Dear Editor,

Easy returns with little or no effort has always been Jamaicans’ favourite attraction. Not ‘easy’, as in in being more modern or cool, but in outright ‘ginnalship’ and ‘bandoolosim’.

Our culture of fraud and conmanship is fierce and gains ascendancy against a view that those who play by the rules are those who get shafted.

While dishonesty destroys its accomplishments in the long run, it undoubtedly is the central stimulus that excites a Jamaican into get-rich schemes and a number of growing ‘three-card’ activities.

One of the pillars that sustains ginnalship and Anancyism is its enduring victim complex, wherein a man can strip you of your belongings because you own too many and he none or too few. He’s therefore justified in his crime and suffers no moral nuisance or the pangs of a guilty conscience.

It’s funny that Anancyism can transform the real victims into the true villains and culprits as often the case when returned residence are murdered for being capitalists and down pressers. “Man a sufferer” is therefore a necessary tool for depriving and plundering others of their resources while leaving the criminal with a free and clear conscience, such that, even after being convicted and landed in jail, the prisoner seems perfectly right in crying injustice.

Anancyism teaches entitlement on the basis of your existence only — no toil no stress, except for those who truly sweat. It is the bed that feeds corruption inefficiencies and amateurs where indolence and sloth are often mistaken for being quick and smart.

Anancyism is systemically corrosive and a function of blight and fosters impoverishment. It is economically repressive, for it survives by the art of gimmicks and tricks, instead of true growth creation.

Homer Sylvester

Mount Vernon, New York, USA

h2sylvester@gmail.com