Echoes of MLK on police injustice
Published:Tuesday | August 3, 2010 | 12:00 AM
The Editor, Sir:
The Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr said that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere."
Now that we have the hard evidence, the blind leaders of the Jamaica Constabulary Force can see. And in my anger, I write to ask about the case of the Kentucky Kid, whose shooting and details surrounding it have been caught on tape. The only thing the police can say is that "it is being investigated".
Our nation is not only under siege because of crime and violence. We are in a state of despondency influenced by corrupt politicians and upholders of the law. With the new draconian crime bills, one can only imagine what these men and women of the rule of law will do. Dr Carolyn Gomes must be having a fit, and so should every Jamaican who breathes!
It is in this regard that I mention the crime bills. I am 18 years old, and I am not privy to all the legal terms used.
Licenced to kill
One of my summer readings is Why We Can't Wait by Dr King, whose life's work was pitted against injustice. Chapter 2 has the most interesting paragraph, and I must include parts of it in this letter.
" ... There still exists ... the licence that our society allows to unjust officials who implement their authority in the name of justice to practice injustice. Where, in the days of slavery, social licence and custom placed the unbridled power of the whip in the hands of overseers and masters; today ... armies are clothed in uniform, invested with authority, armed with the instruments of violence and death and conditioned to believe that they can intimidate, maim and kill...with the same recklessness that once motivated the slave-owner."
Dr King closed the paragraph with what is most surprising, since it is the case here in Jamaica: "If one doubts this conclusion, let him search the records and find how rarely ... a police officer has been punished for abusing ... " I must amend that last quote and say, "if you doubt this conclusion, go and watch the video which was aired on TVJ last Friday!"
The leaders of Jamaicans for Justice have repeatedly lamented the small number of indictments on extra-judicial killings. My prayer is also that policemen and soldiers will understand that they must operate with all manner of dignity, respect and regard for human life. My prayer is that justice is brought on to those persons, with authority, who break the law. If the gentleman in the video was guilty of murder and harassing the police, spending a lifetime in prison would make a far better punishment than an extra-judicial form of capital punishment.
Little regard for human life
Achieving human development through policies, removing the dangerous political divide, encouraging social equity (not only through Grade Six Achievement Test placing), removing previous forms of social stratification that have existed from the days of slavery and reminding ourselves of the regard for human life is the way of development for Jamaica.
"Man was born into barbarism when killing his fellow man was a normal condition of existence. He became endowed with a conscience. And he has now reached the day when violence toward another human being must become as abhorrent as eating another's flesh. Non-violence, the answer to the Negroes' need, may become the answer to the most desperate need of all humanity."
- Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.
I am, etc.,
RANI SITTOL