Peter EspeutPeter Espeut
EVERYONE HAS his/her bias, I suppose. Mine is well known. I support sustainable development and environmental issues, human rights and justice.
Other columnists and talk-show hosts have their biases too. Some use their bias to support their clients. Some use their access to the media to support their political party. A substantial number use their media offerings to support the government. This is not unusual.
In the United States, for example, whole newspapers and TV networks endorse one party or candidate or the other. We who treasure freedom of speech believe that everyone should be allowed to express their bias, no matter how unreasonable. Let all ideas contend!
It only becomes distasteful when media practitioners do not declare interest e.g. who their clients are and pretend to be independent and objective. That is dishonest.
There are different ways that media practitioners can support their party or government. You can advance theories and hypotheses that seek to explain the source of current social problems.
We are the directors; it is everybody's fault, says one loud talk show host, thereby deflecting attention away from the deficiencies in the government's approach, and upon the Jamaican public in whose name they govern.
MASQUERADING AS
INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM
Ian Boyne's article in The Sunday Gleaner was masquerading as independent journalism. 'Get tough on crime' the headline screams, and I agree. But the column was really about getting tough on those 'bleeding heart liberals' (like, I suppose, myself) who he clearly believes are the real cause of the high murder rate, because we highlight Jamaica's world- class rate of police killings.
'If the criminals fire on the police and the police take them out, then the human rights groups will be issuing statements condemning the rise in the number of police killings, and the police commissioner will dutifully remove them from front-line duty and imprison them to shuffle papers at the office.'
This is grossly untrue and unfair, and is designed to make human rights groups look bad. I do not know anyone who would criticise the police for defending themselves in a genuine shootout.
In the first paragraph, Boyne complains of 'our failure to master some elementary rules of reasoning and argumentation.' It seems he was definitely speaking about himself.
Later down, he complains that 'force has been used indiscriminately and recklessly against innocent people, with the result that most inner-city communities are alienated from the police.' Why is it that he can criticise the police, but we cannot?
And again: 'The criminals in the inner city have come to understand that the police force has become soft. In any shoot-out with criminals it is the police who are going to be under trial and suspicion, not the criminals. In fact, if they were smart they would provoke more encounters with the tough cops so those cops would be removed from front-line duty.'
Where is he going with this argument?
'But, if the police even take in the perpetrators, they are well-heeled enough to hire the finest lawyers who will be able to get them off easily, perhaps with you and me as taxpayers paying them for false arrests.'
I like the word even. And so there is a dilemma. Commit extra-judicial executions and the human rights advocates howl; take in the suspects and they get off because the witnesses won't testify and the Boynes, and the human rights advocates howl. How do we resolve the dilemma?
Get tough on crime! But what does that mean? Boyne continues: 'The problem with the bleeding-heart liberals is that they are so one-dimensional and have this one-size-fits-all thinking. They generally don't exhibit the kind of nuanced thinking which is called for when discussing dilemmas.'
Come now, Ian! What do you mean by 'nuanced thinking' in the context of 'tough policing' and 'zero-tolerance policing'?
Don't we already have enough bodies lying in the streets? If being a staunch advocate of due process and respect for human life means that I am one-dimensional then so be it! I have no apologies!
DEFLECTED AWAY FROM THE POLITICIAN
But talking of one-dimensional thinking, it seems that Bishop Boyne cannot bring himself to raise some of the most important issues in this matter of escalating crime.
Nowhere in his 'Get tough on crime' piece did he mention getting tough on politicians who have links with gunmen, and who have criminal gangs at their beck and call and raise their hands when the gun salutes fire!
He failed to even suggest that there could be some connection between politics and the large number of guns out there, and the need to bell the cat. He failed to mention the scandal of the garrisons both PNP and JLP which are both nurseries and sanctuaries of so many criminals, who fan out from them to terrorise the rest of us.
Attention is deflected away from the politicians where the real problem lies, and towards the heroic human rights advocates trying valiantly to rescue Jamaica from the grip of those who Bishop Boyne is dutifully trying to defend.
Everyone has their bias, I suppose. I wish that more Jamaicans would be biased in favour of justice, of due process, of respect for human life, of calling a spade a spade, of putting an end to corruption, of putting an end to this partisan divisiveness that has ruined Jamaica.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is
executive director of an environment
and development NGO.
