Garth A. Rattray | In discipline vs indiscipline

In discipline our salvation lies to the problems that we’re facing,

Indiscipline lays waste to our lives, if it we keep embracing.

The crass, crude and boorish ways with which we treat each other

Permeate all aspects of our lives, and the things that really matter.

Get out of their way, let them pass, it seems we are forgetting,

That they own the roads, they don’t care, their behaviour leaves us fretting.

They do as they dare, hog everyone’s share, it’s them before all others,

That won’t get us far, when we need help from our sisters and our brothers.

Killing, cheating, stealing, extorting, backbiting and scamming, too,

Tear us apart, they don’t make friends, they dissolve our nation’s glue.

We won’t achieve, if we keep trying to do things on our own,

This is bigger than you, we need us, we can’t beat it all alone.

Children come through us, not from us, that’s what a prophet once said.

We must love, respect and care for them, but some abuse kids instead.

When they grow into reptilian demons and unleash terror upon the land,

We are bewildered and afraid, although they’re moulded by our own hand.

In discipline they should have been raised, to care deeply for this nation.

But indiscipline has made them dependent and helpless in every situation,

So, they use the only techniques that served them well in the past.

“I don’t care, it’s me before all others, it’s me first and you last.”

It’s bumping and boring, crowding and ignoring the social-distancing rule.

If you want to get ahead, you can’t be nice instead and tan deh like a fool.

It’s hand to mouth, man haffi eat, daily hustle is the name of the game,

The virus loves dense crowds, ignoring that is nothing short of lame.

Overcrowded homes and tenement yards are what this virus needs,

To invade your bodies and replicate, on healthy cells it feeds.

In discipline they would know this and understood it down to their very core.

Indiscipline breeds ignorance, now we’ve got much worse things in store.

The corruption that we’ve been nursing has blown up in our faces.

Preferential treatment based on wealth is in far too many places.

Left alone to their own devices, most businesses would prefer

To feather their nests, the stringent measures they certainly will defer.

Defiant and dumb, some announce to everyone that we’re not here to stay,

Ignoring the fact that their actions will in fact affect many others one day.

Going about as if nothing has changed is arrogant tenacity of purpose,

Their simple-minded actions make everyone with any sense very nervous.

In our Jamaican society, where little things don’t ever seem to be important,

A little infraction here and there makes law-abiding seem discordant.

Those ‘little things’ eventually add up to widespread breaking of every rule,

But we can’t survive without them, we need discipline, it is our best tool.

We knew it would catch up with us one day, this undisciplined way of life.

It’s always led us down the path of poverty, violence and strife.

And now we’re headed for troubled times, we need everyone the most,

To adhere to rules and regulations, east, west, south and the north coast.

And now we find ourselves in quite a bit of a pickle.

We can’t impose severe restrictions, because many survive on a trickle.

Their hand-to-mouth existence leaves no room for them to accumulate

Money and food, all the necessities of life lie outside, not within their gate.

In discipline we would have kept our COVID-19 cases very low.

In discipline we would have been able, the whole wide world to show,

That Jamaica could have been the nation that tamed this terrible plague,

But indiscipline reared its ugly head, and now our future is very vague.

Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and garthrattray@gmail.com