The Editor, Sir:
No attempt to find an explanation for the quagmire into which our country has descended is possible without first trying to understand how Jamaicans see Jamaica. For the purpose of this exercise, Jamaicans can usefully be divided into two groups - those who have an identifiable source of income and those who do not. Put another way, those who are employed and those who are not.
Previous prime ministers were capable of this vision - 'haves and have-nots' (Seaga), 'better mus come' (Manley), 'values and attitudes' (Patterson) and 'my emergence from the masses' (Simpson Miller), and I guess that explains why they were all attracted to render political service.
But if we are going to make Jamaica realise the full potential and promise of greatness it has denied itself from Independence to today, we, who are employed have to STOP, take stocks of our lives and force ourselves to look at Jamaica through the eyes of the unemployed.
Through different eyes
For the most part, in the eyes of the employed Jamaican, there can be no better place on earth that one could wish to live (and the more one earns is the greater that realisation becomes).
In the eyes of the unemployed (especially the never-employed), it is a veritable hell-hole. There are areas of the inner-city of Kingston where residents (adults and children alike) on seeing television shots of our north coast hotels or some tourist attractions, believe that they are looking at a foreign country.
People who are unable to see Jamaica through those lenses will continue to believe that the solution to our crime problem is more repressive measures, instead of trying to see Jamaica from that viewpoint.
Consequently, the order of priority for ministerial funding ought to be as follows: education, agriculture, and health. It will be observed that national security does not make the top three, because, when those three are up and running, the ministry of labour will be able to place workers and the pressing need for national security will recede.
Volunteering for change
However, the very first step is for the members of that elite class, the employed, to stop and count their blessings.
They should ask themselves, NOT what rights they are prepared to give up to enable a Government to impose repressive and unconstitutional restrictions on them in the fight against crime, but instead, what are they prepared to do or give up to reduce that ever-widening number of Jamaicans who do not see Jamaica as they do.
We all have a vested interest in preventing Jamaica from slipping into anarchy because of thoughtless selfishness. Let us not wake up one day with these words on our lips, 'I didn't realise, if only I had'.
Take a page from Barack Obama's stated plan to change America - volunteer, volunteer, volunteer for any endeavour you feel equipped for. No Government, past, present or to come, can do it alone.
I am, etc.,
HOWARD HAMILTON, QC
