Welcome To Jamaica.

Day in day out the News Papers blare out the head­lines of death and destruction:

Priest found? — Police believe corpse is that of missing churchman Police hold two for priest’s disappearance. http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​P​r​i​e​s​t​-​s​-​b​o​d​y​-​f​o​u​n​d​#​i​x​z​z​2​a​Y​1​z​J​0Pc.

Man shot dead at Bull Bay church altar.  http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​M​a​n​-​s​h​o​t​-​d​e​a​d​-​a​t​-​B​u​l​l​-​B​a​y​-​c​h​u​r​c​h​-​a​l​t​a​r​_​1​4​7​8​2​8​9​9​#​i​x​z​z​2​a​Y​2​S​q​zeB

Murder of businessman jolts Sterling Castle.http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​M​u​r​d​e​r​-​o​f​-​b​u​s​i​n​e​s​s​m​a​n​-​j​o​l​t​s​-​S​t​e​r​l​i​n​g​-​C​a​s​t​l​e​_​1​4​7​8​2​004

Jamaicans con­tin­ue as if noth­ing hap­pened. It is the new nor­mal. “a su di ting set”. They have rel­e­gat­ed them­selves to sur­vival mode, “any­thing a anything”.

Crime and cor­rup­tion has lit­er­al­ly inun­dat­ed the coun­try, cit­i­zens bar­ri­cade them­selves behind lay­ers of grill-work, sep­a­rat­ed room from room. They hope the bars will keep the mur­der­ers away. They hope it will buy them time, the time it will take for the police to even­tu­al­ly come. If them come at all. those caught out­side in a bad sit­u­a­tion becomes a chalk out­line. The Police come and go through the motions, they cre­ate a sem­blance of pro­fes­sion­al­ism, they erect the crime scene tape, yet curi­ous onlook­ers breach the tape and con­t­a­m­i­nate the scene. They would­n’t leave or obey the police even if they are asked nice­ly of threat­ened, this is Jamaica.

In the end, the blood is washed away the peo­ple retreat to their lives , or what obtains as their lives. No one is fooled by the actions of the police, they know they will not arrest any­one for this killing, just like they did not arrest any­one for the one before, or the one before that. It is just for show, the cops do not know what they are look­ing for , but they put on a show. In the end, no one will be held account­able for this mur­der, no one ever is.

Some cal­cu­late it is safer to bad mouth the police, this puts them in good with the killers. They make the most out­landish state­ments against those who enforce the laws, they are bound to be safe. Or so they cal­cu­late, so they think, pret­ty soon it will all come crash­ing down on them, crim­i­nals have no honor.

The coun­try mean­while, lead­er­less like a ship with­out a rud­der, floun­ders along bat­tered by the waves of crime ‚cor­rup­tion unem­ploy­ment, price increases,power-lock-offs, water-lock-offs,and ever esca­lat­ing prices. The Prime Minister does not want to hear the cries, after all why should she? Why not leave her alone to be Prime Minister, let her have some peace to plan her next for­eign trip?

She does­n’t lis­ten to the news she says. I agree with her, if you have that many fools enam­ored with you, will­ing to put you where you do not belong, why would you want to lis­ten to their cries of despair? The tourist board Ad, says “in the Jamaica you know and love noth­ing’s changed”. It is a fee­ble attempt to con­sole, the fact that they say noth­ing’s changed,shows just how much has changed. The Jamaica you knew and loved every­thing has changed, everything.

This is Jamaica “a yah su nice”.