THE EDITOR, Sir:
WHENEVER WE are hit and we hit back, there is a likelihood of there being more retaliation with more severity. The intention is to send a message to the recipient that whatever one can hand out, can be returned with as much or more force. Being brought up within the bosom of this attitude, it is difficult (if at all possible) to imagine otherwise.
Many cry out for JUSTICE, hoping for revenge and the proverbial pound of flesh. Forgiveness is expected from GOD, not from us. Not from within us, we are human. What a pity? Should we expect to receive what we are not prepared to give? Forgiving does not mean that the afflicted becomes the eternal victim, and the aggressor allowed to exercise might and power at will.
History has recorded enough for us to learn from. Wherever force has been used to establish PEACE, force (or the threat thereof) must be used to maintain it. Where compassion has been embraced, differences are resolved and PEACE is realised.
The police are merely products of the society that produces aggressive and violent youth; youth that need guidance and the warmth of LOVE. The police have escaped the initial grasp of violence, and they are peers of the criminal that frightens the society. They are still being fed from the VENGEANCE plate and the carnage rages on.
The effort and resources that are building prisons and buying guns and ammunition would be well spent developing programmes that are dynamic in nature and positive in outlook. Jamaicans are creative, intuitively genius, imaginative and influential.
LOVE is an action word; the driver for the compassion vehicle. The sooner we start the sooner JUSTICE and PEACE are realised.
I am etc,
ANSEL LEE
atworklee@yahoo.com
P.O.Box 162
Kingston 2
Via Go-Jamaica
