EDITORIAL - Flaccid arguments by the PNP

So much inane and juvenile statements have been emerging from the People's National Party (PNP) recently that it is not unreasonable to question whether the Opposition has grown scared of the prospect of returning to government and is, therefore, intent on throwing a lifeline to Prime Minister Bruce Golding.

Take the meandering arguments of the party's general secretary, Mr Peter Bunting, for the PNP's decision last week not to support the extension of the state of emergency by 30 days. Inasmuch as we might disagree that this was the real reason, we could accept that the PNP's position was grounded in its wish to protect the Jamaican people against supposed arbitrary action by the state.

Except that there is this unseemly attempt by Mr Bunting to belittle the gains of the state of emergency in reducing crime by claiming that the positives glowed directly from the degrading of "the criminal organisation headquartered in Tivoli Gardens and (the) subsequent extradition of its alleged leader", Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.

'Franchise operation'

By some strange logic, Mr Bunting, the shadow security minister, would have us believe crime in Jamaica, including in garrison communities controlled by his party, is merely some "franchise operation" controlled by Mr Coke.

That Mr Bunting thrashes around for coherence on the state of emergency, ought to be embarrassing enough for the PNP. What, however, is worse is the trivialising by the PNP's leader, Mrs Portia Simpson Miller, of the debate over how to 'de-garrison' those communities that political parties, with the support of strong-armed enforcers, transformed into zones of political exclusion.

Liberating them is, in part, about their psychological freedom, their integration into the national community and the return of state services to them without the intermediation of 'dons' or petty politicians, heralding themselves as distributors of 'scarce benefits and spoils'.

Yet, with great flippancy at last Sunday's meeting of her party's National Executive Committee, Mrs Simpson posited 'de-garrisoning' as some exchange of residences between the people who live in inner cities and those who reside in more affluent communities.

"Those of us who are privileged would realise that we would not be able to live there for one day," she said.

Disrespect

Deliberately or otherwise, Mrs Simpson Miller missed the point. Either way, her remark - while it may have been intended to be populist, as well as burnish the PNP's credentials with the lumpen - displayed great disrespect for the majority of honest, hard-working and decent people who live in inner-city communities.

None of them, or any of us, deserves to live in these conditions, including the absence of law and order and the effective retreat of the state, to which inner-city Jamaica has been consigned by a cynical and bankrupt political leadership. The starting point for fixing the problem is breaking the link between politics and criminality, which demands a new approach to political leadership. That, unfortunately, was not on display on Sunday.

What is particularly painful about this is that after nearly a year of resisting America's attempts to extradite Christopher Coke, and his sanctioning of the use of a lobbyist to have the Americans back-pedal on the matter, Prime Minister Golding - thanks to the myopia and intellectual flaccidity of the PNP - may well have people forget his failings. They may well forget, too, Mr Golding and his government's contribution to the collapse of the state of emergency.

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