By Marjorie A. Stair, ContributorI watched the interview of the father of Lee Boyd Malvo shortly after returning from the hills of Trelawny last week. I visited several schools populated by the children of the poor. At one school, the Principal had started to visit parents as she had found that it was the tradition for parents to keep children out of school for the entire week if it rained for a day. With the rains of recent weeks, her school population of eighty students had been reduced to six.
At another school, the Principal shared his lunch with a child who had no lunch and it was not the child that I had met earlier, who also had no lunch. Most of the children look healthy and are, for the most part, active and alert but these children have not been assessed for learning disabilities. At one school, one child who had been punished severely in the past, his teacher told me, for being 'hard of hearing' i.e. stubborn, had actually had problems hearing and had just been sent to a specialist for assessment and correction. Hopefully, his parents would be able to afford what was recommended. This is deep rural Jamaica and the situation of rural children.
It was quite clear from the interview of Mr Malvo that he knows little of his son, Lee Boyd hence the alleged sniper, John Lee Muhammad assuming the role of father in his life. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon situation in Jamaica. Mr Malvo, by his own admission, has four children with four different mothers. This is more or less the norm in Jamaica. Men fathering children with many different women, and providing them with little or no support. Some provide meagre financial support but have little or no contact with their children who grow up with little or no knowledge of them. Some simply disappear once they are advised of conception. Some mothers are not much better. Children are abandoned, left to fend for themselves while their mothers migrate in search of 'better life', left with grandparents who are unable to manage them, or left with any friend or relative who is willing to take on the responsibility. The irresponsible sexual behaviour of Jamaican men and women is the root of many of the country's social and economic problems and creates emotional instability in children which manifests in low academic performance and low interest in the acquisition of knowledge, low self esteem, poor work attitude and poor social attitude resulting in the social dysfunctions that are apparent in the society. All of this affects our ability to effectively compete in a more competitive world.
In his book, "Think and Grow Rich", Napoleon Hill shares this explanation, by a famous criminologist, as to how men sometimes become criminals:
"When men first come in contact with crime, they abhor it. If they remain in contact with crime for a time, they become accustomed to it, and endure it. If they remain in contact with it long enough, they finally embrace it, and become influenced by it."
Is this what has happened to Jamaica? Have we embraced crime? I sincerely believe that many of us have.
I am deeply concerned, therefore, about the deep decline in rural Jamaica that is mimicked by the deep decline in downtown Kingston. Both situations, to my eyes, keep getting worse although, despite the poverty, life in rural Jamaica must be more tolerable than that in downtown Kingston and other urban areas that are gripped by squalid poverty, crime and violence, and the oppression of the new slave masters, the Drug and/or Political Dons. I wish to ask publicly of the Right Honourable Prime Minister of Jamaica, therefore, the question I asked at the September 2002 Editor's forum and to ask the Leader of the Opposition the question I should have asked him and did not because I thought he had more or less answered it in earlier statements at the forum. The Prime Minister represents a deep rural constituency. He won the recent elections with precious little campaigning in his own constituency, considered by him to be a safe seat. I found it very strange that he chose to hold his last meeting in Mandeville instead of in his own constituency but I guess he knows more about the electorate in his constituency and politics than I do. Agriculture, the mainstay in his constituency, has declined significantly and nothing has replaced it. There has been some tourism development but the growth of Whitehouse, the town in his constituency that has grown most of all over the past thirteen years, can be attributed more to the narcotics drug trade than any other legal economic activity. His constituency is, therefore, representative of the rural Jamaica that I see as I travel through Western and other parts of Jamaica. Decline of agriculture with no meaningful substitute. So I repeat my question.
"Mr Prime Minister, the decline in rural Jamaica is paralleled by the decline in downtown Kingston, although they are both caused by different factors and manifested in different ways. What are the proposals to address rural decline and to address the problem of downtown Kingston especially as it relates to the protection racket?"
I expect nothing more or less of the new/old Government than the implementation of concrete proposals that will render this question unnecessary before the next election. Solid achievement is difficult to swallow when not only the heart of your capital city but also your countryside is dying.
It is quite clear that Mr Seaga is yet to realise that he has lost the elections and that he will continue to lead the JLP for at least another two years many of us believe until death, so I will ask him the question that I should have asked him at the Editor's Forum as most of the heart of downtown Kingston, where there is deep decline, lies in his constituency and the protection racket, if we are to go by recent events, has both PNP and JLP stakeholders, otherwise called 'community leaders'.
"The JLP Manifesto starts with the expression of a vision to create a peaceful and just society, offering acceptable living and social conditions and a safe, sustainable environment among other things. The West Kingston constituency that you have represented for four decades, receiving almost 100 per cent of the votes at each election, is characterised by:
The highest crime rate in the country
Living and social conditions that are sub-standard and appalling
Hollow vandalised buildings and empty spaces where thriving business districts used to be
Why should the Jamaica people believe that, under your leadership, a JLP government would achieve the vision stated in your manifesto?"
I ask these questions because I believe that our two leaders, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, to be truly effective, should be effective representatives of their constituencies. They should lead by example. If they, and others who now form the Government exhibit the political will to reverse the economic and social decline apparent in Jamaica, despite the challenges, the entire Jamaica will co-operate and support them. As things are now, we can't help feeling that most politicians hold the electorate in contempt.
