Ronald Thwaites | On valuing human life

For Christians, this season is about the cosmic intersection of the divine with the human in a person who became one of us so that we could become one in Him. By this event, human life, the composite of body and soul, takes on sublime purpose and eternal value. Many others, of different faiths or rational dispositions, also cherish the reverence for human life – our own, and because no one lives for him/herself alone - for all others as well.

For me this year, the thrill of this faith has been muted by the nagging daily news of the slaughter of innocent children in Gaza. It is a repetition of what Herod did to Jewish infants in his pogrom to kill the Christ Child who, Herod, himself no more than a plantation busha, thought to be a threat to his corrupt and self-obsessed rule. The parallels reek throughout the ages and resonate with us today.

In the current Middle East war, the unspeakable tragedy is compounded by the fact that those who endured the holocaust of the Nazis and most recently by Hamas, have now become perpetrators of holocaust themselves. And more, despite withering international and some domestic pressure, Netanyahu’s genocide is being supplied, and paid for by the United States. That great nation-brokers death while extolling life even as they tear themselves apart over the issue of abortion. How can America denounce Russia for invading Ukraine when they are supporting Israel’s effective annexation of Palestine?

For where in all this blood-letting is the worth of human life being vindicated? And given the devaluation of life in Gaza and in scores of other wars elsewhere, it is appropriate on the lip of a new year to ask what value do we place on human life in Jamaica? How shall we better teach ourselves and others to respect the divinely-created treasure which each of us is?

IS LIFE SACRED ON THIS ROCK?

So let’s look at some end-of-year local events. Life, family, community, national society, flourish in the physical environment. Even the usual follow-line Observer editorial writers now share the concern most recently expressed by Peter Bunting that the cost of the rape of nature by bauxite extraction far exceeds the ‘mawga’ benefits we receive.

The diminished quality of life and the destruction of peasant culture which continues along Jamaica’s spinal column, continues to the detriment of human flourishing. Leading spokespersons of both political parties have at one time or another, inveighed against this. But nobody has done anything decisive.

The dead waters of the Rio Cobre and Kingston Harbour bespeak the same ‘don’t cyar’ attitude towards sustainable existence. Human life, except for those at the top, and at the expense of the majority, is demeaned. Nobody considers NEPA effective. When institutions of trust and protection are discredited, humanity is diminished. That’s where we are at the end of 2023 in relation to the environment.

Let’s face it. Jamaica was never set up to allow for the full potential of every human life to be realised. Our economic structures presume that there will always be an underclass. Our education system guarantees that this will be so. Confusing liberty with licence , we continue to think that it’s OK to marginalize the importance of two-parent families and cooperative politics.

Why do we think that the mayor of Kingston had to be pleading with families to look out for the elderly and disabled this Christmas? The meta-narrative of our sensitive respect for human life is only selectively paid lip service. It is being overtaken by the commodification of the individual. Just check the upcoming political campaigns.

CHARITY IS NOT JUSTICE

This holiday season, many of us had to depend on charity to get a Christmas dinner. What a blessing! But after that what? Don’t we see the increased number of derelicts on the streets, the eyes of the children begging, while we please the IMF? What does that tell us about the value we place on human life.

We can do so much better if we wanted to and if we were given example by our ruling class. Let’s do even one crucial thing in 2024. Teach the school youths to respect all life. Teach and model what constitute durable and loving relationships of personal intimacy, social interaction and national concourse.

Those lessons are more important than PEP, CSEC and CAPE. But they can go together. That’s very different from ostentation, self-obsession and the vanity of mental or physical bleaching.

Disrespecting human life is one of a piece with crony capitalism, scamming, heartless gunmen and motorised menaces. I am much less-concerned about “bunning fyah” for LGBTQ and more interested in promoting respect and cherish for all Jamaican life from conception to natural death.

ABOUT PORTMORE

Brazen, self-congratulatory corruption is the ugliest manifestation of moral bankruptcy. Warmington, uncorrected, and therefore, endorsed by his party leader and colleagues, has been truthful that the boundary changes proposed pursuant to Portmore becoming a distinct parish, are designed to create JLP hegemony. He wears his squalid tribalism as a badge of honour.

For two generations, the nation has relied on the fairness and impartiality of the Electoral Commission to manage all things related to boundaries. Why not this time? We were told as parliamentarians never to second-guess what the ECJ recommended. Nothing less than the referral of the entire issue to the proper authority is tolerable. Since our rulers obviously don’t respect valuable tradition or majority views, at least heed the spirit of one of the founders of our electoral integrity. His name was Edward Seaga.

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM

What deficiency of the now-discredited and comatose reform process will have been corrected by the time the Bill to send home King Charles (he was never here. It will still be we who have to go to him to beg a hearing!) is tabled this year as now promised? What has been agreed on, by whom and with what credibility? The whole process borders on the farcical. Disrespect for the people regarding their fundamental law is, but another way of “dissing” their humanity.

A BLESSING

After all the self-infected warts, it is better to live in Jamaica than in any war-torn country or one where freedom of expression is curtailed. We even have a big spiritual advantage over some richer countries where the vapid nihilism of consumerism takes the place of lively community bonding. Give thanks for our many blessings!

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. He is former member of parliament for Kingston Central and was the minister of education. He is the principal of St Michael’s College at The UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.