Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett was guest speaker at the ground-breaking ceremony for a US$100-million complex, which will feature luxurious, resort-style residential and commercial units along Montego Bay’s Hip Strip, itself earmarked for a multi-billion Jamaican dollar development project.

This much-needed investment is being spearheaded by Jamaicans willing to bet on the future of the second city as a major global tourism destination.

At what should have been a time of celebration, the ever-optimistic and indefatigable tourism minister did something that is almost unheard of at an event such as this, which is sure to make news at home and abroad. He used the occasion to bemoan the country’s insidious and worsening crime problem, which creates an unattractive environment for large-scale investments, such as the one he was launching.

Bartlett was reported in a front-page story of the October 22, 2022 edition of the Jamaica Observer newspaper saying: “I really hate to say it, but I have to say it, because this confidence that we are seeing in business is being deeply undermined by the antisocial behaviour of our people. It’s not an easy call for a tourism minister to market with these issues. It is not an easy call for an investment minister to bring investment with these issues.”

Minister Bartlett, I feel your pain.

I also think of myself, who took personal and financial risks by walking away from a thriving business consultancy based in New Kingston at the height of my career into the embrace of the iconic but dreaded Trench Town, a community with which I have no familial link. At times, repositioning the “birthplace of reggae” as a major tourism attraction and foreign exchange earner seems a real possibility. But each time the people of the community who want change get to the top of the mountain and look toward the proverbial promised land the view is obscured by another confidence-sapping, gut-wrenching, tear-jerking story reported in the media that overshadows the good that is happening.

Four weeks ago it was the death of a former member of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), who was pounced upon by gunmen while attending to his vehicle which had stalled in enemy territory. Two weeks ago, and still fresh, is the shooting death of a member of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), allegedly by a 25-year-old with 16 Caribbean Examinations Council passes from Calabar High School, who seemingly had nothing to live for outside of that which a life of crime could bring. The latest incident making the news is last Friday’s wanton slaying of three men who happened to be standing at the entrance of a cook shop, one street over from where members of the security forces were stationed under the continuing state of emergency (SOE) crime strategy.

I feel the pain.

Many of you reading this column are unsung heroes. You work tirelessly in your families and in your communities to inculcate positive values and attitudes and to help at-risk youth find alternative pathways to earning a livelihood, leading them away from corruption, scamming, human trafficking, the gun, and the senseless killing. You pray for shalom, peace, and harmony for Jamaica, but you have been praying for a long time. Attendance at funerals of the victims of crime remains a regular routine.

I feel your pain.

Those of us who are part of the solution and not the problem can take encouragement from Galatians 6:9 (NKJV): “And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”

Pain is a necessary part of childbirth and of every process intended to create a new order of things. Let us, therefore, resolve, like a mother giving birth, to push harder, never relenting against the forces of evil in the society that seek to kill, steal, and destroy (John 10:10).

It is taking a long, long, very long time. But never give up hope. Jamaica, land we love, shall surely be delivered.

Henley Morgan is founder and executive chairman of the Trench Town-based Social Enterprise, Agency for Inner-city Renewal and author of My Trench Town Journey — Lessons in Social Entrepreneurship and Community Transformation for Policy Makers, Development Leaders, and Practitioners. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or hmorgan@cwjamaica.com.