My final column

Lambert Brown

Today I write my final column for The Gleaner. Almost a decade ago, I was invited to start writing a monthly guest column in this venerable paper. I accepted the challenge to contribute to the national dialogue my own views. I thank The Gleaner for allowing me the freedom, for so long, to use their column inches.

Often these views were seen as controversial by some because that is the nature of a polarised society like Jamaica. During this time, Jamaica has had four different prime ministers, and I have never been shy in heaping criticism against the Government where I think it was due. Equally, I have been praiseworthy wherever I thought such praise was due.

As an opinion writer, one anticipated that the praise would draw negative response from readers who believed that only criticism was due to those being praised. Conversely, there are those who felt that only praise was due when criticism was dished out. That is the nature of our newspaper readers. That is what makes democracy work, because it strives and survives on the constant competition of ideas. It allows for people to agree to disagree.

It is usually the absence of agreement to disagree that breeds dictatorship. That is when intolerance dominates and the freedom of a people becomes curtailed.

Over the years, I relished and cherished the expressions of disagreement with views I may have posited. The opposing emails and blogs were welcome. The more one got was usually an indication that the objective of the particular column was achieved.

Sometimes bitter and vitriolic responses came as people's corns got mashed. To those I replied restating my arguments and the evidence-based conclusion, never being angry or returning the personal rudeness. Sometimes an apology would be tendered to me and common ground reached on points of initial disagreement.

FRUITFUL DIALOGUES

I enjoyed those dialogues and they speak volumes about the capacity of our people to rely on the force of argument rather than the argument of force. This is something great about our country. Something we must always appreciate and not be defined by the minority who resort to violence to settle disputes.

Naturally, I accepted with glee the bountiful praises and commendations which came from those who agreed with my columns. It is amazing that the same people who praised your articles could be the very same ones who condemn you later. That I have criticised both political parties in my writing is a matter of indelible public record.

To all the readers of my columns over the years goes my gratitude. My thanks goes to them for enduring my focus on principle over expediency. The focus on truth, trust and integrity was a constant part of my writing. It is so because these virtues are the things that make a people great and prosperous.

Lies, deceit and corruption are deterrents to progress and should have no place in our governance process. The reliance on facts, rather than speculation and wishful thinking, was the natural route to my conclusion. Research became my agile tool in the construction of my arguments and made it difficult, if not impossible, to contradict the positions I advanced.

Solution-oriented was the option I chose in many of my columns as our nation desperately searched for ways to overcome the issues of crime, inequality and underdevelopment in general.

Another area of our national life that was the bane of criticism in my columns was the hypocrisy of those in leadership, as well as followership, who were comfortable in extolling a particular position, either while in Opposition or Government but pronounced the very opposite when the only thing that changed was their circumstances relative to power.

Liberal quotations of previous inconsistent statements would be presented in my columns to expose the flip-flopping game. This is a normal feature of good journalism and I am intensely happy, as a non-journalist, to have contributed to this exercise being adapted more by our local journalistic fraternity. It is indeed a powerful tool in the check-and-balance role that our media must perform in the defence of our democracy.

NEED FOR FAIR SCRUTINY

There can be no doubt that our leaders face greater scrutiny and our people have a greater voice than a decade ago. What is required is consistency and fairness in how this scrutiny is applied.

So as I bow out today as a Gleaner columnist, I will watch to see how our media will treat the commission of enquiry into the events on May 2010 in Tivoli Gardens. Will we allow the issue to be framed solely around the operation of the security forces, or demand that the misjudgement of our Government, and those who composed it, be put under the searchlight of truth?

Will we allow those who contributed either by commission or omission to the tragic and unnecessary death of so many of our citizens to go unpunished?

The public defender has stated that there is prima facie evidence of extrajudicial killings of more than 40 of the at least 76 persons in west Kingston in May 2010. Is anyone going to be held responsible for policy failures? Will the same vigour and energy wasted in pursuing Richard Azan for doing good be applied to those who have further stained our post-Independence history in the blood of so many of our citizens in a single operation?

It is the pursuit of such endeavours - the ensuring that justice, truth be ours forever, as proclaimed in our National Anthem - that I will miss each month as I shared my views with you, the wonderful readers of this newspaper.

Also to be missed is the exciting times ahead with the possibility of a new era of economic growth, with national development as its main focus. Our people's hopes and aspirations for prosperity are achievable, despite the current period of pain being faced by so many.

I leave this space confident that Jamaica's best days are ahead of us. Each and every one of us has a part to play in ensuring its reality. Let's get to work.

Lambert Brown is a government senator and president of the University and Allied Workers Union. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and labpoyh@yahoo.com.