Richard Ho Lung - DIARY OF A GHETTO PRIEST IN A country bedevilled by civil war, Haiti has suffered 60 deaths in just about a month. Today, in a time of peace in Jamaica, we suffer an average of 89-90 deaths per month and our population is only a third of the population of Haiti. Haiti's situation has alarmed the world and brought about a sense of horror. In Jamaica we live with the killings, no problem.
There is a sickness of soul in Jamaica. The problem is called immorality. We want what we can't get or shouldn't have and we have liberalised every law. We pretend. We lie. We hate. We kill anything for money and goods.
Jamaica is an extraordinarily beautiful country made up of extraordinary people. The land is breathtakingly contoured, with unassailable mountains that ride higher and higher into the clouds and skies. Our rivers and streams are everywhere, rushing between green hills all frilled with ferns and flowers. The sky is always alight with the sun or the moon and the stars. Our weather is green and soft with breezes and warm sun.
I sound like a man in love with my island, and so it is. Not only with our natural geography but also with our people: the viv-acity, the boldness, the passion, the anger and yet the kind and compassionate nature, the depth of spirit make for a Jamaican people with strong character that leads to excessiveness, if not self-destruction.
Self-destruction is what we are about at the moment. Why is that in my travels I meet Jamaicans all so terribly in love with our country, yet here we are murdering each other? Why is it that millions of Jamaicans are abroad when we are strongly patriotic? How can we be a people who are so deeply religious and Christian wherever we are yet so cruel, ever wicked to one another?
TRUE SELVES
At the heart of the problem is the alienation of our true selves. The cause of money, profit, consumerism, and pleasure at all cost. We have entered into the marketplace of the modern world without any critical principles. The Christian churches in Jamaica try very well with the principalities and powers the media, the greed, and the politics of our time. All three pursue the power and the money and the popularity without conscience. The rest of us tremble in fear feeling helpless in the face of it all.
In the name of liberalism we have removed the underpinnings of our country and our nation. We are by nature a decent, strong-charactered, poetic and moral people. For the sake of popularity we have introduced new principles of life: by turning a blind eye to evil or by promulgating evil as good. Whether it be flexi-week, abortion, drugs, rape, stealing, gambling, drunkenness, prostitution, loud and offensive music it doesn't matter; it is permitted. In a land where popularity, free choice, money at all cost rule, the Jamaican personality which is so daring will bring things to an extreme.
Here we have it now: death. Ganja will soon be legalised I have no doubt. But what is legal is not necessarily what's right. As St. Paul says, "All things are good, but not all things are useful." If at the heart of the ganja issue money is the major point, we can be sure it will be short-time gain and long-term destruction. If the matter is that it is too much hassle to deal with, then we are in deep trouble both our youngsters and adults.
RESISTANCE
The path of least resistance is not the best. But we seem to be taking that course in Jamaica. In allowing for the human instincts to dictate what is right versus what is wrong, we are heading for national suicide. Our Christian faith is needed more than ever today. We must struggle within our own souls where there is the true battleground. We must overcome much of our national instincts and passions and so become the new Adam, overcoming the old Adam which will lead us to hell, creating what we now see around: a place no longer beautiful where brothers and sisters dwell in unity.
Nevertheless, Jamaica is my home. I was born here not by accident but for a purpose. I know what our true selves are and I will keep insisting. Maybe a few will hear the true Jamaican music and poetry, and the true Jamaican spirit will eventually issue out of the Christ-like soul that characterises us as different from the old world.
I pray we will not be like Europe, which has lost its soul, and Haiti, which is a stillborn baby nation, that has not come to be.
Father Richard Ho Lung is founder and leader of the Missionaries of the Poor.
