Desmond Henry TREASURE BEACH: Last week I listed my recollections of six decades of national events, which I believe have helped to shape the structure of this country for better. This week, I conclude with those that have helped to shape us in the opposite direction.
RAILWAY DISASTER
What began with the Kendal rail crash in the mid-fifties has now ended with the total collapse of that once highly prized and valuable transportation system... The Jamaica Railway. I saw its final disdain the other day, with the complete asphalting over of the crossing lines on the Kingston to Montego Bay route at Anchovy in St. James. What a tragedy.
COLLAPSE OF WEST INDIES FEDERATION
Future historians will no doubt lament the collapse of this once unifying and regional building structure which we apparently did not have the brains to appreciate.
PULLOUT OF UNIFRUITCO
The staged withdrawal of the United Fruit Company, starting in late fifties, was a signal of the beginning of the loss of our competitive edge in bananas. It has got worse since, with today's imminent collapse of sugar as well.
GUN IN POLITICS
The direct entry of the gun as a tool in local politics took on great significance in the campaigns in West Kingston in the late sixties. It came to a head in 1972, today it has become a sad part of our political inheritance, and we are the worse off for it.
MANLEY'S INDISCRETION
After his election victory in 1972 Michael Manley, for some inexplicable reason, went on a hand-shaking visit to one of our prisons. Pictures of him shaking hands with convicts through the prison bars, have remained indelibly in the psyche of many wrongdoers, and equally difficult to understand by others. I believe he just got carried away by events and a batch of citizens who had neither freedom nor votes. May it never happen again with another Prime Minister.
THE DON
The emergence of this political kingmaker has played hell with our political philosophy and conduct. Its effect has spilled over into every aspect of our social lives.
GENERAL CONDUCT
Talk about general breakdowns, and you have runaway examples in all aspects of our social behaviour. It has become most noticeable in our schools, homes, communities and institutions, and is creating a most troubling pattern for our future stability and security. The spare the rod principle plus the decline of the influence of the Church, are critical factors aiding the erosion.
PRIVATE/PUBLIC SECTOR DECLINES
There was a time when the combination of style, assertiveness and personality of the private sector spoke volumes about its authority, leadership and assuredness. Apart from a few stand-out examples, private sector entrepreneurship today is weak and uninspiring. The same is true of the public sector including the Police. At a time when more, not less, dynamism is needed, it seems we are having people who are educated, but less trained.
POLITICAL INTOLERANCE
The continuing growth and spiral of this socially suffocating practice continues to cast a grave shadow over our abilities to work with each other. Every destructive factor that intolerance is capable of is being slowly manifested here in Jamaica.
ILLEGAL DRUGS
We have all watched it raise its multiple heads in every corner, and in the open as well. It is becoming must destructive. The will to fight it must extend beyond boardrooms, cabinet rooms. It must extend into the open. If not, we are all doomed and can no longer with any sense of logic speak about a brighter tomorrow. As a society, I am afraid we have come to treat life so insolently and decadently, with nary an eye on the clock.
The Bottom Line: Evil is not a cosmological riddle. It is just selfish human behaviour.
Desmond Henry is a marketing strategist based in Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth.
