Dear Editor,

It is most heartening and refreshing to read the article written by no less a person than Jamaica’s commissioner of police. In this article, Mr Ellington debunks the belief that being close to a problem precludes one from having an objective view thereof.

Bravo, Mr Commish, you have highlighted most of the relevant weaknesses that exist in the crime-prevention strategies now operating in Jamaica, including causes and effects. However, you prudently omitted the prevailing lack of trust in some members of the Force you lead.

Jamaica is unquestionably an “Out of many one people” society. As my son so often reminds me, Singapore is a monolithic society, and as such the trust factor has less elements of suspicion therein, because congruency is, in most cases, a product of the “birds of a feather” reality. This turn-them-back mindset, that entered the political discourse in the early 1970s, recreated and continues to widen the permanent gulf of division in our society, in which the logical and prudent course for us as one people to get together and move forward is selfishly and viciously undermined to create room for this divisiveness to rule within the realm of autocracy. This has opened side doors to the parasitic criminal element now cannibalising normal Jamaicans with rape, armed robbery, and murder, to make up for the diminishing drug trade and gunrunning crime bank.

Within a democracy we all need to be a part of the solution and not part of a prevailing problem. It is incumbent on all well-thinking Jamaicans to summon the fierce urgency of now to get our house in order under the roof of togetherness aided by the genuine will and deed to allow and encourage natural and genuine participatory interdependency. Our ethnic diversity served us well in the past, and in the world stage we excel and stand out in various areas of the arts, sports, academia, and many creative endeavours, unlike Singapore and other financially stable countries.

There was an overrated talk show host who mostly compared Jamaica with Singapore. I pointed out to him that his divisive programme would not be acceptable in Singapore. He said he would find something else to do. Unfortunately, two ladies are trying to follow his footprints in the most extreme and politically bias format. The crocodile-passion for the suffering class will not have any stoical resonance with adults. So, to dignify our civil commitment for a better Jamaica, we should work selflessly together with fixity of purpose to achieve excellence through the natural civility of interdependence pushing in the same direction.

We, the good people, outnumber the criminals who wreck the economy because they do not work but live off taxpayers, putting burden on the hospitals, the prisons, and other social institutions, while we are tearing down each other in the name of politics.

Life on earth is temporal, so when we are eventually faced with the stock-taking question of ‘how did we justify our existence on earth?’, I hope that we will be in a position of strength by identifying positive contributions to the society that maintained us, so with one accord we can quote the Rastafarian motto: “Forward ever, backward never.”

Fitz Anderson

fitzanderson@yahoo.com