Ronald Thwaites | Is punishment the only recourse?

In her epic description of repressive laws in the 18th-century slave society of the West Indies, the late Professor Elsa Goveia laid bare the underlying conviction of the ruling class.

Black people were subhuman property and that the only effective method to control them, to ensure compliance, enforce authority and set example, was by summary, brutal punishment: riveting violence into every brain, based on race, class, force of arms and often trickery. Remember Willie Lynch, considerations of causation, context, mitigating circumstances, rehabilitation, these carried no force.

Nothing resembling moral principles, whether grounded in religious belief or even secular humane tenets were evident in slave and colonial law even though the enforcers occupied the front pews of churches and lodges. Notions of respect for the human dignity of the enslaved were rejected as anathema to the dominant economic system and social hierarchy. The propertied class and many churches supported the status quo, along with several black people looking out for themselves, careless of the condition of the rest of their race. Our early national heroes were the exceptions and they paid for their difference with their lives.

That was then. Much has changed. But how much has the mindset changed? How transformed are the consciences, the moral principles of some of us leaders and opinion formers?

HARSHER MEASURES

In his New Year message, the prime minister spoke at length of the tighter, harsher measures soon to come against criminality. He sounded as if he believed that detection and punishment by themselves will result in violence prevention. Law enforcement is clearly a necessity but, alone cannot ensure safety, let alone social cohesion. Our history proves that. And in any event, the people being scraped up by the police hardly include the major violence producers – the money launderers, scammers, the drug- and gun-runners.

The Opposition has asked that discussion of a comprehensive plan to remediate unattached youths should be a first item for the Vale Royal talks. Will that be seriously entertained? I doubt it. The modern incarnation of the mentality that informed our repressive and vindictive history is alive and well. And the brutalised children and anxious young people, the “dissed”masses unable to afford food, the troubled spouses, the road enraged, all learn well that aggression and counter-violence are at the core of Jamaica’s social ethic. After all, they hear it from the highest platforms and experience it on the streets. They expect disrespect and react to it commensurately. Repression, not reconstruction, is the default position of power.

The same thinking afflicts the matter of road safety. The reaction to the higher-than-ever blood-letting in 2022 is to repeat the delusion that a better ticketing system and the increased penalties of the Road Traffic Act will be the sufficient deterrents to carelessness, aggression and incompetence on the road. Same mentality as with violence. Punishment is the first and often the only recourse.

This is recklessly superficial and lazy. The deviation of safe conduct on the roads is largely due to the fact that a critical mass of drivers and riders have never been taught, never been indoctrinated in the science of safe vehicle operation. Bribery is what got them their licences. And on the university of the highways, they learn well from the present political class with their illegal flashing lights, sirens and pretentious escorts who, along with the police, wait in no line, keep to no lane, breach every rule of the road and set a powerful example of moral double standards.

What we need is a proper system of driver education and re-education combined with strict enforcement of law. Where is that? It would require careful analysis, innovation, a resolve to cut out the corruption which supports the present system and a different level of moral commitment to value life. Now that’s revolutionary! Why not start by following The Gleaner’s recent suggestion that the Road Code should be “embedded in the school curriculum”?

GARBAGE

More half measures and slothful thinking are evident in relation to public cleansing. Mayor Williams, whom this newspaper (in what can only be called a brilliant “serious” joke) recently accused of “managerial narcolepsy”, thinks that the new garbage trucks will be the answer to the filth of the capital city over which he has superintendence, but scant authority.

No they won’t. Yes, they will help, but the real problem is much deeper. It resides in the self-disrespect, the mental and physical squalor of many of us who have been taught to think that it is someone else’s responsibility to clean up our mess. Mayor Williams (not ‘Your Worship’ anymore please – that’s blasphemous!) should point us towards the Japanese spectators at the World Cup who, as a matter of habit, cleaned up their own refuse in the stands. Why shouldn’t we become like them? Again, that would be the sort of positive fundamental change from which we demur. Which MP or councillor have you heard espousing cleanliness of their constituency as their mantra? They have little influence over the current process anyway.

REMEMBERING RICHARD

No one could ever attribute shallow thinking to Dr Richard Bernal whose passing we deeply mourn. Genial by nature, with a generous mind, deep and wide in its scope, for a long time he partnered with Ralston Hyman and myself on radio to relate world and regional trends to Jamaican challenges. Ever the diplomat, and despite much teasing, he would never express a partisan position while nonetheless being pointed and clear on the policies which he espoused. I admired how widely he read and how open-hearted and optimistic was his commitment to this land and its people.

Richard would have endorsed the wise prescription of Dr Burchel Taylor in his 1992 GraceKennedy Foundation lecture which applies to all the concerns covered above.

“Moral education is not education for conformity, for uncritical acceptance of dogmas and cultural absolutes. It is, rather, a preparation for understanding and reflection, for participation in decision-making on a wide scale, the pursuit of moral responsibility and meaningful sharing in the critical and creative endeavour of shaping the society.”

That’s what’s missing. That’s still achievable.

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