Desmond Henry TREASURE BEACH:
HAD ONE of the shocks of my life last week during a routine visit to the Linstead town centre in St. Catherine. To be honest with you, I had not been through Linstead since the completion of the bypass years ago, and following the funeral of my late close friend MP Jack Stephenson. In fact, it was while working with Jack on many aspects of modernising our tourism industry in the seventies, that I got to know that township fairly well.
What I saw on this visit was singularly reflective of the disorder, chaos, filth and mismanagement that has overtaken this beautiful country as a whole. The folks I was travelling with wanted particularly to go to the Linstead market to buy some fresh products; the kind of products that have long been associated with that town, through song and tradition. The visit however turned out to be both pitiful and instructional. The time was about four in the afternoon, so we decided to shop around on the market outskirts rather than go into the building itself. What we witnessed was nothing short of being insultive and vulgar.
Vendors were selling atop drains that were clogged, stagnant, dirty and stink. Thousands of flies were everywhere human beings were. In fact you got the distinct impression that there might have been a fly convention going on in the town. They were overpowering, overbearing, and overreaching. They choked the vendors' receptacles, crowded around fresh fruit peels or dead rotting insects, and literally challenged you to see the pieces of fish being marketed openly in the heat without ice or refrigeration. They congregated on fruits, vegetables and human garments especially some of the towels being used by vendors to wipe the sweat to which they have become accustomed. There was a prevailing stench caused from the back-up of neglect, uncleared garbage and don't-give-a-damn township management. It was disgusting, repulsive and downright unhealthy.
I asked the vendors why was the place so untidy and unwelcoming, and if this was the condition they preferred. Most definitely not, they said, but they had become used to the neglect and lack of action by the Parish Council. One lady told me she had been witnessing the worsening of the situation for the past ten years. I just thought that the Jack Stephenson I knew would not have been so remiss.
The town of Linstead itself was a classic case-study of rural neglect and localised incompetence. Sure enough there were signs that someone, somehow had entertained some notions of traffic control. For example there was a 'one way' arrow and corresponding 'no entry' indication right after entering off the bypass. After that however, you are on your own. You will soon know that you are headed in the wrong direction when you are confronted by another vehicle eyeball to eyeball.
Someone once said that a pessimist is a person who looks both ways on a one-way street before crossing. Linstead must be full of pessimists because in the absence of clear directional signs every one-way street is crowded from both directions. That is the first sign of deliberate chaos.
How in the name of commerce do the township's business leaders expect to do business in that kind of disorder or, conversely, the Parish Council expects to maximise its revenue intake from such physical dilapidation. Everything portrays a decaying quality in well-being, management and concern.
Linstead has a huge advantage -- or should, at any rate -- over most other rural towns. It is by folklore and tradition one of the most recognised townships in Jamaica. The historical positioning of its vendor market has been preserved in song, dance and remembrances. It is in many ways, the epic centre of some of the best in our rural traditions. It is an affectionate symbol of rural Jamaican life. For all these reasons one would expect it to be improved not degraded, preserved not discarded, exhibited not disgraced.
From a Community Tourism point of view, it should be thought of as a 'must visit' for future visitors and connoisseurs of our country's culture and pride. I can for example, think of Linstead as the centre for an annual Folk Extravaganza, drawing on the performances of the school children in the area, and tied to a grand musical, preceded by a day-long activity of visitation and merchandising around its market culture. Things like craft, art, historical tours to nearby Spanish Town and rafting on that calm portion of the Rio Cobre closest to it, could all form part of a day-long festive package benefiting everyone.
But you know what? It will never happen around leadership that is either so inept, uncaring or downright neglectful. Someone, somewhere has got to begin to show leadership of a higher calibre than what Jamaica is now getting. We've got to start building higher levels of expectation among our people and providing them with new values to live by. The kind of values that will raise entire communities from mere instinctive survival levels, to new heights of deliberate productive efforts. We urgently need to produce a new set of human, spiritual, social and material models to live by.
The key to all of this, is to try and develop a new mind change in Jamaica. The kind of change in which people learn more from doing and less from talking. We need, for example, to avert the kinds of disgraceful neglect that I witnessed in Linstead. The kind that waits for some prosecutorial authority like the police to come and penalise human conduct that should not have occurred in the first place. Local authorities like the Parish Councils need to look seriously at producing basic community handbooks which best describe acceptable social behaviour at all levels for use in schools, churches, meetings, discussions and other communal interchanges.
We are a country woefully devoid of written 'how to' materials. We need to raise the expectation levels of our peoples, and start enticing them to begin a new journey towards resultant psychological, emotional, visual and material rewards. Without that, all our Emancipation Parks will soon become centres for pimping, peddling, pornography, prostitution and drugs. We cannot forever continue to ape first world human structures with fourth rate human mechanisms.
Linstead I love you, but until you get your community house in order I will buy my ackee at someone else's market.
ROBERT SUTTON
My columnist colleague and friend Peter Espeut, did a remarkable piece on Robert Sutton that environmentalist par excellence, who was savagely murdered in his Manchester home recently. We who are involved in the development of south coast community tourism, know of the pioneering work of Robert and his wife Ann in the field of environmental management, especially ornithology. We remain forever indebted to him.
Someone once said that some human beings are so brutish that for them, the death penalty as punishment does not go far enough. I fit Robert's perpetrators in that category.
The Bottom Line: Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet at the same time.
Desmond Henry is a marketing strategist based in Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth.
