EDITORIAL - Tivoli Gardens must be retrieved

Tivoli Gardens must be retrieved

When the dust settles on this week's operation in West Kingston to flush out reputed narco-boss Christopher Coke, there will still be a major job to be done: retrieving and rehabilitating Tivoli Gardens.

For one obvious conclusion from the events of recent days is Tivoli Gardens' sense of alienation from the rest of Jamaica. We can find no other rational explanation why thousands of residents of that community would choose to rally behind, and risk their lives for an alleged criminal, who the United States wants to extradite and place on trial.

Of course, like 'dons' before him who held sway in Tivoli Gardens, Coke controls substantial resources, allowing him to be a paternalistic, but stern, controller. But something more would have swayed people into rejecting calls by the authorities to leave the community ahead of the police operations - a deep distrust, hatred even, for the security forces and other symbols of law and order.

Not new to tivoli

That, unfortunately, is not new for Tivoli. What transpired last week has happened before - such as in 1997 and 2001 - when the majority of people in the community appeared ready to side with, and give succour to criminals over the Jamaican state.

In seeking to retrieve Tivoli Gardens - and maybe learn lessons that may be applied to other alienated urban communities - it will be important to determine, with honesty, how the Tivoli Gardens project could have gone so badly wrong. And having determined the flaws in the model, it will be important to fix not only Tivoli Gardens, but wherever else they exist.

These answers, we suspect, do not all fit the ready-made matrix for depressed urban communities. Completed a little over 40 years ago, Tivoli Gardens has relatively decent housing and other physical infrastructure. They, at least, are substantially better than what exists in many of Jamaica's decayed urban communities.

Nor can Tivolites claim total political neglect. It is part of a parliamentary constituency represented by persons with real clout - Edward Seaga and Bruce Golding, Seaga a former prime minister who inspired Tivoli's development, and Golding, the current prime minister and leader of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party. So Tivoli Gardens has received special attention.

Problem of perception

We suspect that a large part of the answer to Tivoli Gardens' dilemma rests on a perception that residents have of their community: a place constantly under physical and psychological siege, which they have to defend. Other Jamaicans, not without reason, also fear the community.

The quadrangular layout of Tivoli, with its restrictive points of entry - a design influenced by Mr Seaga - lends to its symbol of a garrison. This is reinforced by the politics of exclusion that the community came to represent.

Reintegrating Tivoli Gardens into Jamaica, therefore, will demand opening of the community not just in a physical sense, but in the psyche of the community.

That will be no easy job. Old hatreds and distrust have to be overcome. Tough decisions have to be taken, including certainty about the clear route of the criminals who hold the community hostage.

The security forces, in a new community policing role, must be prepared to stay in the area for a long time. Governments, of whatever party, must be ready to be fully engaged in the community. The irrational relationship between Jamaica and Tivoli Gardens must end.

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