Two Wednesdays ago, October 5, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said this, among other things, in Parliament: “The National Security Council, in reviewing the development plan, has observed an insidious and growing threat in the area, where alleged gangsters were capturing lands in the area adjoining the Clifton community, creating their own informal subdivision and selling the lands under the false pretext of ownership or building on it themselves.

“The Sugar Company of Jamaica (SCJ) has given warning and served notice to cease and desist capturing and illegal construction has continued to the point at which some 30 structures have been identified.

“Let me be clear, the Government wants every Jamaican to be able to own their own home and a piece of Jamaica, but it must be done orderly and lawfully.

“This illegal capturing and building on public or private land will not be tolerated. We will not allow criminal gangs to create communities in the country. We’re not an evil Government. We are not an unthinking and uncaring Government. We care, so after we have demolished the incomplete structures, then we will engage a process to deal with the structures that are complete and occupied.

“This will be a watershed moment in Jamaica. It is not the first time that the Government of Jamaica has moved to rectify illegal settlements, but it is the first time that a settlement, an illegal settlement sponsored by a criminal gang, will be treated with.”

Immediately, some — for reasons that are quite obvious — took to the highways and byways and began sounding off that the Andrew Holness-led Government was muscling-up to commit a great act of unmitigated wickedness against innocent, hard-working, and honest Jamaicans, mostly single women, who were merely trying to achieve a better life for themselves and their children.

False compassion exploits the vulnerabilities of people. This has been a reality globally since time immemorial. Here at home, false compassion is perhaps most prevalent in our win-at-all-cost political culture.

The Opposition leader and president of the People’s National Party (PNP) Mark Golding, who has a veritable Sword of Damocles — think the upcoming local government elections — hanging over his head quickly joined the procession of those bellowing: “The poor, the dispossessed, the downtrodden, and the disenfranchised cannot get a break in this country.”

Speaking from the perch of his jaunt to England, Golding promised that “compensation would be sought”. He also promised that action will be taken against the Government for demolishing homes “without due process”.

Golding, evidently felt political blood was spewing in the water.

I believe Golding has firmly hitched his political wagon to the spiky tentacles of populist politics, which is hostile to science, and the rule of law.

I think all well-thinking citizens must democratically resist the thorny traps which are being set by the disciples of populist politics.

Recall, this banner headline, ‘River clash — No relocation of flood-hit Weise Road residents — Golding’ (The Gleaner, November 13, 2020). The news item quoted Golding as saying: “There’s no need to relocate the residents. They don’t want to be relocated. Just clean the gully and maintain the gully edge; that’s all that needs to happen.”

The news item also noted, among other things: “Describing the homes on Weise Road as ‘well-established’, Golding criticised the prime minister’s address in Parliament on Tuesday about informal settlements. But Professor Simon Mitchell, a sedimentary geologist and head of The Earthquake Unit at The University of the West Indies, in the mentioned news item, noted that: “Most of the area is unstable due to several geological forces.”

Mark Golding is a lawyer by profession.

It would be remiss of me not to add that shortly before Golding’s alarming utterances on the Weise Road matter he expressly said in Parliament that he did not support squatting. Political flip-flopping is not a winning strategy anywhere. As I see it, Golding has shown us who he is. We would be very unwise not to believe him. I think he is playing a most dangerous game with the future of this country.

Recall earlier this year a long-standing battle over lands in Little Bay, Brighton, and Salmon Point in Westmoreland, which has been in the public domain for donkey’s years, reignited for the umpteenth time.

Check this: “The battle for the property has been raging for decades and saw one of the proprietors – John Eugster – being murdered in 2004 after trying to reclaim the lands.

“The tussle continued with Eugster’s widow, Kathleen, a United States citizen, for control of sections of the 867-acre property.

“Notwithstanding a 2011 court decision granting writs of possession and the eviction of at least 27 settlers, Eugster has been unable to regain possession, which is reportedly earmarked for a US$5-billion investment.” (The Gleaner, April 23, 2022)

This bitter feud has outlived numerous administrations. In the midst of this very flammable situation, the Leader of the Opposition Mark Golding, a constitutional officer, goes into the space and does what I believe is the equivalent of throwing gasoline onto a searing fire.

Consider this: “Speaking at the same meeting, Opposition Leader Mark Golding told residents that under the law, they have a right to the property that they now occupy. He said the People’s National Party respects the laws of the country and the rights of property owners.

” ‘Many of you are property owners in your own rights. You may not have a legal title yet, but you have been living on the property and you have invested in your property far beyond the 12 years prescribed by law,’ Golding noted.” (The Gleaner, April 23, 2022)

Golding is the prime minister in waiting. To me, his actions here were not prime ministerial.

Would Golding have similar prescriptions had he owned the properties? Golding is an investment banker and lawyer. He doubtless knows that the court has ruled for the residents to vacate the property. The owners of the lands in Little Bay, Brighton, and Salmon Point have been toiling for years hoping to get possession. They have failed. What message is this to local, regional, and international investors?

