A Worse Dilemma Awaits…

But for the peri­od of Hugh Lawson Shearer’s lead­er­ship, Jamaica has been involved in a kind of law enforce­ment strat­e­gy which is equiv­a­lent to stand­ing on the left leg only, left hand hold­ing right leg from behind and right hand across the chest hold­ing the left ear.
For those of you who ever made a major boo­boo in the good old days in a Jamaican class­room, you will recall just how tedious to near impos­si­ble that form of pun­ish­ment can be. Unless of course, bad class­room behav­ior made you an expert.

Those who make pol­i­cy on the Island have sel­dom been any­thing but self-aggran­diz­ing pre­tenders, with over­in­flat­ed impres­sions of them­selves. As a con­se­quence, they have pre­ten­tious­ly and gra­tu­itous­ly opt­ed for poli­cies which have not been fit­ting for our sit­u­a­tion giv­en our spe­cial pro­cliv­i­ty for refus­ing to obey laws.

In many regards, the laws and poli­cies they put in place are so bla­tant­ly ridicu­lous that they have the oppo­site effect of what the orig­i­nal intent was. These kinds of mis­cues have forced skep­tics like me to ques­tion the motives of the pol­i­cy­mak­ers, some of whom are known criminals.

Both polit­i­cal par­ties are guilty of pussy­foot­ing with the rule of law, yet the infi­dels who run them make grand protes­ta­tions about their love of coun­try even as their leg­isla­tive actions argue otherwise.
Protestations about human rights in an envi­ron­ment of mur­der and may­hem by crim­i­nals run­ning roughshod over the pop­u­la­tion are incred­i­bly fraud­u­lent and misguided.
Shockingly, the polar­ized pop­u­la­tion, balka­nized into two com­pet­ing camps, is inca­pable of sep­a­rat­ing fact from fic­tion so the per­pet­u­a­tion of lies and decep­tion is the norm and those who speak truth becomes the enemy.

The bal­anc­ing act of which I speak is exem­pli­fied in the dia­bol­i­cal decep­tion which both polit­i­cal par­ties have per­pe­trat­ed on the coun­try. This they have done through a series of sleight of hand which cre­ates the illu­sion of doing the right thing through their mealy-mouthed sup­port for the rule of law.
Yet a clos­er look reveals a direct attempt to main­tain the sta­tus quo, a‑la the reten­tion and expan­sion of gar­risons as a means to gain­ing and hold­ing state power.

The main­te­nance of INDECOM and the Office of Public Defender at a cost of hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars each year are two exam­ples of that sleight of hand.
In the 70’s poor­ly armed mil­i­tants attacked police sta­tions and res­cued criminals(the police were even more poor­ly armed) they suf­fered no con­se­quence. In the 80’s, bet­ter armed, they attacked police sta­tions and killed offi­cers, there were no laws put in place as a deterrent.
In the 90’s incred­i­bly well armed, they sim­ply razed police sta­tions with auto­mat­ic gun­fire then burned them to the ground. (No laws were put in place as a deterrent).
In the 2000’s incred­i­bly well armed, well sup­port­ed, well-financed, well orga­nized, they chal­lenged the author­i­ty of the state to uphold the laws. We have the images of destruction.

Complicit, both the JLP and PNP col­lud­ed and con­spired to blame the mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces for doing exact­ly what they were sworn to do. Risking life and limb and in some cas­es mak­ing the ulti­mate sac­ri­fice, mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces did what soci­ety asked them to do.
Rather than hon­or their sac­ri­fices, both the PNP and JLP through a series of actions, not the least of which was a pop­py-show Kangaroo hear­ing head­ed by an elit­ist for­eign­er was insti­tut­ed to tar and feath­er the secu­ri­ty forces.
Rather than ensure that nev­er again could ordi­nary punks pick up weapons in any fash­ion to chal­lenge the author­i­ty of the state, apolo­gies and resti­tu­tion was the response.

The secu­ri­ty forces were repaid with ridicule and lies, they were maligned and worse of all had their integri­ty and func­tion called into ques­tion by a Bajan Colonialists who has his head so far up the Queen’s ass he still does not know slav­ery was abolished.
So as Swallowfield burns and molo­tov cock­tail bombs are lobbed at the Stadium police sta­tion, and as urban ter­ror­ists lay down bar­rages of heavy auto­mat­ic fire at the police, it is busi­ness as usu­al to those in Jamaica house.
Like the fire depart­ment which is nev­er able to save a burn­ing build­ing, only capa­ble of cool­ing down oper­a­tions, so too are our secu­ri­ty forces con­demned to remove bar­ri­cades and stay out of the way of the auto­mat­ic fire. After which the thugs go back to their homes as if noth­ing hap­pened, with no fear they will be held to account.

The dra­con­ian mea­sures insti­tut­ed by the sil­ly police high com­mand as a means to hold­ing offi­cers in the depart­ment is hav­ing the exact oppo­site effect, as I warned when they embarked on that folly.
We are reli­ably informed that this year will be a ban­ner year for attri­tion from the force. We will await the final num­bers before mak­ing too much hay of that but I stand by my statements.
This sit­u­a­tion is only going to get worse because as long as our coun­try has more safe­guards for crim­i­nal mur­der­ers than it does for the rule of law, the results are bound to skew the way Jamaica has been going.
Stay tuned.