Holness Finally Understanding That Governing Is Different Than Politicking…

In October 2011, at 39, Andrew Holness became the youngest ever to be prime min­is­ter in Jamaica’s his­to­ry. In March 2016, at 43, he became the youngest per­son ever elect­ed prime min­is­ter, and he was also the first prime min­is­ter born after Jamaica gained inde­pen­dence in 1962. History-mak­ing feats that the Jamaican Prime Minister and all well-think­ing Jamaicans can be proud of. The young Prime Minister was a prod­uct of Spanish Town, edu­cat­ed at the University of the West Indies, and the Member of Parliament of a gar­ri­son con­stituen­cy. Neither of those bul­let points argued well for some­one who would most sup­port the rule of law. In fact, Andrew Holness was too young to have known the old, tran­quil Jamaica that we old­er folks rem­i­nisce about. His tone and tenor before and after tak­ing office were incon­sis­tent with some­one who should be lead­ing a coun­try because he lacked a basic under­stand­ing of how crime destroys soci­eties. This writer spoke out about what I saw as inad­e­quate sup­port from the prime min­is­ter for our police offi­cers in their dan­ger­ous and dif­fi­cult task.

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One’s world­view while in col­lege, cam­paign­ing for office, and being a mem­ber of par­lia­ment rep­re­sent­ing a gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ty in Jamaica is a far cry from gov­ern­ing as Prime Minister. And so, as my grand­dad would say, it is nev­er too late for a show­er of rain; it was not total­ly unex­pect­ed that Holness, a prod­uct of Spanish Town, schooled in the Intellectual ghet­to, and MP for a gar­ri­son could rise to the occa­sion, matured by the high office he holds. Not every­one can rise to the high office they hold; we saw what occurred in the United States dur­ing the four years after President Barack Obama left office. Much to his cred­it, Prime Minister Andrew Holness has matured, at least inso­far as rec­og­niz­ing that high vio­lent crime rates and a pros­per­ous Jamaica are mutu­al­ly exclu­sive. Let me be clear: Holness is nowhere near where he needs to be regard­ing rein­ing in the coun­try’s ram­pant crim­i­nal­i­ty, but he is start­ing to get the pic­ture. In 2021, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assas­si­nat­ed at his pri­vate home in the hills over­look­ing Port-au-Prince. After this heinous act, I noticed a marked yet wel­come change in the tone and text of the Jamaican Prime min­is­ter on the issue of crime. I wel­comed the change and con­grat­u­lat­ed the PM for com­ing to the par­ty, albeit late.

And so, speak­ing in Manchester on changes to the new road traf­fic act, the prime min­is­ter spoke to“decades of break­down in stan­dards, rules, and expectations.“The hard­ships we now expe­ri­ence are pre­cise because we do not have an even sys­tem of law and order that every­one can ben­e­fit from said Holness. This writer has writ­ten sev­er­al arti­cles in which I have laid out the many ways a crime-rid­den soci­ety impov­er­ish­es every­one except those ben­e­fit­ting from crime. I am thrilled to see the PM now acknowl­edg­ing those real­i­ties. The Prime Minister spoke to what he char­ac­ter­ized as” an unfor­tu­nate pre­sen­ta­tion” in ref­er­ence to the non­sen­si­cal debate about child restraints in motor vehi­cles. (1) the brouha­ha is anoth­er exam­ple of rushed leg­is­la­tion that is poor­ly thought out and not prop­er­ly debat­ed using data and exper­tise. Much like the INDECOM Act, it was poor­ly thought through and writ­ten and had to be revised. We con­tin­ue to chal­lenge those bad­ly writ­ten laws as well. (2) The Prime Minister should nev­er apol­o­gize or be intim­i­dat­ed by those who would ques­tion his new­found com­mit­ment to the rule of law.

Jamaicans obey laws when they leave Jamaica; they act the way they do in Jamaica because they are allowed to. “I don’t want to be seen as the prime min­is­ter who is try­ing to stop peo­ple from eat­ing a food as there are those who will try to craft that nar­ra­tive — pit­ting law and order against sur­vival — that if we enforce the law, if we cre­ate order, then peo­ple won’t sur­vive, and that is in the minds of many Jamaicans,” said Holness. This is where I part­ed com­pa­ny with the PM; you do not lead by wor­ry­ing about the noise in the peanut gallery. You do not spit on your fin­ger but hold it up to the wind to see what direc­tion to take. He also spoke about the silent major­i­ty. He assert­ed that the silent major­i­ty agrees with set­ting the coun­try on a firm foot­ing based on the rule of law. It should not mat­ter who agrees or dis­agrees when you know in your gut that what you are doing is the right thing. Setting the coun­try on a foot­ing based on the rule of law is non-nego­tiable if Jamaica is to suc­ceed. .…

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.