Heather RobinsonJAMAICA IS a fascinating country in which to live. There is constant excitement. There is never a dull moment. Many extraordinary things are happening daily. There is plenty good, and far too much bad. What is it that you have heard today that has kept your mind busy in between your daily chores? Some of the strangest things are done and said in this little piece of God's earth.
On Wednesday morning I listened to Michael Ammar, the presi-dent of the Jamaica Cham-ber of Commerce, on the
6 o'clock radio newscast. Later I read his comments in The Gleaner when he called for political parties to take disciplinary action against members "who are proven to have connections with the criminal under world". The president of the Chamber of Commerce asked members of the private sector to withhold funds "from those persons or parties involved in such activities until they clean up their act."
CRIMINAL UNDERWORLD
Mr. Ammar's comments are timely as they come one week after a Member of Parliament was questioned by the police, after the murder of a gang leader who had driven a motor car co-owned by the said MP with a constituent who is on bail for gun-related charges.
Jamaica is such a small place that sometimes it appears that some who have been elected to lead forget this very fact. Very few persons are bold enough to state publicly all that they know of the activities of Jamaica's criminal underworld. Those who are bold enough to speak openly have always been careful to exercise some restraint. If my memory serves me correctly, Jamaica has never had a politician at the parliamentary level who has been "proven to have connections with the criminal underworld". It would be good if Mr. Ammar would tell us what would be regarded as "proven connections". Is it a connection that is proven in a court of law, which results in someone receiving a criminal conviction? And who would be the convicted felon? Would it be the politician or the member of the criminal underworld?
In the same way that there is a Jamaican present here, or abroad, who knows who murdered the couple at Brooke Valley on Tuesday morning, there exists some other Jamaican who can tell us about the politicians' connections with the criminal underworld. The problem is that we can all hear it being repeated over and over in the silence of their collective voices.
One of the problems that we face as a country trying to overcome the monster of an extraordinarily high murder rate is our level of tolerance. This high degree of tolerance is expressed in various ways. The most popular way is that we pretend that we do not know, and we are a very forgiving people.
Mr. Ammar appears to be willing to forgive as he is suggesting that members of the private sector assuming himself included should withhold financial support from " those persons or parties involved in such activities until they clean up their act". For my own part, I would have preferred if Mr. Ammar had put the full stop after the word "activities". Why do we want to give political parties or politicians any more time than they have already been given to "clean up their act"?
RETRAINED TO SUIT OUR NEEDS
Adults are no different from children or a puppy. Children test us as adults to determine how much they can get away with. Puppies are the same, and sometimes we realise too late that we no longer have a nice cuddly, playful puppy, but a big old dog, that cannot be retrained to suit our needs.
Private and public leadership need to come together and develop the highest level of intolerance for all that is corrupt and criminal in Jamaica. Politicians who do not have their own independent and honestly earned wealth are dependent on the generosity of the private sector. The private sector is, therefore, holding the handle and must insist that that the highest standards are upheld by those who offer themselves to lead. Those who are holders of the blade, who are not now clean, must be coerced to return from whence they came, as there is no existing cleaning agent that can purify their souls, or allow them to sing redemptive songs.
Heather Robinson is a life underwriter and a former People's National Party Member of Parliament.
