Ian BoyneIan Boyne
THINK OF a police officer living in a materialistic and status-obsessed country like Jamaica, trying to send his four children to the best schools and to impress his friends. What ability does he have to do that on a policeman's salary?
He learns very early in this society that if you don't drive a flashy vehicle, live in a fancy neighbourhood and display conspicuous consumption patterns, you don't get respect, honour and status. Looking at his prospects in the force, he knows it will be some time off if not impossible for him to really 'Bling' on a policeman's salary. He gets an opportunity to earn $800,000 for assisting a drug operation and, if successful, there will be other opportunities. Why should he turn it down, except he is a religious fool or some dumb patriot?
A customs officer, struggling to pay medical bills for his ailing wife and faced with the expenses of sending three children back to school, gets the opportunity to earn $100,000 from turning the other eye (not cheek). Why shouldn't he, except he is foolish enough to 'follow Pastor' who already has his big car, or follow the politician who is moralising in his after-dinner speech, with his big SUV and chauffeur waiting outside to take him up to Cherry Gardens, Norbrook or Swain Spring?
What is wrong with a woman with five children and four non-supporting baby fathers if she works as a prostitute to give her children a chance in life? If a person can use his mind to earn a living and someone else his hands to earn a bread and the athlete his feet, why can't a woman use her sexual organ for gain? The question only seems repulsive rather than rational to you because of a certain religious grounding and conditioning. Which is precisely where I want to lead you: While our political, private sector and assorted civil society leaders, including those in the media, downplay religious values, they depend on these values to sustain the commitments they want to see in the society.
MORAL AGENDA NEEDED
Our society does not take
values or philosophy seriously, and many of us fail to see how our war on crime and corruption is a hopelessly futile one if we do not strengthen our moral
foundations.
We have bought lock, stock and barrel the notion that once we fix the economy or fix the politics, things will be all right. This is why even at this important juncture when we are changing the political guard, the potential successors are still talking the language of
political and economic change without seriously addressing the moral agenda. And the Jamaican Church is so intellectually
ineffective, clumsy and short-
sighted that the politicians can afford to neglect these critical issues without fear of any political backlash. The Jamaican people are not sufficiently conscientised, and the connections between their everyday struggles with crime,
corruption and social decay and our moral deficiencies are not being made.
ECONOMIC DEPRIVATION
Take the issue of crime. It is a fact, and never to be minimised, that economic deprivation and poverty provide the feeding ground for crime. You don't have to be a person given to research to realise that the foot soldiers in crime not the Mr. Big behind organised crime are usually poor, marginalised youth from the inner cities. The inner cities are crime factories. Any effective crime-fighting plan must include effective measures to broaden economic and educational
opportunities for the poor, and cannot just concentrate on
teaching good morals.
But also undeniable is the fact that there are today in the inner cities many desperate, poor,
economically exploited young people who are hungry and
frustrated and yet they have not turned to crime. They face the same economic and social
deprivations as the criminals and they don't resort to crime. Why? Because they have a set of beliefs in their heads that certain things are right and other things are wrong. They have embraced
certain values.
There are countries much poorer than Jamaica, which have a much lower crime rate, and right here in Jamaica we have been poorer in the past without this high level of crime.
In fact, the empirical studies show that crime is higher in
societies which are growing
and which have high disparities
in income, not simply those
with high absolute poverty. The extremes of wealth and poverty produce a greater incentive to crime than poverty itself.
This country would have much greater levels of crime and
corruption if there were fewer people of integrity and high moral
values. I spoke with a highly placed Christian executive this week who told me he had to go on his knees to ask God to relieve him of a previous lucrative post because the man over him had started to rip off the organisation and would have wanted his consent.
With all the constitutional and political reforms in the world, if you don't have people of character, in certain positions in Jamaica, you can forget about dealing effectively with crime and corruption. Unless there are people 'foolish' enough to know they can drive a BMW X5 or BMW Exclusive by just giving a 'bligh' to this or that businessman but who refuse to do so; unless that public official is strong enough and ethical enough to stand up to any politician who might want him to engage in a corrupt act and to risk his promotion or job for doing
so then no amount of integrity
legislation can save us. We need people of integrity, upstanding
people, to fill critical positions in the security forces, customs, the judiciary, statutory corporations and government ministries and agencies, as well as in the
political parties.
