A national tragedy
Published:Tuesday | May 11, 2010 | 12:00 AM
The Editor, Sir:
Reading Monday's His Story article, I think it is to Jamaica's everlasting discredit that Dr Herbert Gayle is "not employed to the Government or consulted by them". This is the equivalent of Jamaica facing a famine (which we are, socioeconomically and criminally), and having a huge acreage of immensely lush, arable land, and yet, neither does the Government make that land produce food for the people, nor do the people clamour for it to happen. This is nothing short of a national tragedy.
Paul Williams skilfully cites the nexus between the lack of male participation in education and crime, and summarises, in Dr Gayle's words, four crucial areas, any one of which, if fixed, would nosedive Jamaica's murder rate exponentially.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if, before this week was over, Dr Gayle received a call from the prime minister, the minister of national security, the commissioner of police, and the minister of education - just for starters - offering solid, 'non-Mickey Mouse', 'non-Anansi' commitment to engage his wealth of education, experience, research and insights, to move Jamaica out of multitudinous criminal tentacles? Isn't this what our universities are for?
political authority
Dr Gayle suggests that violence and murder happen "in the absence of an effective central political authority - police, judiciary, and central government consensual power". To me, if we fixed this first, only then could the other three areas he mentioned fall into place. we could then mobilise politically (not 'tribally'), organise healthy, protective social units and then become a disciplined, productive and creative nation once again, but all only if we had (morally) authoritative governmental parameters. QED: Jamaica will be life, not death!
Prime Minister Golding has sufficient time left in his incumbency to lead Jamaica where we have never gone before. With the fortitude of character that I still believe he can extricate from deep within his inner recesses, he can still lead his government, and by example, lead the Opposition, to the kind of political and national cleansing needed to restore authority and consensual power to government, to which Dr Gayle refers.
MICHAEL FRIDAY
Bellevue, Nebraska