Daniel ThwaitesTHE MEDIEVALS used to have a practice of trying people, and even executing them, after their death. There are some splendid instances, one of my favourites being what is called "The Cadaveric Synod" where Pope Formosus was dug up from the grave after 11 months of interment and hoisted into court to stand trial for capital crimes. Not being there to defend himself posed something of a problem for Formosus, and so, not entirely surprisingly, he was found guilty. Guilty as sin!
Occasionally we humour ourselves about having arrived at more enlightened times where charges are brought against a man while he is living. The feeling is (or rather, used to be) that a man deserves the opportunity to defend himself, to adduce evidence that exonerates him, and to even accuse his accusers who may, after all, have less than transparent agendas for bringing the case. Additionally, there is in most normal societies a healthy distaste for cowardice such as waiting until a man is dead before beginning the naming and shaming operation on the women and children.
However you look at it, the very strange case of Mr. William Moore is another cultural artifact of our schizophrenic society. Here, the children of the middle classes throb to the music inspired by the Black Roses Crew, even while their parents apparently held the leader of the Crew in utter contempt. Here, there are calls for a cultural censor to decide which families can and which families cannot rent the National Arena. Here, ostentatious displays of wealth are called "class" when its uptown and "crass" when its downtown when truth be told its "crass" in both places. All of these issues converged over the dead body of poor murdered Mr. Moore.
Certainly Mr. Moore has been brought before the court of public opinion on some very unspecific charges ranging from being a "don" to (what is probably worse for the commentators) being popular in his community. There is some doubt about his sphere of influence. Whatever it was, it was unquestionably widened by the lurid media reports of his death and his funeral. Some influence was evident based on the outpourings of people and emotion at his funeral. But it was astonishingly convenient for some to turn Mr. Moore into an underworld kingpin, especially after he was very dead.
We all know that there are truck-loads of hypocrisy swirling around in this particular debate. Men from the better parts of Kingston have been killed in no less startling circumstances than Mr. Moore without a hint of the intense public interest, and none of the very public pontification, that followed Moore's death. But that's just one part of the hypocrisy. Another is that M.P.s and politicians are demanded to know their constituents and to be in touch with them, work with them and deal with them. Danny Melville very famously fumed that being an M.P. involved too much of the grubby social-work business of "attending funerals", so we all knew that it was part of the job-description. Now there is the contradictory call for the M.P. to be a hypocrite when someone dies and to distance himself and behave as if he either didn't know the person, or is indifferent to the standing of that person among his constituents.
We know that Dr. Davies created no system of mayhem in South St. Andrew or anywhere else. In fact, one lovely irony is that some of the commentators, ex-politicians and political-types themselves, have had more than passing input into creating the problem of militarised zones in Kingston. However, there would appear to be a new consensus that if you get on the radio and weep a little while calling for truth and reconciliation (never providing either much truth or reconciliation), then all is forgiven, everything is cleaned up, and now you can self-righteously give orders.
Still, nobody can say that the life and choices of an M.P. are easy. For instance, poor Mr. Delroy Chuck's explanation of his "working relationships" with the "dons" in Grants Pen stood in stark contrast to the blessed sanctimony of the editorial at the top of the sheet on Wednesday. As with Dr. Davies, there is no issue of Mr. Chuck being responsible for creating dons in his constituency. If they are there, they both found them there. But on the terms of that editorial Mr. Chuck should be "ostracised" by the Church, teachers, doctors and other professional groupings. For he confesses to going to the funeral of someone who was, in Mr. Chuck's own terms, a don. And if we say that Mr. Moore was a don, then what Chuck did was in no way different from what Dr. Davies and the others did.
By the way, we are now all on notice that the meaning of going to a funeral has changed. It used to be that one went to a funeral to grieve with the relatives and friends of whoever has shuffled off this mortal coil. This was done to comfort not the dead, who after all, is dead, but the living, who after all, are living. It now turns out that going to a funeral is an "endorsement" of the life of the person who died. In this new system, the Member of Parliament is to say to his constituents: "I know you respected this person and want me to be at his funeral, and I know that I too knew him and maybe even worked on projects with him. But guess what, there are just far too many rumours circulating about him, and hey, he was convicted for possessing a spliff, so I'll have to take a pass on the funeral".
For the record, it seems to me that what matters is the nature of the relationship between any given politician and any given don from the uptown or the downtown. If the relationship is one that encourages peacefulness and honesty, and one that energetically tries to lessen the gap between the formal structures of authority and law and order and the informal ones, then there is nothing wrong and everything right about the politician's efforts. The critical issue is whether the M.P. is a man of peace. And in the final analysis, Dr. Davies has spoken honestly about his work on the frontline in a difficult and trying situation, something which cannot be said for many of those hounding him for his candour.
Daniel Thwaites is involved in teaching and writing.
