Miscalculating life

My BlackBerry met a sudden and watery death on New Year's morning, no doubt influenced by overindulgence in celebratory champagne - money down the drain. Who knows what this Government was drinking when it decided to flush taxpayers' monies down the toilet. It must have been stronger than champagne. The administration is spending $40 million to answer a perplexing question: who (or what) ordered a US law firm to lobby against the extradition of west Kingston strongman Christopher 'Dudus' Coke?

Umm, I think there are several million Jamaicans (myself included) who could accurately solve that puzzle for a fraction of the cost. Better yet, a $200 Digicel Flexcard and a 10-minute phone call to Manatt, Phelps & Phillips would surely resolve the issue. Apparently, though, logic and common sense still carry too expensive a price for many to subscribe.

It only took one phone call to reverse my mobile phone misfortune. Research In Motion, BlackBerry's manufacturer, agreed to send a brand new replacement - absolutely free. They would deliver the phone from some factory in Canada, Hungary or Mexico - where it was thrown together for pennies per unit by workers excited to have jobs - to my US address. My singular duty was to devise a cost-effective plan to get the phone from the US to Jamaica. While I set out to tackle this urgent task and our Government commenced a $40m expedition in search of an answer we already possess, a talented, young, up-and-coming dancehall artiste and former president of the Jamaica College Students' Council was murdered in front of his home.

In love with electronics

I paid scant regard to the killing of 22-year-old Demar 'Copper Cat' Graham - "sad; senseless; rest in peace, youth," I thought. Unfortunately, this wasn't the first time such thoughts crossed my mind. Given our country's declining, yet inexcusably high murder rate, there's no shortage of fleeting sentiments of sorrow. I quickly paid my respects before returning to my own pressing concern - I needed my free BlackBerry, right away.

We are in love with these electronic toys - encasing them, personalising them, even personifying them (I know a girl who named her phone) - but, faster than Harold Brady can refuse to testify before the Manatt commission of enquiry, they end up obsolete, lying useless beneath stacks of paper, in shattered pieces on the ground, or in toilet bowls. Before we can say, "Guess what I just got? The new iPhone!" (or the new iPod; the new Razr; the new CD player; cassette-radio; eight-track player), these obligatory devices become worthless pieces of junk maintaining nothing more than nostalgic value somewhere within the abysses of our minds.

Circus act

Rather than commissioning a parade of ideas to boost our manufacturing or information technology sectors so that our youngsters might create the BlackBerrys of the future, our Government gives us this circus. An embarrassingly high number of homicides go unresolved because we fail to adequately invest in forensic resources. The administration spends $40m to determine who among them ordered the US$50,000 payment to the American firm, while the malfeasance that led to the deaths of at least 73 Jamaicans in west Kingston goes virtually unquestioned. Were all those lives valueless?

Young Demar Graham's life certainly wasn't valueless. Endless possibilities lay within his reach. He might have someday sold millions of albums like Shaggy, or, like Bob Marley, ignited the passion and consciousness of people the world over. Maybe he would have mimicked Sean Paul, delivering the Jamaican brand to a new generation of youth. We may never know the identities of his killers - our aforementioned forensic deficiencies won't uncover them - but we do know why they killed him. No, it wasn't that they recognised the incalculable value of his existence and conceived some intricate plot to capture, bottle and sell his brilliant soul. That's not it. Demar 'Copper Cat' Graham was murdered for his BlackBerry.

Had Demar's killers been capable of doing the math, they would have simply taken his valueless phone and spared his invaluable life. Perhaps, in a different Jamaica, instead of taking a life for a BlackBerry, his killers might have been creating BlackBerrys for a living.

Rest in peace, Demar Graham; another young, fallen soldier in the battle of life.

Din Duggan is an attorney who now works as a consultant with a global legal search firm. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com or follow him at facebook.com/dinduggan, twitter.com/YoungDuggan, or email him at dinduggan@gmail.com.