Michael Abrahams | Our children are watching

Last week, a patient of mine related a disturbing story to me. While travelling to school on a bus, a little boy told her six-year-old daughter to “s**k yuh mother” and slapped her in the face. My patient, being mature and level-headed, had a civil conversation with the boy’s mother about the incident. I told her the boy was lucky because some other parents would have flown off the handle, and the situation would have probably not ended well.

Rude children are nothing new, but while I reflected on this boy’s behaviour, I became despondent as I realised that our society has apparently reached a new low. It is one thing for members of the populace to carry on like this, but more and more people in positions of authority and influence are behaving this way with impunity.

Over the past couple of weeks, there has been a spate of nasty and disrespectful comments from people in leadership positions. During a rant on a political platform, the general secretary of the People’s National Party (PNP), Dayton Campbell, called members of the Government “dregs”. Just a few days later, another member of the PNP, Isat Buchanan, who was chairman of the party’s human rights commission, went further. While on a live-streamed YouTube programme, he made a remark aimed at Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn that was vulgar and misogynistic. He quoted part of a song by one of his clients, Adija Palmer, better known as Vybz Kartel, a popular dancehall artiste, about a woman named Paula who was instructed to go and “s**k a d***”. This comment was not a slip of the lip. Buchanan said it three times. Following that incident, businessman and writer Kevin O’Brien Chang found it necessary to respond to Buchanan on Twitter by quoting another artiste, Peter Tosh, who said, “Any man who disrespect woman mussi born out of a b***h***.”

WHAT EXAMPLES

These incidents and posts are all in the public space. And children are watching. It is one thing when recording artistes spew violent or graphically sexual lyrics, or social media influencers post images of themselves with little left to the imagination. But when people in positions of authority do this, what examples are being set for our children?

And what about the principles of consequences and accountability? Buchanan issued an apology, resigned from his human rights commission post, and was called out by the Women’s Movement of his party. On the other hand, Campbell has refused to apologise for his comments and is now facing a defamation lawsuit filed by Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Member of Parliament (MP) Daryl Vaz regarding comments Campbell made about him at the same meeting. O’Brien Chang has also been unrepentant. Also contributing to the nastiness is perpetual offender Everald Warmington, a JLP MP who has never seen it fit to apologise for his not infrequent crass and crude utterances and is never called out by his party for them.

Ugliness from people

In this era of advanced technology, this behaviour is often seen in real time, and the comments and images rapidly become viral. Children are more likely to follow what they see than are told. And they see a lot of ugliness from people they are supposed to respect. There is a popular saying: “A fish rots from the head down.” So when our citizens, of all ages, see elected officials, members of parliament, an attorney-at-law and chairman of a commission, a medical doctor and general secretary of a political party, and a prominent businessman and writer exhibiting this type of behaviour, is it surprising that our society is experiencing the level of indiscipline we are now seeing? Should we be surprised that our citizens require visas to visit countries that many of our Caribbean neighbours do not require such documents to visit?

Where is our respect? Where is our decency?

While perusing Instagram, I came across a cartoon by Las May in The Gleaner where Isat Buchanan and Everald Warmington are conversing face-to-face. Buchanan asks Warmington, “Look how many times you utter crude remarks an’ dem nuh pressure yuh soh much?!” Warmington responds, “Puss an’ dawg nuh have de same luck!” On the ground beside Buchanan is a newspaper with the headline, ‘Isat’s apology insufficient – PSOJ head’. I subsequently visited the comments section, only to encounter more of the vulgarity that prompted the production of the cartoon in the first place. Two persons had differing opinions regarding the issue depicted in the illustration. Unfortunately, rather than engaging in rational and respectful discourse, the conversation devolved into the same type of nastiness we are seeing from people in influential positions. One person wrote, “so s**k you muma a lift fish”, and the other replied, “You sound more like a fish or a whale to me a defend you man, guh s**k you father.” The argument continued, but I had seen enough and logged out.

Concerned by the vulgar and inappropriate comments flying in the public sphere, former Prime Minister of Jamaica P.J. Patterson felt compelled to comment. In an article titled ‘Teach us true respect for all’, published in The Ward Post, Patterson opined, “Utterances from some in the political sphere and positions of authority belittle us as a nation and also undermine respect for all. Public respect is rapidly descending to an all-time low. The language used routinely is distasteful, disgraceful, and comments are derogatory. The tone of their delivery is devoid of respect.” He added, “We must draw brakes before we pass the brink.”

I suspect we may have already passed it. Either that, or we are perilously close. Our children are watching, and they are imitating. If our nation is to improve, we must do better than we are right now.

Michael Abrahams is an obstetrician and gynaecologist, social commentator and human-rights advocate. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and michabe_1999@hotmail.com, or follow him on X @mikeyabrahams.