SHAPE UP! Church leaders demand positive action from politicians
Published:Sunday | January 2, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Philip Hamilton, Gleaner Writer
SOME OF Jamaica's leading clergymen have demanded urgent action in 2011 from the country's political leaders on the perennial problem of tribal politics, irresponsible behaviour at the political level, a creaking justice system, a dearth in jobs and the need for wealth creation.
The men of the cloth are also pushing for closer partnerships between the church, corporate Jamaica and the State in alleviating poverty.
Head of the Fellowship Tabernacle Church, Reverend Al Miller, while acknowledging 2010 was a difficult year for Jamaica in terms of leadership and economic issues, noted that these crises also presented opportunities.
Alluding to the events leading to the Tivoli Gardens incursion in May last year, Miller said the incident created an opportunity for the nation to tackle the issue of garrisons.
"What happened in Tivoli showed it can be done. Unfortunately, it looks to me as if it has stopped, and that would be a travesty," the churchman told The Sunday Gleaner.
He observed that while efforts were being made to deal with the issue of 'garrisonisation', its sister, tribal politics, also needed to be tackled.
"What we must now have, looking forward into 2011 is a clear plan of which garrisonisation must be part of a national social-development agenda, as that is going to be one of the foundations critical to creating the new Jamaica we're talking about," Miller said.
He argued that more attention needed to be given to establishing justice, as well as job and wealth creation, in 2011 in order to resolve the current economic crisis as well as crime.
"My view is the country does not have a crime and violence problem. It has a justice problem and subsequently a crime problem. You deal with justice and crime, and violence will fall in order," said Miller.
Archbishop of Kingston Reverend Donald Reece, who heads Jamaica's Roman Catholic community, has expressed a desire to see responsible behaviour from the country's political leaders as well as the media during the upcoming year.
"Both sides of Parliament should take an honest look at themselves to see how their behaviour could easily set the pattern for the ordinary man in the street to live," said Reece.
"If they don't show respect for each other in their parliamentary debate, they will perpetuate the common thinking among the masses they can shout down anyone and everybody and even become verbally abusive to get across their political point of view."
Reece also noted that the sensationalism sometimes expressed in the media needed to be tempered, citing what he called the daily front-page reporting on former west Kingston strongman Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.
"Ways must be used to report wrongdoing without constant, ongoing front-page exposure to perpetrators of alleged wrongdoing because you then 'big them up'," said Reece.
"The press should be more responsible without giving the idea these are the guys to imitate, as young minds will naturally log on to that and feel that is the way to get some publicity."
Reverend Dr Peter Garth, immediate past president of the Jamaica Association of Evangelicals, says while events like last year's earthquake in Haiti and the global recession saw Jamaicans reaching out to assist needy persons, 2011 promises to be even more challenging.
Garth said the church, which continued to remain optimistic, would continue to preach its message of hope and reconciliation, while building relationships and dealing with the matter of trust.
"In order for you to trust, one has to encourage persons to scrutinise their values and the matter of dealing with integrity because when you build relationships, persons will begin to trust each other more, " Garth said.
Breakdown of trust
He acknowledged that a recent study revealed there was a breakdown of trust within the society.
"People don't trust the judicial system. They don't trust our political and church leaders or the police. In order to rebuild that trust, we're going to have to develop relationships, and people will have to deal with reconciliation among leaders and Jamaicans, " he added.
However, Rev Dr Cawley Bolt, president of the Jamaica Baptist Union (JBU), has served notice that in 2011 it would not be business as usual for the JBU.
He said, given the current economic realities and the tremendous pressures on the more vulnerable in the society, the church will be proactive like a watchdog in the interest of the entire Jamaican community.
"We are going to have to speak more on behalf of those who have been suffering in that particular way, if it means confronting the powers," said Bolt, adding that the church would not sit by complacently and accept what anybody had to say.
Bolt, who supports Police Commissioner Owen Ellington's stance regarding his dissatisfaction over the slow-declining crime rate, said he'd be holding the senior lawman's promise to put stronger crime-fighting measures in place.
"I see the church as being more definitive in moral leadership in cooperation with other groups, but really taking a leading role in some of the fundamental ethical and moral issues, "said Bolt.