Stark realities of two sides of Jamaica
Published:Monday | February 3, 2025 | 4:38 PM
THE EDITOR, Madam:
If you have a vein through which blood flows and a heart that beats, you can’t help but feel profound sympathy for the impoverished residents of Kingston Central who are awaiting the completion of housing under the New Social Housing Programme.
Can you imagine, in the year 2025, having to ‘go out’ in a bucket and then pass it over a fence so that its contents can be disposed of in your neighbour’s toilet? Are the poor not entitled to a little dignity? And in the same breath, this is a neighbour indeed, worthy of praise for epitomising the spirit of selflessness.
Can you imagine giving a homeless man the keys to an unfinished house and then directing him not to occupy it or cause any further work to be carried out on it until a ribbon-cutting ceremony is conducted, without a mention of a proposed date for said ceremony? If this is not cruelty, it does not exist!
Silver-tongued politicians tell us every day that things are getting better. Be that as it may, the million-dollar question is: For whom? The affluent? Certainly, the cries of suffering among the poor are ear-shattering, and the squalor across the length and breadth of Jamaica so stark that you would have to be an eternal optimist to believe better is on the horizon. I accept that a lot needs to be done for Jamaica to prosper, but it starts with being brutally honest with ourselves.
The practice of borrowing the watches of the poor to tell them the time is unhelpful.
R.A. SILENCE