Hilary Robertson-Hickling
Shakespeare's famous quotation from the play The Merchant of Venice came to mind as I heard Bishop Desmond Tutu's concern about the state of South Africa in the post-Apartheid era. It would not only seem that as has happened in many post-colonial societies, the same old economic interests find ways of reinventing themselves to hold on to power under a new guise. This leaves the majority of the people impoverished and disempowered leading to the kind of chaos and anarchy that we in Jamaica are now accustomed to. Jamaica, South Africa and Brazil have the highest murder rates in the world and also experience vast gaps between the rich and the poor.
Tutu suggests that compassion needs to be rediscovered in a country where carjackings, the slaughter of innocents is becoming too frequent. He suggests that the people of that country need to remember the foundation of the concept of Ubuntu which values life because of its mutuality. This is suggested by an African-American quote "I am because we are." When people have been dehumanized by such systems as Apartheid there are those who forget their humanity. In spite of efforts to tell the truth and reconcile, things are going wrong.
Compassion and mercy
An email from a Canadian colleague highlighted the issue of the extra-judicial killings in Jamaica. While we have very high murder rates we also have high rates of police killings. It would appear that compassion and mercy are in short supply in Jamaica and across the world where killings take place routinely. There is definitely a need for more kindness and civility as well as the compassion which is a benefit of the play from which the quote is taken.
"The quality of mercy is not strain'd.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath.
It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes".
I recently shared a story with the eminent and compassionate physician Professor Rainford Wilks and we wondered what was happening to our beloved country. I told him that the gardener of our neighbours had been admitted to the University Hospital of the West Indies in the 1980s and he had recounted to his employers that the big doctors and nurses had called him sir and referred to him as Mr. Brown and that the nurses had made his bed and cared for him.
A generation of Jamaicans has been born since that time and although many are fine young people, some are merciless and lacking in compassion. They have no doubt been copying what they have learned at home, school, and their communities; as a nation our values and attitudes towards each other need review and revamping. It would appear that after the brutal history of the country, some of us need to be re-socialised to regain our humanity. Some of the chief offenders are those who have come to power since independence in government, business, the health and social services and other institutions. They have copied the colonial masters and added on their own local flavour of arrogance and inhumanity. They span the social classes but are most evident in the top ranks of Jamaica. The re-socialisation process is urgently needed for there are some among us who have mercy and compassion and we must learn from them.
Hilary Robertson-Hickling is a lecturer in the Department of Management Studies, UWI, Mona.
