Ian Boyne, ContributorWHEN NATIONAL Security Minister, Peter Phillips, signalled recently that he would be deploying the army in certain inner-city communities, human rights activists became alarmed. When he went on to say that there was no departure timetable, they were absolutely horrified.
In their minds, they could conjure up images of soldiers demanding that innocent youth take off their shirts and lie on the ground in the scorching heat of the day; of soldiers forcing corner youth to drink their own urine; of old people's homes being ransacked, looking for supposed stolen goods by grandsons; of women being boxed and kicked because they are "too feisty fi chat back to soldier".
Others are outraged that the minister could sound like he was really seriously contemplating the soldiers' staying in these communities for months, as this would restrict people's movement and effectively place them under military rule. This seems like pure wickedness to these innocent, law-abiding citizens whose only crime is that they are too poor to leave these desperate communities.
But do many people really know what are the actual, existing conditions and the state of human rights of these people in these inner-city communities? Do people have an idea of what takes place in these communities in "normal" times, when there is no military presence? One should make it clear that swapping one type of brutality and repression for another, however more benign, is absolutely unacceptable. The state cannot be allowed to infringe on the rights of citizens. The organs of the state are accountable to us the people in a democratic society and we cannot remain silent when abuses take place.
The fact is that we do have a problem with handling power in this society. Watch the arrogant, rude behaviour of your regular security guard, especially in a mall, if you don't think we have a cultural problem. In our ex-slave society where power was not shared with the people and where the perks of power were so arrogantly flaunted, working class people who get a small grasp of it can be most ruthless in its exercise.
When children "play teacher", their greatest excitement is to beat the children and talk rough to them. When working class adults become supervisors, they are more dictatorial, obnoxious and unbearable than the boss. When a police officer - who out of his uniform is seen as a nobody who has no money to "flash it" - has the power, you had better know your place. And there seems to be a particular psychopathology of the Jamaican soldier. Arrogance, aloofness and bloated self-importance seem integral to the personality type. Throwing him out in these inner city communities can create problems.
This is why Don Robotham's suggestion that a group from civil society monitors whatever 'emergency' measures are in place is such a vital one. This long-held perception of the army as a group of disciplined, self-controlled individuals wears thin sometimes when these men interface with inner-city communities, and the fight against crime will be seriously compromised if their behaviour confirms the human rights activists' suspicion that their presence would bring more harm than good.
But there are some realities that we must face. The decent, law-abiding people in the inner cities are already under oppression from the criminals and terrorists. People talk a lot about how poverty creates crime, but very few focus on the equal fact that crime creates poverty. It's a vicious circle. People who raise howls about the presence of the military in certain communities speak as though the innocent people in these communities are living with complete freedom of movement and association, which will be disturbed by the presence of the military or by curfews.
The constitutional rights of many poor, innocent inner city people are violated every day without the alarms we hear about the proposed military presence. There are many young, attractive, ambitious women in the inner city whose freedom of association is only something on paper because uptown guys and men who are interested in them cannot come through the area freely, for fear that the corner youth will feel "dem (the residents), a dis man and feel like dem better than youth and youth".
These guys have such low self-esteem that the presence of an uptown guy with his SUV parked at a girl's "gates" is offensive and is cause for envy and bitterness. Many of these girls have to be sent home in taxis and even then, many taxis don't want to go into certain areas. So the normal right of a ghetto girl to have her man relax in her yard with her, watching television and having a good time (without sinning, I have to add), is denied her because of the corner youth and the shottas.
Ambitious young men who would like to have their friends over to work in study groups can't think of it, for their friends are afraid and no one knows when "war" might break out. Many of these youth in high school and university have to go home earlier than they would like because while the gangsters and criminals might know them and not harm them, one never knows when wild shots might hit you or men will invade from the neighbouring warring community. Your constitutional right to walk about freely is trampled on every day in certain of these communities.
Then there is the problem of stigma, which is now the subject of some significant research in the United States. Stigma is very hard to erase and operates very subtly. Many African-Americans are now realising that long after the courts have abolished discrimination and long after corporate America has relaxed official or even tacit barriers to advancement, the prejudice and the stigma associated with blackness still remains. The scholars are finding that this is intractable.
Bright, creative youth from the inner city who could advance themselves economically and professionally are held back because they live in certain communities and employers are afraid that if they are employed and there is a dispute, their criminal friends could snuff out their lives. Someone I know works at a big establishment where a supervisor fired a dishonest worker from another inner city area one Friday afternoon. He turned up at work the next week with his gunmen friends who killed the supervisor.
You can appeal to employers all you like about not having "prejudice against ghetto youth" and "giving the youth a chance", the fact is that the stigma associated with these communities holds back the decent people who cannot afford to rent outside these areas just now - without a job.
Crime perpetuates the poverty and hopelessness. If we could find a way to rid these areas of the violence and savagery associated with them, over time people might not be so afraid to employ people from these communities. It is not every single inner city area where people find it hard to get uptown jobs. There are some poor areas where people can still get jobs outside simply because the names of those communities are not constantly on radio and television as being a part of gang and political warfare. If the police and the military can succeed in restoring calm and peace to some of these communities, the poor there will benefit. If they are left under the control of the criminals and the terrorists who operate their drug bases from there, there will be no hope for the decent, law-abiding poor.
If we can just control some of these idiots in the police and military who are mesmerised by power, and discipline them when they fall out of line, the proposed police/military action on a sustained basis can be a major help to the inner city communities, once that is coupled with economic and social renewal.
When people feel safer in their communities and know that the police and the soldiers can burst on the scene any minute - that they are just down the road - they will feel freer to give information to the police. Community policing is of little use when after I have given information to put away some gunman, his friend comes around and burn down my house and kill me and my family in our beds. The best witness protection programme is to have the police and the military on spot so that the criminals know that they are not free to be walking about with their big guns frightening people into submission and blowing away those who are informers.
When gunmen know that Peter Phillips is serious about making the military and the police take back control of these communities, and that it is not a matter of "lying low for a little while", going into other areas until the soldiers are back in barracks, then they will have to think again. The fact that Phillips has given no timetable for withdrawal once the military is there is a brilliant destabilising strategy to the criminals. Phillips knows psychological warfare. And he must talk tough and let shotta know seh the security forces no fraid a dem and won't play ease up.
The media must play a responsible role and if our interest is to protect the human rights of all the people, then we have to use our brains and realise that while there will be some inconvenience with the police/military presence and the curfews, that is far less obstructive than the daily terror and suppression of human rights which our fellow citizens face in these communities. Every journalist should read Don Robotham's article in last week's Sunday Gleaner.
It is easy to push cameras before people who say soldier kick and box them, and for radio to put some screaming youth who is telling horror stories about soldiers making them do all kinds of degrading things. That must not be overlooked. But, colleagues, don't neglect the forest for the trees. If we are really standing up for the people, then we must want to see them liberated from the dons and the criminals.
