A man in his late 70s, a Jamaican who has travelled between foreign shores and Jamaica for the last 30 years. We have many of those hard-working Jamaicans moving between England, the USA, Canada, on one hand, and Jamaica.

When they are not here, they send the perennial remittances to their relatives, a few of whom rely too much on these guarantees of monthly cash to make themselves lazier than they would normally be.

For Mr Hunter, a retired gentleman, he would spend a few months in Jamaica and another period of maybe six months abroad. The last time he returned, he took back with him the usual barrels that Jamaicans are familiar with, barrels filled with “goodies”.

Mr Hunter was well known in the Red Hills community close to “Lookout”, and maybe if he had considered that there were enemies all around him, known in Jamaica as “bad-minded” people, he would have taken precautions. First, he would have taken note that his dogs were dying off. Much too convenient.

Then last week Wednesday, the gruesome find: Mr Hunter was found in his house dead, his throat cut.

We know, of course, that we are one of the most violent societies on this planet. Recently, it was reported that in the past year many hundreds of knives and all sorts of cutting and piercing implements were found on schoolboys — in school.

The late Motty Perkins had a theory about that. If the state could not protect our young men, they had a duty to protect themselves. But there is another side to that. Most of the schoolboys from whom knives, ice-picks and sharpened screwdrivers were taken attended the non-brand name schools, primary and high, plus it is more than likely that that they lived in violent inner-city communities.

A young man from these communities with a knife in his bag or stuck between his belt is not necessarily a youngster with criminality on his mind, but it is a rite of passage for him to have on his person such an implement capable of doing bodily harm to another human being. That it is more than likely that another school boy would want to “test” him makes it all the more important to him to have his “protection” on him.

Last week when I heard about the gruesome killing of Mr Hunter, it was being discussed by residents close to the area where he lived as one would discuss which set of “Pick Four” numbers had recently played. So inured are we to acts of violence.

A man walks by us with his shirt torn up and blood oozing out of various parts of his body as the result of a vicious knife or cutlass attack and we talk about it as a two-day wonder. When I was a child we would be traumatised for the next six months because of the rarity of such an occurrence.

Today we allow “bad mind” to envy those who have worked their way through life when others of us were sleeping or making babies which we claimed as our own, only long after they became young adults and very definitely after the single mother had struggled against all odds to educate the child.

“A my girl dat, yu know!” Yes, you worthless bum!

We murder people like Mr Hunter because we believe that people like him owe us something from the sweat, blood and tears of their hard work. We murder them because inside too many of us is the redux “cargo cult” mentality where we believe that people like Mr Hunter has an extra pair of brand-name sneakers or a bottle of cologne that he ought to give to us because he has too much. And after all, he has no right to own any excess, simply because he worked many years of long nights to attain it.

We are more deserving of it because of a perverse desire, envy and sloth. Why, after all, should someone not satisfy our desire to be lazy but to have a little bit of the good life that others worked for?

Years ago when I did national polls, whenever the question was asked: “What would you say are the three main problems affecting people like you in this community?”, the main answers would be poor roads, unemployment and crime. Those would be the headliners.

Down at the bottom would be answers like “too many bad-mind people” occupying maybe two per cent or three per cent – nothing to consider seriously. In many small-town communities, inner-city areas and rural, close-knit residential areas, the “bad mind” answer would always be inflated as, it seemed, the more people were placed close to each other, the less educated they were and the higher the unemployment levels, the more time they had to pick on each other and extend the dark veil of envy and “bad mind” to each other.

Some policemen not connected to the investigation of Mr Hunter’s murder have told me that it is quite possible that those who killed him were known to him. In Jamaica, there is a rule of thumb that one should never utter a harsh word to anyone, but neither should one feign any closeness to the casual acquaintance.

One big businessman whom I know has a theory which he says has worked for him for close to 80 years. Wave to them from one’s car, but only with the windows securely wound up. Give away a few goodies at Christmas, but never invite them to your house. As much as possible, let them know that you have a firearm and that your intentions are as lethal as gunfire. The “them” is not quite defined, but as the society lurches towards another endless round of ferocious murders, the class distinctions are tightening up.

“Dem ova dey so, stay ova dey so. We ova ya so nah go ova dey so.”

The reports of rape and oppression of children in government “places of safety” fits the bill of a society way off the rails, and successive governmental administrations whose members are more interested in driving around in air-conditioned SUVs, having minions hailing them as “Coming now, Minister” and in the leaders collecting their substantial pensions.

Oh hell, let “them” eat cake!

observemark@gmail.com