VISION OR RAW AMBITION
Are the young professionals who are excited about political life and who are lining up behind Bruce Golding, Peter Phillips, Portia Simpson Miller, Omar Davies motivated by ambition or by a selfless vision of genuinely uplifting people? When you hear about various people's jockeying to run various seats, are you really convinced that they are running because they have a vision for this country, a set of philosophical
principles which guide them, or just raw ambition, the quest for power and significance and the opportunity to get big contracts? What is the moral calibre of
the people who are jostling to
lead us in the two main political parties? What is the quality of
their character?
This issue of character is an important one in the succession race, and no one is paying it serious attention, except, for political
expediency, when some wish to tarnish Bruce Golding because of an admittedly murky past. People don't have to be religious to hold values and to have firm ethical principles. This is one of the myths most Christian perpetuate. Atheists can have firm moral principles
and can hold admirably to
humanitarian values.
The problem is that, increasingly, people in Jamaica and in the
western world are loosening their grip on certain values. I heard prospective Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller this week pleading with criminals to remember that a life snuffed out could be that of a great scientist who might discover the cure to AIDS, a great athlete like Veronica Campbell, or a great Prime Minister.
Sister P, criminals hold a totally different set of values from you. You are speaking Greek to them. You are not speaking their
language. Their language is one
of self-gratification. They don't care one damn about anyone else outside of their circle. Notions of nationhood, community are foreign to them. But we have failed to
pay attention to morality and
continue to reinforce the view that only economics is important. So today money is the greatest value in the country. There is nothing apart from sports which really
pulls us together and unites us. Each Jamaican is looking for
himself.
Telling drug pushers about
'not destroying the lives of black youth' is all nonsense. Talking about respecting law and order is bull to the lawless in Riverton
City. We are living off our
religious heritage in Jamaica
and some of our secularists and agnostics like Wilmot Perkins
scoff at religion and don't realise how much they themselves
depend on religious values to
support their own positions. No one speaks against corruption, lying and dishonesty more than Wilmot Perkins. No one hates political victimisation more than Wilmot Perkins. But tell me, Mr. Motty, why, if there is no objective moral order nor objective,
transcendent truth out there should I not lie to advance my
personal interests? Why should I not be a Social Darwinist and exploit the weak if I have the power to do so? Why should I not rob the public coffers for my friends and comrades if I have the power to do so ? It's the survival of the fittest and I find myself at the head of the food chain. Why not, Mr Perkins?
"There is little or nothing in
the doctrines of liberalism or democracy that has to do with
public propriety," says Robert Goldwin in an essay in the book, Civility and Citizenship. "In every society there is the
encouragement for citizens to do their duty and to be civic-minded but the content of it does not
come from liberal or democratic teachings. The principles of duty, honour, public service, sacrifice, charity, respect for others, respect for authority all have their sources in other times, other ways of
thinking about civil society."
Those ways have a lot to do
with religion and the kind of
philosophical tradition which stemmed from Plato and other ancient philosophers.
SELLING SHORT
A society like ours believes that it can ignore values and have the fruits of peace and civility. I hope we are learning our lesson. We don't stand for anything outside of money and hedonistic gratification. Our dancehall artistes will bow at the drop of a hat once the moneyed people in America and Britain say, "we withdraw our cash prize and stardom if you don't support our lifestyle." I bet you that people like Beenie Man, Vybz Kartel, Baby Cham, Bounty Killer and others who have big chat at home against homosexuals have to moderate because their opposition now is not principle-based. The only principle they really believe in is career advancement and Mammon.
They will prostitute themselves for Babylon's Fame and Glory. You watch it. Our secular elite is philosophically bankrupt, our cultural ambassadors wimps and our church is asleep. May God help us!
Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. You can email him at ianboyne1@yahoo.com or infocus@gleanerjm.com.
