THE EDITOR, Sir:
IS THERE anything uglier than a mob murder in a
community? We can delegate to a suitable category a heinous act committed by a criminal, isolate it in our minds. There is always a criminal element in the best of societies.
But when the man with the shy smile who you see in the corner shop buying a dragon, a man who sits beside you on Easter Sunday in church, an ordinary citizen who has never even hit his wife helps to bludgeon a man to death, it invades your whole consciousness. There is no locking that one away. A normal person, not a criminal behaving like a monster. A spirit of cruelty just waiting to pass itself on to the vulnerable to be replicated some time in the future.
NO OUTCRY
Well, actually there is something uglier the tacit approval of the masses all over the country.
We have three universities, churches abound, service clubs, political youth arms. I would be comforted even by a superficial token acknowledgement of a crisis; workshops by the academics that the public does not understand.
Please somebody! How about a roots play? Buju, Bounti, Sizzla, Lovindeer, somebody! How about even a song! At least there would be a communication of an outcry!
To our shame, we have stood in silent mockery, the things that have been passionately debated in the past naked people getting married, an unpopular choice for a beauty queen, the exclusion of a worthy Jamaican on a West Indian team. These should be luxury protests of some near utopian society.
OFFICIAL MESSAGE BOARD
Allow me a suggestion for a tiny baby step. Can all the members of our mass media, our newspapers, our radio stations, our TV stations have an official message board?
Can we encourage and give easy access for any group with a name, be it a church council, the Girls Brigade, the Rotary club or the Tivoli dancers, to come out and officially denounce an act?
It's a mild exploitation of group psychology but then, that is also what a mob killing is; and, by covert approval, we give the monster strength.
This is the view of a dilettante, a 'prento' but, sadly, the experts in group psychology in our academia are silent.
I am, etc.,
KARIS CHIN-QUEE
karischin_quee@hotmail.com
35 West Road
Mandeville P.O.
Via Go-Jamaica
