Recently, I was driving on Spanish Town Road towards Denham Town Police Station and saw a gas station in the vicinity of ‘Rema’, across from May Pen Cemetery. That gas station, which was not there before, meant so much more to me than a convenient place to get gas. It represents a new beginning and a monument of hope.

If you’re under 50 years old you may be confused. Let me give you a little history lesson. In 1974, Jamaica began an undeclared civil war between two rival groups that you now know as the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the People’s National Party (PNP). Back then, they were more like militias with armed thugs and ranting demigods. Western Kingston was the centre of it all.

That stretch of road from Maxfield Avenue to Denham Town Police Station, once a hub of activity rich with culture and commerce, became devoid of commercial entities. This occurred as that stretch of real estate went from a ’70s war zone to a deeply divided mecca. There, no community could offer protection to a business place because the rival community would rob it and kill the operators as the opportunity presented itself.

Rema is officially Wilton Gardens, named after the contractor who constructed the community. When I first started to work in 1986, Arnett Gardens was a hard-core PNP community under tight gang control. It sat at the top of ‘Concrete Jungle’. At the bottom of the noted ‘Jungle’ was Rema, which was aligned to the JLP. It was also under gang control. The gangs and the political parties they supported were as thick as thieves.

The section between the two communities was known as “No Man’s Land” because no one lived there, and if you lived in the top community, you would be risking your life to venture into the one at the bottom. This threat existed both ways, as residents of Rema dared not venture up into Arnett Gardens. Now, Rema has opened up onto Spanish Town Road across from May Pen Cemetery.

Tivoli Gardens, a hard-core JLP community, is less than 200 metres down the road. It was also under strict gang control and equally politically intertwined.

Well, the violence of the ’70s almost ruined commerce on that strip of Spanish Town Road. However, in the late 80s to early ’90s, Rema switched its allegiance from the JLP to the PNP, and that stretch of road went to hell in a hand basket. For years, dozens of people were slaughtered due to gang violence between Tivoli Gardens and the newly converted Rema. Every commercial establishment closed.

As the 90s became the 2000s, violence in Jamaica became worse, coming to a head in 2010 with that famous battle that is commonly called the Tivoli Incursion. That battle brought a lull in the violence, but that didn’t last long. West Kingston became a battleground once more, and that strip of road remained a barren piece of asphalt devoid of commercial entities and conveniences that we take for granted in other communities. You had the odd bar or hairdressing parlour, a funeral home or two to bury the victims, but nothing substantial in terms of investment.

Well, in about 2023, things began to change, and now Jamaica is no longer the sore of the Caribbean. The communities of West Kingston, which include Arnett Gardens, Rema, Tivoli Gardens, Denham Town, Hannah Town, and a few others, are as peaceful as Portmore in St Catherine. Gangs roving around in groups of 20 with rifles are a thing of the past. Gang control exists in whispers, and gang leaders prefer to keep their identities and leadership roles hushed.

The gas station, to me, marks the beginning of a return to the Spanish Town Road that I used to see when I would accompany my father to work at Denham Town Police Station, before he was transferred to Operation Squad. Record stores, theatres, machine shops, liquor stores, and manufacturing businesses also existed on that road.

This gas station highlights that there was nothing wrong with the political parties, but rather the men who ran them. The modern political party leadership would never openly affiliate with gangs. This not only because we wouldn’t tolerate it, but also because they don’t seem to want it. Don’t get me wrong, there hasn’t been a total divorce, but at best it’s a hidden affair.

If this piece of asphalt can return to what it was 50 years ago, then I believe Commissioner Dr Kevin Blake‘s plan to bring Jamaica’s homicide rate to below the global average is achievable. That would mean Jamaica would have to have fewer than 150 murders per year. Sounds like a tall order? It is, but going below the Pan-American average of 15 to 19 per 100,000 has been achieved. Did you see that coming? I didn’t, and I’m trained to predict these things.

If that gas station can return from the former killing fields that that piece of asphalt represents, then anything is possible. There will be obstacles; we have been winning and began losing before. This occurred in the 90s and in the period 2011 to 2017. The decision-makers who caused us to fail in that period are long gone. The decision-makers who created and perpetuated the 70s civil war are pretty much dead.

The political system that supported these gangs, either by their rhetoric or through the government purse for 30 years after the civil war, is now a broken piece of machinery that is as out of place as Morris Oxford taxis.

So yes, I will be happy to see commerce return to that piece of asphalt that divides Rema from May Pen Cemetery. However, more importantly, this is representative of a changing Jamaica, a move away from the Jamaica we became. That was a Jamaica where disgraces like the Eventide and Orange Street fires occurred. It was a Jamaica where politicians walked with the caskets of gang leaders.

We are becoming a Jamaica where murders are rare. Gang control is confined to very specific zones, where gang members and leaders shake in their boots rather than rape our young.

We will achieve going below the global homicide average. It will go slowly and would certainly happen faster if some organisations would get off the police force’s back and allow them to do their jobs. But it will eventually be achieved.

The leadership exists. The will exists. The capacity exists, and I am sure that Spanish Town Road, between Maxfield Avenue and Denham Town, will one day be what it was before politicians chose power over people. I am just as sure that we will achieve Commissioner Blake’s ambition of a murder rate below the global average.

Feedback: drjasonamckay@gmail.com