Dear Editor,

Jamaicans at home and abroad must be wondering how such a beautiful country like Jamaica has become the murder capital of the world. Well, as the world knows, this did not happen overnight.

Let us look first at our independence or “dependence”. As a nation that is not producing or educating its people we spent $49,000,000 for 48 years of corruption, mismanagement and genocide. The dehumanisation of the average Jamaican has become so innate that murders and funerals are now “social events”.

This deliberate and systematic destruction of our people is embedded in our class, educational and political systems. The slavery plantation is alive and well but the irony of this is that the house slaves in Gordon House have proven to be worse than “Massa”.

The justice system in Jamaica is a three-ring circus and people have no faith in the legal process. The judges and lawyers, with all their wisdom, knowledge and wit, must be aware that “peace is not the absence of war but the presence of justice”. Jamaica will continue to be a failed state if the poor majority feels threatened and alienated by the rich and powerful minority.

I would like to know who in Jamaica can really say they are truly independent. The unemployment rate of the country is in the region of 85 per cent and majority of the employed are underemployed.

Why does the Government of Jamaica insist on killing its youth for political gain? No future, absolutely no hope. It has been a hopeless cause before my parents and grandparents were born. When will it end?

In 2010 most of our generation still signs their name by the X, with an X. The high rate of illiteracy in the country is disgraceful. Many students are leaving secondary school unable to read. Those who have beaten the odds and qualify for a tertiary level education are also being shafted by the bureaucracy and dishonesty.

The people of Jamaica need to understand that our success educationally, industrially and politically is based upon the protection of a nation founded by ourselves. We must not allow any political party to destroy our children’s future. Until this façade of a class system is totally dismantled there will be no peace, because justice will always be the right of the privileged only.

Education and the loans given to the young should not be seen as a privilege but a right to every Jamaican youth who wants to be truly free from slavery. Great minds will never manifest when it is only the privileged class and the “politically correct” children who are given opportunity.

The question is how the leaders of the country can really blame the young people who are merely a reflection of their environment?

Rev Tanasha Buchanan

tanashabuchanan@yahoo.com