Ronald Thwaites | Comedy and pathos

For many of his age, the ninth-century Pope, Formosus, a bad man by many accounts, was the equivalent of the late Bishop Kevin Smith. When Formosus died, many hearts still felt that his crimes were unrequited. So for ‘justice’ not only to be done, but to be seen to be done, his body was dug up, his decayed corpse was put on trial (no doubt on a voluntary bill of indictment!), convicted and sentenced in 897. Like the people in St Thomas, with their machetes sharpened for the manhunt; for many of us, minds addled with continuing cultural experiences of injustice, and cruelty; bellies hungry for excitement and retribution. The whole affair was called The Cadaver Synod. The Roman public enjoyed the spectacle.

Fast-forward a mere 13 centuries or so and we have the extremely strange, (and for some opportune – remember Jim Brown!) death of Bishop Smith who, in moments of rapture seems to have thought himself, admittedly not pope, but someone with prophetic and miraculous powers.

Then, already in an emotional tizzy at the blood sacrifice and the seductive prospect of a visa-less seat in the ark, the Jamaican public is fed by a straight-faced police spokesperson, the idiocy of Smith ( a la Formosus) being posthumously charged.

This has been followed by sheer sophistry from sundry legal high-ups who want us to swallow some twaddle, to the effect that the ‘charging’ is really just to clear up the books and make the police statistics look better.

By parity of precedent, are we to take it that said Jim Brown was charged in death just as he was about to squeal on the whole Shower- supported political establishment? If not, why not? All in the cause of the cleared-up sheets! Really?

Don’t believe a word of this, they will consider that ‘His Excellency’ got what he deserved in the careening and speeding police convoy, just as other righteous crowds did when the Maroons brought in Bogle or when Sam Brown sent for Bedward.

In our idleness, we would flock to King Street for his corpse to be pleaded and tried. Would that be any less of a circus than what trying Smith in Montego Bay would have been? Please recall that Eyre figured the same thing about William Gordon, so had him spirited to Morant Bay (without his counsel being told) to meet the outcome the governor and his class so ardently desired.

Maybe we will even grease up the gallows once more for his sentence if the other ‘Excellency’ will just sign the death warrant for a posthumous execution – only for ‘clear-up purposes’, of course. “Di man wicked eeh!”

Our capacity to choreograph and then revel in the theatre of the absurd is a serious joke. Abundant breast milk, highly moral early-childhood education, and meaningful work for all are the only antidotes, since we clearly have no commitment to fostering strong family life and a less value-toxic mass media.

KEISHA’S PATHOS

I saw her standing at the Duppy Gate at Up Park Camp, good-looking but worried and holding a beautiful girl child, all dressed up with a bow in her hair, about a year old.

“Hey, Sir, when you go inside, you can ask for one soldier Harris and tell him mi need him to come look pon im baby? Dem seh dem nah let no baby-madda inna di gate, so me a beg yu. Di baby need feedin’ an mi no do im nuttin fi im treat we so.” The tears of rejection and frustration flowed. Mercifully, the baby, likely the main victim of the trauma, took no notice.

Keisha’s situation, the escalating debasement of women in Jamaica because of capricious relationships, is largely ignored by all the gender-equality advocates and social self-promoters.

No money at home, desperate for affection, turned fool by the soldier’s uniform, pregnant in grade 11, no CSEC, and now this.

No father’s name on the baby’s birth certificate either.

Uncertain how to, and ashamed of carrying the guy to the Family Court, because that would mean that he would never ‘talk’ to her again. Facing want, hanging on to the only precious person in her entire life, needing affirmation, rescue and, dare anyone say it, love.

“Hey, Sir, yu can help mi find a place to stay wid the baby. Mi will work. One taxi man seh im will carry mi go somewhere, but mi ‘fraid. Is nurse mi did want turn, but mi get confuse.”

Normal runnings. It is not only my girl who is “confuse”. We all are. We keep wasting billions on bacchanal and banality, allowing predators to mixup our money business while ignoring the decline of social capital. All this even as we leaders big-up ourselves for making elegant, PR-scripted promises in Gordon House, most of which we know will never see fruition.

Life is really too short, and potentially too purposeful, to be wasted on making existence increasingly unhappy for the majority. That is what is happening. Here’s an example.

SERIOUS JOKE

That is the most charitable way of describing the expensive farce being played out between the board of Jamaica College (JC) and the Ministry of Education. Isn’t the principle clear? If you are not fulfilling your prescribed function, how can one continue to receive wages? And if there is no fault with an individual’s performance, why are you not on the job for which the public is paying you same one?

That Ruel’s issue with JC remains such a political hot potato, lobbing between Hope Road and Heroes Circle, no doubt with a shortstop at Belmont Road, speaks as much about the weakness of the board and the compromises of the ministry, than it does about him.

But then again, maybe I just don’t understand, not ever having had a ‘permanent’ job from which one could not be separated without invoking the highest courts, wasting even more money in pay-offs, and setting hugely bad example for young people.

There will be no serious uplift in education until the Education Regulations 1980 are thoroughly reformed. Some years ago I tried to begin that change. I failed. Backward political and professional people would have none of it. One consequence was when a credibly suspected child predator was legally, very legally, reinstated as head of the same school where the abuses were alleged to have been committed.

SOMETHING GOOD

The relatively quick (11 months) and under-budget repair of the massive breakaway on the Gordon Town Road deserves commendation. Congratulations and thanks to the Government, Mrs Holness, the contractors and all the workers for this achievement. Respect, too, is appropriate for the affected public who have showed forbearance and ingenuity in circumstances of massive inconvenience.

When I went to the Ministry of Education, every works contract was running over budget. ‘A no nuttin’ was the attitude which my anxiety met.

So how about if it became the norm for every contract paid for by the taxpayers to be completed on time and within budget. Think what that would do for the chronically declining productivity metrics, as well as for confidence in the probity of the State.

It could perhaps even relieve the public perception that our affairs swing between comedy and pathos.

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.