THE EDITOR, Sir:THIS IS an open letter to all the women who share the lives of gunmen and criminals. You may be the mother, grandmother, aunt, sister, girlfriend or daughter of someone who you know is involved in wrongdoing. For every cent you receive from that male, you are guilty of murder too. Every time you put a cup or spoon to your mouth to eat or drink, you are guilty of the blood of the victim and the tears of the loved ones left behind (many of them being children left to suffer).
Every piece of clothing you put on your body is a shroud. All the ill-gotten gains that you partake of (money and goods alike) are nothing but grave dirt.
Many times when we hear of women being gunned down in reprisal killings, they may seem like innocent victims. Some of them are the women who share the lives of criminals and they have shielded, sheltered and protected them. Most of you participate in demonstrations in the streets when the provider of your ill-gotten gains meets with his demise.
Many of you women come crying to the Church to bury your dead - yet you do not have the decency to wear proper clothing in the house of God. If you do not respect the God who provides you with the breath of life in your body, free of cost every day, then keep your funerals at the community centers or the arena. Holiness becometh the house of God - persons who dress like prostitutes on duty and smoke drugs should not take such behaviours on sanctified grounds. The men do not go about half naked but you women do. Have you no self-esteem?
ROOT OF THE CRIME EXPLOSION
You women are at the root of the crime explosion in Jamaica. You shield the wrongdoers and you train up the young in the same ungodly atmosphere thereby ensuring a future crop of criminals. When you are out walking the streets at night, your children are left alone at home absorbing garbage from the television. Some of you are not truly in dire need - your child needs school books and pencils, yet you would rather pay for an expensive hairdo and apparel to attend a dance. You are not truly poor. You are lazy and lascivious.
If you do not stand up to your responsibility as women and refuse to perpetuate the cycle of crime, immorality and irresponsible behaviour, your future will indeed be dark. When you become old and sickly (if your live that long), the vipers that you train up will not have the compassion to care about you.
The most important thing to them is to stand on the street corners crushing ganja in their hands, raping, killing, robbing and harassing teenage girls. They will have no time for you and your burdens.
The tone of this letter could have been less harsh. However, I truly do not think you are the type of women who soft words should be wasted on. It is time that somebody says it like it is: You are coarse and uncaring and you allow your men to destroy our country; you are a disgrace to womanhood.
I am, etc.,
FED-UP JAMAICAN FEMALE
