bear to hear one more story about the diminutive, alleged drug lord whose current status has come to be of greater interest to the nation than anything else.

We have little time to think about the future of the thousands of young persons spilling out of schools into the wide and cruel world, where their chances of survival are slimmer than ever. Few, if any, of today’s “gradderates” stand a chance of earning even a “chenks” of what the little man, who has become the poster boy for ill-gotten gains, amassed during the years that he ran this nation and we didn’t even know it.

In another time, before we all became fibre-optically connected, his departure to New York would have been followed by oblivion. But then he is not like all the other dons who were swallowed up into the maw of the US penal system. This is no everyday alleged felon who mashed American corns. This is the real thing, the biggest since Al Capone and the heyday of the mobsters – if the American hoopla is to be believed – and who dares to question it?

Dudus might be gone but he is by no means forgotten – and will not be until the last word of his trial is uttered and the judge makes his pronouncement. So long as there is techno-communication, we will hear about it, want to or not. This means that my chance of suffering from PDSTS will be with me for quite a while. Despite a resolution to give it a rest (a symptom of PDSTS), I’m still here pondering, what if? What if he had been able to leave JA last week Thursday via Al-mail rather than the more tedious process of an exit visa courtesy of our legal system?

Heavenly intervention or over-ambitious meddling? Did the Rev really not know that, if the embassy had taken delivery of El Presi, wig or no wig, it would have been a breach, our court system having determined that a case had been made out against him, which means he had to answer questions Here before he checked out for There? It would have been an error on the part of “Liguanea” to receive him into their fold, Rev. Only the Jamaican judiciary and the minister of justice could make a decision in the matter… ¿Comprende?

By later today we should know what the court thinks of the Reverend’s reasoning. What made him so oblivious to a reality which seems to have been absent from his thinking? But this is JA, remember? Anything is possible, so the debate rages on. Do pastors answer only to a higher power or do they have earthly obligations? The opinion of the court today could clarify or cloud for some people, but it is certain that it will add another chapter to the drama.

The REAL story of the week for me, though, is how Mr Golding and President Obama have kissed and made up (speaking metaphorically, of course. There could be no other interpretation, not in our PM’s Cabinet!) The delivering of the Presi to the US justice system seems to have cleared the air for President Obama to express renewed faith in our country and feel comfortable enough to tell Mr Golding a joke while they were attending the G8 Summit in Toronto last week-end. A photo released to the media showed Mr G laughing for the first in a long Jamaican-while.

Over recent weeks, we had begun to be accustomed to his countenance frozen into a patient mask of long-suffering as his political credentials were shredded in the name of all that has gone on, from the day when he proclaimed his willingness to put his political career on the line over the extradition matter, through to Manatt, Phelps and Phillips, etc, etc, but as they say, a day in politics is a long time. The storm seems to be subsiding for the PM, even if there are a whole heap of questions which still need answers. For now, he appears to be back in the Driver’s seat, especially as the anti-crime measures seem to be gaining traction.

And so Mr G laughed in Toronto. There is no report of what kind of joke Mr O shared, but it must have had a good punchline to elicit the kind of response which the photo depicted. Reports have followed since then that Mr O and Mr G did get along well and all the mess of recent months appears to be forgiven and forgotten. It is said that the Pres (the real one this time), has pledged better times ahead for our two nations.

When our new ambassador went to the White House earlier this week to present her credentials to the Big O, she also returned rejoicing. So, it seems that happy days could be here again. Will visas flow freely once more? Will those that have been lost be restored? Will Liguanea be no more referred to as a place for censure but a symbol of harmony and happiness? It sounds good – fi now, at least. And… will anyone thank the Presi for filling the role of the sacrificial lamb? (You’re joking, right?)

One question which some people seem unable to leave alone is to which of the gates of the embassy would the precious cargo have been delivered? All are heavily fortified. Since he would have got there after closing time, who would’ve signed the delivery slip? You don’t just walk in like that. There would have been no ambivalence about his reception at the Matilda’s Corner Police Station.

Okay, so let’s move forward. What do we have in store for the youths leaving school now? This year’s batch is not the first to pass out into a world which seems to have so little to offer. I have memories of the realities of “gradderation” in unpredictable circumstances. In one of those years when I ended up as guest speaker at a school where few “uptown people” were brave enough to accept the invitation to offer words of hope, I saw young Jamaicans then bravely marching in all their graduation trappings trying to ignore the armed soldier who guarded the platform. Everyone present pretended that it was normal to go out into a society where guns prevailed and hopes were few. We have travelled far since then, but for some reason, seem to have come back to the same place.

I’ve often wondered what happened to the “gradderates” of that year. How many of those youths of that time paid a high price for survival? How many are alive today? How many of today’s graduates will face the same challenge?

So here we are back into the cycle of challenge. Despite all the sweet talk and the papering over of the cracks, by those who rule the nation, today’s youth are not finding it easier than those who went before. In some respects, it is even harder. They deserve better than that… and that should be the real agenda now.

gloudonb@yahoo.com