Letter of the Day | The disease of selfishness

THE EDITOR, Sir:

Selfishness is the disease that is Jamaica's greatest crime problem. It blinds its infected victims to their own self-centred lifestyle, so much so that even elected authorities will be outraged at the crazy bloodletting, while overlooking their own criminal supporters. No dispassionate or unbiased confronting of a social burden that touches so many important areas of life.

Tourists fleeing a country out of fear or for being unduly harassed, accelerates an economic plummet with scores of attendant vices. And yet, at the breaking news of more murder and fresh bloodletting, authorities are timely in condemning and announcing new measures to combat this problem, while the evil in their corners go ignored. People appear to presume a kind of tolerable existence and hope in such state of affairs

We look outwards at them, not the objective wrongdoer. This kind of self-serving life is multiplied over various aspects of the society from drivers on the streets who want to be road hogs, coming from the back of the line to cut in front, in stores and elsewhere, you name it. Selfishness encompasses every area of life in the society much like a man in a sinking ship who tries to find his way to the upper cabin to secure himself and find some peace and comfort for dear self, unmindful of his fellow passengers ignoring the fact that sooner or later we're all sinking.

Homer Sylvester