What will save Jamaica?

By Garth A. Rattray

As I see the rising tide of hopelessness and hear about the increase in criminal activities across our little island home, for the first time in my life, my optimism for our recovery is being insidiously smothered by an inexorable creeping pessimism.

I try to think positive thoughts and look for the proverbial silver lining, but interminable news reports of killings, burglaries, robberies, along with several other major crimes, darken my view of our future.

Numerous crimes are happening all around us. Many, or perhaps most, are unreported because the victims don't feel that the system has the manpower or will to deal with comparatively small criminal acts. As long as no one was hurt, as long as the lost items are easily replaceable, as long as there was no major damage to property, many people don't bother reporting the crimes. Instead, some communities promise themselves to take the law into their own hands if they ever catch the culprit(s).

There is dissemination of organised crime with minor crime lords taking the helm of various splinter gangs. Of course, the usual ensuing power struggles and turf wars result in numerous gang-related shootings and murders.

Added to that, ubiquitous illegal firearms afford an indeterminate number of felonious youth the wherewithal to commit opportunistic crimes. Anecdotally, people are experiencing more home invasions and larcenies than usual.

kidnapping campaign

And, recently, I have come to understand that there is a campaign on to kidnap persons perceived to have families capable of paying ransoms, especially female professionals from upscale middle-class areas. Identifying the individuals or groups of individuals embarking on this fairly recent criminal entrepreneurial undertaking remains elusive.

Whatever their motive, whether established or maverick, big or small, organised or disorganised, these criminals are causing even more anxiety in our society and have vulnerable professionals with the ability to migrate thinking that perhaps they should.

A dwindling middle class, or a frightened middle class that decides to dedicate its skills and education solely to physical and financial self-preservation, will send negative ripples throughout the economy. The much-needed economic growth will fail to materialise and no hub will be able to revive it.

Our little nation will succumb under the crushing weight of short-sighted administrators and determined criminals. Poverty, squalor, and disease will envelop our people and our beloved Jamaica, as we know it, will cease to exist.

One of our senior crime fighters shared with me his observation that a major cause of our social decline is because our communities have been allowed to deteriorate, and the lack of organisation and cohesiveness has spawned a new generation of aimless youth that end up surviving outside of the law.

Communnism

It's not that I admire communism or emulate all the means by which an entire nation can be kept in line; however, in Cuba, each little community remains extremely well organised in spite of the poverty that exists there. No one is left out of the equation for nation building. The edifices and offices that represent the government are kept fully manned and operational.

The core of the government administration begins there and spreads out like a network throughout the state. Much in the same way that a strong building needs a strong foundation, a strong government needs strong communities to build on. No structure can be built from the top down.

The powers that be have failed to manage our communities. They have been left to their own devices and to fend for themselves. Unmanaged, they deteriorate and become 'polluted' by disorganised, undisciplined, poorly educated, and antisocial individuals. Like streams, these communities feed into the larger society. If they have been polluted, so will our society.

Our country needs political community management to once again form the core of our society.

Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and garthrattray@gmail.com.