Martin Henry
"THERE IS a terrible and vicious spirit that has taken hold of our people", Minister of National Security Dr. Peter Phillips says. The Gleaner headlined his comments as its front page lead story on Monday as 'Evil spirit grips Jamaica'.
Dr. Phillips, who aspires to lead the people possessed by this terrible and vicious spirit, was speaking at the scene of one more gruesome crime. He had dropped in to the little, off the map, quiet farming community of Town Head in Westmoreland to express his sympathies over the brutal rape and murder of Shaneka Shakes and Shauna Kaye Ledgister, two little primary school girls nine and eight years old.
There can be a chasm of difference between a spirit of evil and an evil spirit. We are not quite certain if Dr. Phillips, trained in the secular human sciences, merely means that moral values have broken down, that traditional virtues, socially determined, have been abandoned and, therefore, the opposite 'evil' as an abstraction is running rampage, or if he means a demonic spirit has been let loose upon the land and has taken hold of the people.
Remarkably, the Honourable Minister, from numerous possibilities, drew reference to the triple murder of children at Kilancholly in St. Mary in January as part of his evidence that "there is a terrible and vicious spirit that has taken hold of our people." We have good reason to believe that those murders sprang out of occultic connections.
Minister Phillips found the Town Head churches engaged in a day of fasting and prayer when he paid his impromptu visit. The nation which Dr. Phillips is seeking to lead and whose security now rests in his hands entered into a covenant relationship with the Eternal Father at its founding. We pray every time we sing our National Anthem: "Eternal Father Bless our land, Guard us with your mighty hand, Keep us free from evil powers ... Teach us true respect for all ... Justice, Truth be ours forever..."
ABANDONED THE COVENANT
But we have largely abandoned the covenant. "The earth is also defiled under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant [Isaiah 24:5].
"We have [instead] made a covenant with death." [Isaiah 28:15]. So Minister Phillips staggers from one tragedy to another lamenting the "terrible and vicious spirit that has taken hold of our people" manifesting itself in "brutality sweeping the nation."
Where did this spirit, literal or figurative, come from?
The Christians of Town Head who were praying and fasting when the minister visited, believe in a realm of spirits, good and evil, which influence human action for good and for evil. And the prevailing influence is determined by human choice.
When some of us speak in shocked terms of 'tragedy' and 'brutality' and 'evil', we must remember that there are others who see no tragedy, brutality or evil in their actions. These actions are a cause for celebration and the only tragedy is the unlikely tragedy of being caught.
NO REAL REMORSE
There is likely to be no real remorse by perpetrators of the Kilancholly and Town Head murders and any number of others defiling the land as a spiritual law insists that unpunished murder does. Even among 'decent' people like hardworking farmers in Trelawny and community people in Whitehouse, Westmoreland, it is perfectly legitimate to butcher alleged criminals who are firmly in their hands and could be delivered to the police for due process. But injustice and corruption have severely weakened trust in the police and in due process.
There are different and contending spiritual values. And the values for 'evil' have been nurtured for a long time by leaders and by people left without (moral, spiritual and social) discipline to the stage of becoming dominant values. Where Justice, Truth and Righteousness are "turned back" the forces of evil will rule. Evil spirits flourish like Legion among Gaderene tombs where death and swine rest in comfortable proximity, a wasteland of rot and filth where Goodness is not welcome.
There is no question, interpreted how you may, that "there is a terrible and vicious spirit that has taken hold of our people," a spirit that goes well beyond the tragedy of murdered children. There is a very real but little explored link among drug use - a portal to demonic infiltration - sorcery, and crime, especially of the 'mindless' variety.
The "brutality sweeping the nation" has deep spiritual roots and requires spiritual solution as the fasting and praying people of Town Head clearly understand. The covenant with death has to be replaced with a covenant for life in any meaningful response to the symptoms which are shocking even a highly exposed Minister of national security.
Martin Henry is a communication specialist.
