By Denise Clarke, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
I LIKE 'country' living and 'country' people. I write country in quotations because most people living in the city, a.k.a. Kingston, think that everywhere outside of the city is not just rural, but deep rural/country.
If these people have their way, even residents in St. Catherine would be considered 'country'. I, however, am proud to say that I am country born and bred. But if it's one thing they can't say about us country people, nobody can just come out of anywhere and have their way with us.
I speak of the manner in which rural residents are standing up to defend their communities from criminal elements. First it was that shop thief in St. Elizabeth last month, then last week the rape and murder of a teenaged girl in St. Mary.
Before I go any further, let me say that I believe vigilante justice is wrong. But at some point, residents cannot continue to turn a blind eye while their communities come under siege.
Damion White may not have been the person who committed those brutal acts in St. Mary, but in today's Jamaica, where a 'suspect' is just as likely to be killed by the police as he is in the hands of a mob, it hardly makes a difference. Many a suspect has lost his life, vigilante style, at the hands of the police.
The same thing happened in St. Elizabeth a few weeks ago, when a man who had broken into a shop and was making choice picks of the owner's goods, was cornered and chopped to death by the residents. They made it clear that they would not tolerate such illegal activities in their community.
The difference between country people and town people is that town people mind their own business, even if you are being stabbed to death beside them. A few years ago, I was robbed on a visit to Kingston. I had just hopped off my country bus at Three Miles and took another bus to Half-Way Tree, quite unaware that I was being followed. It was not until the bus reached the intersection of Waltham Park and Hagley Park roads that I saw a young male sprinting off the bus with my gold chain in hand. Then a woman on the bus exclaimed, "Me see him long time, but me never say nothing."
I just shook my head because, right then and there I knew that had that happened in my 'country town' of Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland, that chain thief would not have made it off the bus without some serious injuries to his body.
Country people are not stupid. They know that knives and guns are lethal weapons, and they too are afraid of getting hurt. However, they also know that if there are two of them and 50 of us, the odds are definitely in our favour.