Fatal formula

Golding is desperately trying to sell himself as a radical revolutionary socialist. Socialism has not succeeded anywhere in the world. It will never succeed. Ultimately, the only real beneficiaries are the proponents of the dogma itself.

Ponder this: “He promised that he will continue to lobby the Government on their behalf to arrive at a decision that will benefit all concerned.

” ‘I will continue to do what I can to try and bring about a solution to your situation… I will be working closely with your attorneys, with our candidates and our councillors, he assured.’ ” (The Gleaner, April 23, 2022)

To date Golding has not given any update on his promised lobby efforts.

Last week Golding made similar promises. Will those who illegally built on lands at Clifton benefit from Golding’s remonstrations. I think not! But Golding, of course, stands to gain, albeit in a minuscule manner. How? His remonstrance is political meat and drink for the base of the PNP, which is dwindling even at its core — this according to scientific polls published in recent times.

We have seen the movie Golding is showing before. In the 1970s Jamaica made the fatal error to ignore the warning signs that worse not “bettah”, promised by Michael Manley, was imminent. We were set back for many years as a consequence. Golding needs to revisit the near catastrophic missteps of Manley. I suspect he will not.

I believe Golding’s underperformance as Opposition leader has succeeded in branding him as a political misleader who is out of touch with the majority of today’s Jamaica. He seems to be rapidly regressing into a period which well-thinking Jamaicans have long ago abandoned. It is possible to be modern and radical at the same time, Golding. Stoking fear and class divisions in 2022 Jamaica will not help the PNP regain Jamaica House. I believe the PNP will continue to flounder. Golding’s political days are numbered.

Finite resource

There has to be a national and honest recognition that the history of landownership in this country has been and still is massively skewed towards a particular group. I do not need to repeat how hundreds of years of slavery ruthlessly and systematically relegated most of our ancestors to the category of property.

Going forward, how do we correct and incalculable wrong? This is the real elephant in the room. We have tried numerous approaches in the last 60 years. Altogether these have not corrected a catastrophic abuse of human beings. Recall the land lease programme in the 70s. It was overtaken by administrative ineptitude and rampant corruption. It was discarded in the 80s. In the 90s, there was Operation Pride, during the administration of former Prime Minister P J Patterson. It was riddled with allegations of corruption.

Various Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) administrations have spearheaded various land regularisation programmes. Like those of the PNP, they have been riddled with claims of corruption and administrative bungling.

Some 700,000 Jamaicans are squatters. The reality is the numbers are increasing faster that the number of housing solutions being churned out by the National Housing Trust (NHT), the Housing Agency of Jamaica (HAJ), private developers, and individual constructions.

I think as a country we going to have to acknowledge some hard realities. Firstly, land is a finite resource and not every Jamaican will be able to own his/her or own piece of The Rock. I am not saying here that all Jamaicans do not deserve decent housing. I am saying the days of an individual 1 acre plot, with a backyard garden, while it maybe culturally ideal, is increasing becoming impossible to achieve.

I believe we need to switch our focus to approaches being used by countries like Singapore to provide decent housing. Singapore is about the size of St Thomas. It has population of just over 5.6 million, and no squatting crisis. We could learn a lot from them.

Encouraging squatting, as some are advocating tacitly and otherwise, is not going to remedy our housing crisis. Squatting is not a successful public policy approach anywhere in the world. False compassion will not remedy the long-standing squatting problem in this country either. Those who are ‘fooling-up’ and or trying to ‘fool up’ vulnerable people with false compassion, blatant lies, and bait-and-switch tactics are vicious abusers and should not be trusted.

It did not escape my notice that in the debates on the demolition of illegal buildings at Clifton, many deliberately ignored any reference to the scammers who ‘sold’ lands to unsuspecting members of the public. Why?

This banner headline may very well hold the answer: ‘The Klansman connection … Top-ranking gangster collected millions for Clifton lands’. The Jamaica Observer news item said, among other things: “The Spanish Town, St Catherine-based, criminal organisation dubbed the Klansman gang is believed to have collected millions of dollars from unsuspecting people who paid up to $800,000 each for land adjacent to the approved Clifton settlement in the Greater Bernard Lodge development area in the parish.

“A Jamaica Observer probe has revealed that a top-ranking member of the Klansman gang was the person who collected cash for the parcels of land sold to people who believed that they were in legitimate business with the Sugar Company of Jamaica (SCJ), which is the owner of the lands.”

If something seems more exciting, pleasing, or ideal than seems reasonable, then it likely isn’t genuine, legitimate, or true. In the mix of discussion of who should be held culpable personal responsibly cannot be exorcised. Far too many of us are addicted to bandooloo-ism. We still have too many in this country who will pay money to a crook for services which they can get free at a government agency. We have a great deal of work and fast.

Garfield Higgins is an educator, journalist, and a senior advisor to the minister of education & youth. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com.