Dear Editor,

Jamaica has found itself in a season in which the judiciary is under attack for playing by the constituted statutes, one in which an innocent man was recently killed in a display of the thirst, by a critical mass of our citizens, for jungle justice.

And now we have even the most erudite and enlightened among us lamenting the fact that the police have arrested the suspected killer of the woman and her four children in Clarendon but not members of the mob exacting revenge in Mandeville, even though no witness to the sick and grisly crime has come forward.

We are a people unable to adjudicate on a multiplicity of issues simultaneously and, as a result, our focus remains on the most emotive subject areas. Only the immediate and the sensational can be addressed in the moment and reason and balance are being drowned out by the noise. Indeed, we are a society in a race to the bottom of the pit, informed by expedience, selfishness, and informality. Structure and order are incompatible with our objectives.

But we knew we would get here, the writing was long on the wall when progressively over 50 per cent of eligible voters felt they had nothing for which to vote.

We retreated consistently and allowed a vested and connected minority to successively choose the governments of their choice and so two tribes comprising the minority have found comfort in sharing up and trading what little is left of our nation between themselves. And even still, we consider it acceptable to betray our obligatory duty of preserving the hard-earned right to choose and change government.

What are we expecting when we have completely withdrawn from participation in shaping the governance edicts of our country? What are we going to do when the mob takes full control with our tacit approval? We are indeed in for a long, sweltering summer of upheavals, uncertainty, and discontent if we think mobocracy is the way and being cloistered in our delusion will change anything for the better.

We are slipping fast and there seems to be no check in the momentum.

Mark A Hylton

Montego Bay

markahylton@hotmail.com