Ronald Thwaites | Behind the events

Each week I try to draw thoughts from my experiences and observations.

“You cyant stop me from talk. I have my feelings and nobaddy going cork up my mout,”she sneered at me. I was conducting a funeral in the inner city and my girl and a few others were complaining about the arrangements, generally cussing and seriously disturbing the worship.

Breaching the order of the funeral service, showing disrespect for the occasion were their ways of expressing anger and self-promotion. Having been signalled from childhood by parents, community culture and school that their bodies and lives had little dignity, meaning, and prospect of achievement, they had come to believe that lie and behave accordingly. Brawling out themselves, getting as much of what they want, right now, become the supreme ideals, no matter who or what they affect.

Then there is the guy, a motorcyclist, who, stopped by three policemen, though papers in order, was ordered to the station on Friday afternoon, phone and pouch taken away, threatened to be locked down then asked, “What you can do fi yourself?” $100 grand was the tax. No GCT. No “conditions apply”. A wise investment when you think of his options.

The paralegal I know, who operates two taxis as a non-taxable “roast”, speaks openly about the stash that has to be kept to “deal with” the police and the transport authority inspectors. “Drive according to the law and they won’t stop you,” I countered with a frown. “Which law? Police drive like law don’t apply to them; you politicians with the blue lights and siren, don’t check for law. So is only taxi-man who must wait in line?”

AT YEAR-END

The year 2024 ends with disorder, careless individualism and corruption stalking the nation. The to-and-fro regarding the breach of building approvals by our leaders is a farce. Everybody knows how it go.

The $20-30 million given to each MP to fix potholes deserves the same suspicion. Who will account for that? And wait: should it be the responsibility of law-makers to fix potholes and isn’t it an embarrassing fact the under the colonial Public Works Department, roads, gullies and drains were better maintained than now?

VIRTUOUS FOUNDATION

The underlying values hidden deep in the foregoing stories and events are what is keeping the country back. The liberal tradition, born of the Enlightenment, presumes that acting on one’s desires ought always to be pursued towards personal virtue and within a context of the good of all- or at least not to harm others.

We are bastardising liberal values by the selfish individualism of my girl at the funeral or the corruption of the cops who abuse with impunity the power to arrest. And as classical commentators have always taught, private immoral acts, when they become widespread and normative, as my taxi owner observes and the universal breaches of the building code confirm, will sabotage public well-being.

The damage can be contagious and almost irreversible. The big problem affecting the illiterate children in a high school which I am observing, is not dunceness but hunger and poor and often violent socialisation. Suppressed anger and unresolved trauma are major obstacles to learning and acceptable social relations. Remedial education efforts which do not deal with these realities will have minimal chances of success.

IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN

Public sector wage negotiations are to start soon, once again without correlation between remuneration and productivity. As night follows day, in an election year, significant increases will be awarded and no increases of output spoken of let alone measured and actualised. Without more, public service costs will soon slide up to 15 per cent of GDP.

The cargo planes are bringing tons of personal imports to the country every day- from toilet paper to drinking water, while only 12 per cent of imports produce productive goods and 26 per cent is for food much of which we could grow and 28 per cent for oil, for which we have an insatiable appetite.

WHAT ARE WE LIVING FOR?

In the absence of a powerful meta-narrative for life and inclusive well-being in Jamaica, my girl will continue her selfish preening, law enforcers will continue to exact penalties on the street, children will continue to be ill-educated and foreign tastes will increase the pressure on the dollar.

So-called private morality, outside of the confines of law, has a huge interplay with the public domain of national policy, budget decisions and law. Power and money override this interplay for the few but cannot a wholesome, inclusive society create.

Robert George reminds us that John Adams, one of the founders of the United States, was convinced that their Constitution was made for a moral and religious people “ and is wholly inadequate for the government of any other”. George continues: “ people lacking in virtue can be counted on to trade liberty for protection, for financial or personal security… for being looked after”. Is he describing us?

OUR QUESTION

The question for us this year-end is how to “form people fitted out with the virtues making them worthy of freedom and capable of preserving constitutionally limited government even in the face of strong temptations to compromise it away”. Character education and its reinforcement at ‘bush mouth’ must take precedence over even literacy, numeracy and STEM. Where will we begin?

THE WAY, TRUTH AND LIGHT

Consider the stripped-down Christmas story of the One who abandoned His omnipotence to be born in a cow pen, live among dispossessed and pock-marked like us; heal many, yet be rejected, die as a criminal yet rise in victory; all to show us the ways of virtue and the common good. He bids us to follow Him.

For some, the story is a myth. For others, it is the spinal column of our faith. In either event, what an example of love, power and goodness!

Christmas 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