I am gobsmacked at the claim for damages by Keith Clarke’s estate. This man lived as far away from Tivoli as you can get and kept himself out of harm’s way. No money can replace him. But I cannot imagine a claim of less than US$1 million for this high net worth (HNW) professional; son, father, husband, and brother who added value to this nation and had not completed his innings. A claim of US$180,000 is risible, given that a senior police officer may be paid $40m for damages to his ego. My estimate of his education, professional training, value delivered in service, and value as mentor, guide, wise man puts a reasonable claim in excess of US$2m. His killers left the metropolis and sought him out in his salubrious peri-urban residence. What a travesty. It is hard to have to put a price tag on a person, relative and friend. Make sure you get a good up-front payment. Remember Ezroy Millwood?

What then is the worth of a Tivoli resident who lived in the belly of the beast, “in harm’s way”? If Clarke is worth so small a sum, how much is a Tivolite? Who does these valuations? Is it the same persons who priced our ancestors, the ladies on Holborn Road? All Tivolites are not equal. Some 73 people were killed in the security forces’ operation. How many by them, by criminals, by friendly fire on both sides? How many were direct hits? Some were combatants, some bystanders, some pressed into service as they would not be allowed to reside there afterwards. Those who declared their intent to wage war can be easily identified from the media.

How will the valuators do this work? Will they establish the price of a regular Tivoli resident then derate or inflate based on certain criteria? The belligerents who planned and fought the security forces should get no compensation and their estates should be seized.

The future of Tivoli should be on the agenda. It is not enough to restore things, we must consider how to excise the cancer which emerges regularly, and it is worth relocating all residents. It might become our “ground zero”, a memorial to ignorant defiance and senseless killing. Bulldoze it to create the Keith Clarke Memorial Park. He died on account of it. Or build a training ground for emergency services, a close-quarter combat zone for the security forces.

Good people live there, but Tivoli is a bad symbol. A criminal haven adjacent to our commercial and market district is not an asset. Tivoli has been gangrenous for all our Independence and we must consider amputation. Let it be a fallow field.

The English Jihad

Last week two black men brutally severed the head of a white off-duty soldier on a public street in the UK. Drummer Lee Rigby joined the 2nd Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers as a teenager, was posted to Cyprus as a machine gunner, returned in 2008 and served as a palace guard, then as an “elite drummer” in the Corps of Drums. What if our teenagers did uniformed service?

Rigby was killed last week at age 25 by British Nigerian Michael Adebolajo, aged 28. It is not often that you see two black men hacking off the head of a white man with a meat cleaver and kitchen knife. Adebolajo wandered down the High Street with bloodied hands like a Shakespearean character “Is this a cleaver I see before me, the handle in my hand?” or “When shall these bloodied hands be clean?” Or, as he said, “I want war on the streets!” The scene is instructive for us. Adebolajo and his friend Michael Adebowale did not hide — granted, there is CCTV everywhere in London — and declared they were acting in the name of Islam. They paraded the corpse, inviting the media to get good camera angles. Rigby is working class. Adebolajo is well brought up, made clear as he apologised that children saw his act. In British style, his family apologised to Rigby’s parents with “profound shame and distress”; two suffering families. Armed police arrived after some 20 minutes (regular police are not armed) and shot both men. I cannot imagine two men who beheaded a man not being killed instantly by our police. The UK police have other protocols; the men are in custody.

Islam in the UK is a polarising force and will continue so. English Cabinets were liberal with immigration, the democratic way would prevail — not so! In the USA, the subscript American-Polish American, African-American, Irish-American is defining, but the British did not promote Britishness, and so Arabs, Muslims, Bangladeshis, Nigerians, Somalis live in their ghettos. Jamaicans have never embraced this. We like to be the only ones in an area. If we work in a white firm we want to be the only blacks there. Why? Our language is an English creole and readily understood by the English. We are not a community economic force, except for pubs, hairdressers and music shops. In many British areas English is not heard, the shops are run by the ethnic groups and the food, drink, newspapers are in their language. Immigration was successful in providing a workforce, but many British think the collateral damage is too high.

The men arrested for this cold-blooded murder are British of Christian-Nigerian roots who converted to Islam. Immigration controls will definitely get tighter and Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond wants intelligence agencies to have access to all our emails.

On a scale from Roman Catholic to Quaker, I cannot think of a person who would behead anyone for Christ. One of the shocks for the West is that young men could be so passionate about religion. Males are absent from church, except for weddings and funerals, so what magic rests in Islam that inspires such zeal? The Muslim establishment says it had “nothing to do with Islam” (yet they apologised), and I agree with them; but the perpetrators said the killing was payback for Muslims in the Middle East. The parallel here is where the “love of God” impels some to injure or kill homosexuals. No local anti-gay advocate has been missionary enough to stand over his quarry and assert “I beat you with this iron bar in the name of Jesus!” or take photo ops. They hide, so it seems they doubt their act is God’s will.

Adebolajo was in no doubt his faith allows him to kill the “Kafir” (an unbeliever to whom you may do anything); and in the wake of this murder there have been some 150 anti-Islam attacks. Last Saturday, the Nigerian diaspora marched in London “Adebolajo did not act in our name”. Jamaicans have never demonstrated against the multiple murders, posse and drug killings, or when our 40-plus-year serial rapist was caught. The Jamaican diaspora never distanced itself from criminal acts in this way. Why? Stay conscious, my friend!

Dr Franklin Johnston is a strategist and project manager and advisor to the minister of education. franklinjohnstontoo@gmail.com