HOW MANY MORE WILL HAVE TO DIE ?

Each and every life is valued the same, none has more value than the other, at least in the sight of our Lord God Almighty, our Creator.

Here in Earth some lives are def­i­nite­ly more valu­able than oth­ers, some blood more trea­sured than oth­ers. Bad though that con­cept be, there are unin­tend­ed con­se­quence to shed­ding the blood of those who are high­ly placed or very vis­i­ble with­in our societies.

Every time the blood of the inno­cent is shed it leaves soci­ety poor­er, it leaves us all weak­er. Our soci­eties are no greater than the indi­vid­u­als who make up those soci­eties. If that con­cept is true, then the Island of Jamaica is expo­nen­tial­ly weak, if the amount of Jamaicans slaugh­tered annu­al­ly per 100.000 is a reli­able met­ric by which to judge that weak­ness, then we are cor­rect in our pro­nounce­ments. Most points in any conversation,are sub­jec­tive, that includes who may be char­ac­ter­ized as innocent.We may even argue the mean­ing of inno­cent, as well as we may argue the con­text in which we assume that inno­cence, all of that is true, so I am aware that the first response from some will be that killings hap­pen every­where. Of course who could rea­son­ably argue with that? It is indeed true, killings hap­pen everywhere,and they hap­pen with bru­tal and fright­en­ing impuni­ty by those who are pre­dis­posed to killing. Though true that killings hap­pen every­where, have we become so desen­si­tized to the shed­ding of blood that we are will­ing to con­tin­ue to low­er the bar of accept­abil­i­ty, and con­tin­ue to ratio­nal­ize away the most egre­gious acts of bar­bar­i­ty as nor­mal­cy? Have we become so immersed in the con­cept of self-preser­va­tion and our own indi­vid­ual sur­vival that we are inca­pable of dis­cern­ing that when any mem­ber of our com­mu­ni­ty is unsafe we are all unsafe?

Once again, as is cus­tom­ary, anoth­er Jamaican had his life uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly snuffed out, this is noth­ing new (a nu nut­ten) killing peo­ple in Jamaica is as casu­al as hav­ing a glass of water.

Melvin Chung, who oper­at­ed five Total ser­vice sta­tions in the Corporate Area, was attacked and shot mul­ti­ple times out­side one of his places of busi­ness, on East Street, on Saturday after­noon. Two firearms belong­ing to his secu­ri­ty firm, Melan Security Services Limited, were stolen, along with cash esti­mat­ed to be over $2 mil­lion, Superintendent Steve McGregor, who heads the Kingston Central Police Division, told the Jamaica Observer yes­ter­day. “He’s hard-work­ing, very jovial, full of life and full of spir­it. Always help­ing the poor. He hired a lot of peo­ple from the inner city, both at the gas sta­tions and the secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny,” the rel­a­tive said. Read more: http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​F​i​n​d​-​C​h​u​n​g​-​s​-​k​i​l​l​ers – Heaven-pleads_13333843#ixzz2HJt6IhKS

I have no infor­ma­tion which per­tains to the cause or rea­son for this man’s death beyond what has been report­ed in this sto­ry, how­ev­er what is clear is that Melvin Chung has giv­en his life, as so many oth­er Jamaicans have, sim­ply because they decid­ed to believe in their country.

Clearly,this man could have done what so many of us did years ago, he could have decid­ed that he would be safer or even bet­ter off liv­ing in anoth­er geog­ra­phy, he did­n’t, and he has paid a price for it.

Our Country is run by peo­ple who are still aston­ish­ing­ly inca­pable of under­stand­ing the con­se­quences ram­pant crim­i­nal­i­ty is hav­ing on the eco­nom­ic life of the coun­try and it’s inhabitants.

The Country’s Prime Minister is way over her head, if pop­ulism and empa­thy were gov­ern­ing cur­ren­cy, Jamaica under Portia Simpson Miller would be in great shape, how­ev­er that is the extent of Miller’s capa­bil­i­ties, so our coun­try is in bad shape.

Portia Simpson Miller​.PM:

The job cre­ators are being slaugh­tered because of the fail­ings of an incom­pe­tent Government who runs an incom­pe­tent National Security appa­ra­tus. Over the last two and a half decades the list of Business peo­ple killed by local crim­i­nal scum have been mind-boggling.

As incred­i­ble as those killings have been for the eco­nom­ic life of the coun­try, not to men­tion the loss to their fam­i­lies, it tells only a small part of the larg­er sto­ry. There is the total­ly untold sto­ry of incal­cu­la­ble finan­cial loss/​disadvantage to the nation, Simply put, no one is beat­ing down the doors to enter and invest in Jamaica. Jamaicans liv­ing abroad are not beat­ing down the doors to reen­ter Jamaica to retire, peo­ple are actu­al­ly beat­ing down the doors to exit Jamaica, tak­ing their tal­ents and skills with them.

The loss from all of those com­bined is mon­u­men­tal, added to that is the incom­pre­hen­si­ble inane bureau­crat­ic and cor­rupt tax and import pol­i­cy of the coun­try which makes it vir­tu­al­ly impos­si­ble for the coun­try to claw its way out of the down­ward tra­jec­to­ry its on.

The names of count­less slaugh­tered Jamaicans con­tin­ue to lit­ter the dump heap of his­to­ry, Jamaicans like you and me, who did not need to die, they died sim­ply because of a cor­rupt and incom­pe­tent Government.