The PM has majority support on his wish for ‘social and cultural transformation’
Published:Thursday | January 11, 2024 | 12:06 AM
T HE EDITOR, Madam:
The Gleaner’s editorial titled ‘Holness, Patterson, Mitchell and addressing crime’ is on point. Again! While we all want to ‘go to Heaven’, none of us wants to die ‘before time’ at the hands of violent gangs and guns-slinging and ‘contract’ murderers–respective of our political stripe. I believe that the PM has the support of the vast majority of our people in his wish to “engineer a social and cultural transformation of the … society away from crime and violence”.
There is a view in many high places that the current mayhem in Haiti must be placed on the doorstep of France who, with the more-than-tacit support of its European and American colleagues, strangled the country with the 90 billion francs of debt imposed as a penalty for declaring its independence in 1804. This robbed it of resources to develop its people and economy. We here in Jamaica do not have a ‘France’ to blame for our descent into near anarchy. We have no one except ourselves, meaning our politicians, who have been in charge of our lives since England ditched us in 1962.
Going ‘across the aisle’ is a very hard thing to do, but the suggestion for the prime minister (PM) to invite former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson as patron is a master stroke, which I hope the PM will accept. I believe it would send his own ratings sky-high and, on this occasion, demonstrate as being patently true, what every politician says, i.e., their every move is in the interest of the country. I believe he would score the ‘full hundred’ with this move.
LLOYD A. VERMONT SR