Dear Editor,

Jamaica has gone down the drain. Even to the point where we are calling murder justice, and glorifying death and destruction. Has anyone ever stopped to think what caused all this? What has brought the country to a state of total disarray? Men raping women and men, boys and girls, even babies. This is a country where we brutalise gay men and women through physical acts and music. Life, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. For now the country is being overrun with homosexuals who roam about freely (as they should ), and murder and crime are open and public. For decades Jamaica did many “in the dark” crimes and no one said anything. Now when it’s open we all have something to say.

Explain to me how the ghetto can have men roaming and killing innocent people, then being considered “protectors”. What protection are they providing? “Cops are dirty” is a common statement we throw around. Sure, there are a few rotten eggs. What is also true is there have always been far more criminals than there have been bad cops.

The same people who go around telling you not to “snitch” are the same ones doing the crimes. Now you have a mass of people saying snitching is bad. OK, well it’s all fine and dandy till it’s your child or family member that gets murdered or raped and now it’s: I want justice. Where is the government? No, Sir, no, Ma’am; it’s, where were you when the other person needed you to snitch on the criminal so he could have got caught and his crimes put to an end?

The entire situation is really “you reap what you sow”. While that is sad and a very harsh statement, it is nonetheless the sharp knife needed to poke some of us into action. Nowhere in history has a fire been put out with more fire. It simply causes a bigger fire. The Bible says a soft word turneth away wrath. That’s a true statement that most of us overlook as we cry out bloody murder and injustice at every turn. The politicians didn’t ruin Jamaica — the people did. Constant injustice against their fellowman has caused a state of total mayhem where we cannot even tell truth from lie, fact from fiction, justice from injustice.

Ghetto people are no longer really what they used to be. Old-time ghetto people were hard workers struggling and providing as best they could, looking for a way out for themelves and their loved ones. Now it seems most of today’s ghetto youth are looking for fast cash and robbing the poor to feed the poor. Murdering themselves to what end? This is not the ghetto that my generation and the ones before me knew.

I am a product of the ghetto and very proud of it. I am a Jamaican and proud of that too. But the island that claims to be Jamaica is sadly not so. When we explain what it was like to grow up in Jamaica in my time and before, the story is far less gruesome.

Gavin Anthony

Texas, USA