Mark Wignall | Dangerous survival

To enter Sandra’s shop, one has to push open an ugly iron gate. At one side of a paved area leading to a hodgepodge of households is Sandra’s little board shop. Don’t be fooled. Sandra makes good money. But her expenses are high.

During the height of the lockdown in 2020, Sandra had her shop open. It was fairly easy. Sandra lives on a narrow lane running north along a well-known Kingston 19 road. It has ‘sleeping policemen’ on the lane, placed there by the residents to shut down violent drive-bys.

Sandra is 56, and there is no male figure in her orbit to offer support. “Mi have three grandchildren. One a mi daughter head gone. I have these children, and I love them. No government cannot tell me what to do to feed and care fi dem,” she said.

Of course, white rum was sold ‘under the counter’, and Friday nights were, basically, mask free and lacking in social distancing.

“Yu not afraid a di police?” I asked her.

She pounced on the answer. “No sah! Dem nah trouble we because dem know sey we and dem inna di same boat. The big businesses and the politician dem inna fi dem ting, too.”

As the Government moves to make more liberal adjustments to COVID-19 protocols, an exchange of investments of faith is taking place.

In 2020, a significant percentage of our people facing a black hole of nothingness, puzzlement, and later, fear, gave our Government the right to dictate our movement, our lives. For our sake. By our judgment in September 2020, the first investment of faith paid off. In July of 2021, the Government is handing over to the people more of the responsibilities that rightly belong to the people.

“Mark, I wish this government the best. I certainly hope that within three months, I do not see a spike in the virus,” said my podiatrist friend from The Bahamas. “As far as I know, your country has no facilities to do genome testing, so you guys do not know how many of the variants are here.”

Before I could summon the nerve to tell him to shut up, he said, “Listen. I think that you guys can pull through this even with your low vaccination rates.”

WHICH PARTY IS BETTER AT FIGHTING CRIME?

It is standard politics right across the globe in governments that practice parliamentary governance.

Some countries like Jamaica are seemingly locked into a crazy social nightmare of consistently high rates of violent crime while other countries are into varying levels of ‘liveable’ crime rates, or in other countries, the people would never allow a government any safe passage with disturbing rates of violent crime.

So what is the standard politics that I make mention of? Simple. Parties in opposition will always use an uptick in criminality to launch attacks against the governing party. These attacks are fair game in how the game of politics is positioned alongside ethics and fairness. The fact is, when, for example, the People’s National Party (PNP) president criticises the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) government about troubling upticks on gun crimes in specific police sectors, a fable is in the making.

The PNP would like more of our people to believe that they have a consistent track record in tackling gun crime. Frankly, I do not believe that many Jamaicans are interested in adding up gun crimes and the specific sins of the PNP and JLP.

The fact is, criminality at all levels has gone along its harrowing trek through the dark nights of our lives, and very few of us can say that any one political party is about to identify the magic bullet in fighting crime. “Crime prevention is a long-term goal whereas crime reduction is an immediate need,” said Dr Anthony Harriot, a criminologist in 2016.

A few days ago, I went on the road to do a most informal chat poll on a particular matter. “Which political party when it has power is better at fighting crime?”

I spoke to about 25 people over three days. Fifteen of them (60 per cent) said they were not into politics or they didn’t know. The majority of them were under 40. Of the remaining 10, six said the JLP was better while four said the PNP was better.

Politically, it really does not suit the opposition PNP to beat the crime-fighting drum. The very fact that Jamaica topped the world in 2005 in the highest murder rate under a PNP administration that was into full-blown paramilitary policing should give the Opposition party reason to cool down on this.

NO ELECTION, GOVERNANCE INSTEAD?

The Holness-led JLP administration has been most unkind in removing the target that gave the PNP present relevance. The hum of elections. Now that the prime minister has loudly stated that no elections are planned for this year, a spanner has been thrown in the works for the PNP.

Hoping that with the hum of elections floating at varying frequencies the fundraising would be given a needed lift, this no-elections talk from the PM will prove to be more than a terrible inconvenience.

With the country slowly moving towards a full opening up, many sectors of the economy are becoming restive. Information can no longer be hidden in a digitally connected world. It is not a secret that the wealthiest people in America became even richer during the pandemic. And we would be foolish to believe that that situation does not obtain in Jamaica. The JLP government has been the victim of its own ability to survive if not be the great success it could have been.

The civil service knows that there is always a little more juice to get from the mango. So there will be no let-up on claims. Doctors are the latest. Many of those in the government service know that as we head through this hurricane season, if we make it well, as the new year rolls around, the governance will be more on a knife edge.

- Mark Wignall is a political and public-affairs analyst. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and mawigsr@gmail.com.