Fr. Richard Ho Lung - Diary Of A Ghetto Priest AT PRESENT our island is distorted by false values. Jamaica has lost its true identity. We are not by nature a violent society. We are a peace-loving, gentle, kind Christian people who love life, respect one another and know what it is to be mannerly while being exuberant. But we have been inundated by false values. We are not ourselves. We are not the joyful, hopeful, tender-hearted people we once were. Within my lifetime, I have seen our people become alien to our true selves. Still, it's not too late. The soul of Jamaicans is still intact. If only we would return to our true selves and not give in to the compulsion of becoming a First World materialistic society.
What was wonderful in the past needs be recovered. Rather than being a ghetto poor, our simple people need to return to being a peasant poor. We are a poor country being driven to be wealthy according to the norms of Europe and America. I believe we have tremendous resources: the God-given beauty of our island, a bright English-speaking people with a native Creole, and a proximity to the wealthiest continent in the world.
ECONOMIC PLANS
We should not allow ourselves to be driven to produce as the advanced countries are. Gradual growth, a well-thought-out economic plan, and careful adaptation to the times is best. At the moment we are totally focused as a nation on quick riches, partly to pay our debts, partly because of greed. When there is an economically driven society, however, the primacy of money and money-making erodes cultural and spiritual values. When money and how much we posses become our self-definition then the face of Jamaica is no longer people first, God first, but money. Not only is our spirituality but also our humanity is thereby lost. In exchange of being a remarkably simple but confident people we have become a grim-faced nation bent on extracting as much as we can out of people, mother earth, and our own minds and bodies.
We Jamaicans still have God in our souls. Jamaica is still a most unusual nation. Talk to anybody on the street, go to any home, telephone any friend - with great ease we can discuss the Lord, the need for respect for one another, and the beauty of being kind. That's our roots, our foundation, our heart and soul. The modern Jamaican, however, is often driven by materialism and the pleasures and success of this world. We must remember that if we gain the world, we'll suffer the loss of our souls. We cannot serve two masters - one is sure to perish. There can be only one priority for us: love of God and our neighbour. That done, everything else will follow.
The simple life is truly the best. As youngsters in the 1950s we did not starve; maybe we were a little hungry. We did not go naked, though there was only one change of clothes. We did not want for a little shelter, though there were many of us in one room. We went to school, received good basic education. Even in basic utilities, there was no electricity but we used the lamp; there was one pipe and we bathed in a pan having caught water; there was a wooden latrine.
FAMILY FUN
We were wonderfully happy, loved our parents, brothers and sisters. We spent much time together, laughed and giggled together; shared everything we had, including scarce food. We worked together and encouraged each other. Every now and then there was a row, but it wouldn't last.
We played a lot of games, though we had no toys. If we had a little torn-up tennis ball, we'd play cricket or dodgings. We bathed in the river and watched the moonlight hiding behind the bamboo trees. We didn't study a lot but we were naturally bright. We were a little lazy with spurts of industry. The most painful thing we suffered was skinning our knees when we fell, taking castor oil after the mango season, getting good licks from our mother and father for misbehaving.
Our teenage days had its natural temptations, but always we would stay within moral bounds. We had great fellowship at school and played too much football: all this in the warmth of sunlight and love, all this without hatred of one another. Poor, simple, strong and clear-minded we had so little yet gave what we had. Our lives were a thanks be to God for life and our island home. Contrast that with today's world. Wouldn't you agree the simple is better?
Should we not try to recover what it means to be a true Jamaican rather than being a facade of being a fashionable and sophisticated modern person?
Fr. Richard Ho Lung is founder and leader of the Missionaries of the Poor.
