Dawn Ritch, Contributor
AN AIR of unreality still clings to the country, and, with each waking moment, the authorities seem to dream on.
This administration has not only increased the multi-million dollar salaries of all the Members of Parliament (MPs), but seems determined to pretend that it is a brand new administration encountering for the first time the mess it has made.
Meanwhile murder and financial disaster among the members of the public at large not only continue unabated, but gallop even faster along.
From the start of the year until now the Jamaican dollar has long fled past 47 to 1. Despite the investment by the Bank of Jamaica of nearly US$300 million from the Net International Reserves (NIR) in the foreign exchange market to hold it, not only has the dollar steadily devalued all year long, but it shot up to 50 last week.
Despite the presence, and use therefore, of an NIR built up by beggaring the people and the country in order to safeguard the value of the Jamaican dollar, not only has the dollar devalued significantly, but $286.5 million in hard cash went up in smoke between March 31 this year and October 31 this year in the failed effort to protect it.
Nevertheless the Governor of the Bank of Jamaica, Derick Latibeaudiere, was given in October one of the nation's highest honours, the Order of Jamaica (OD) in recognition of his contribution to the (de)stabilization of the Jamaican dollar and the Jamaican economy.
STATE REWARDING ITSELF
Prime Minister P. J. Patterson then proceeded to recognise himself and all previous Prime Ministers with the Order of the Nation and a bright red sash to go with it.
Now they will be called "Most Honourable," while the public at large continues to lead ever more disordered and dishonoured lives under the oppression of a state which neither produces jobs nor tranquility, only bankruptcy, poverty and murder.
Yet the state piles honours and rewards upon itself, presumably for a job well done.
Mr. Patterson said he would run an inclusive Government. He is bound and determined to do so, and in this enjoys the eager support of everyone else, because he knows full well that few in Jamaica can turn down positions. It's the next best thing to honours and rewards, and everybody is happy to accept.
Offered a crumb, they rush to the table and that sadly includes the members of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.
No wonder both sides of the House of Representatives are anxious to make Jamaica a republic so that they can vie for who can make the office of the presidency the most imperial of all.
I hardly think, however, that anyone will be able to beat Mr. Patterson because he's so staggeringly adept at creating baronetcies.
It takes real imperial flair to make the investiture of the Order of the Nation gratefully received by the old and the dead. But it takes political deadliness to co-opt the Opposition Spokesman on National Security, Mr. Derrick Smith, to the Government's own Consultative Committee on the National Security Crime Plan to advise the Prime Minister on his Government's fight against crime.
PROCESS OF CONSENSUS GONE MAD
Since few have any confidence whatsoever that the fight will continue to be anything but lost, except more spectacularly so, who are we to blame for the failure in the future?
Mr. Smith and the Leader of the Opposition, who allow themselves to be used in this tawdry fashion for what can only be described as love of position?
This is the use of the process of consensus gone mad. The Government was elected to be in charge and responsible to the people.
Dr. Peter Phillips was specifically appointed to the national security portfolio with Cabinet responsibility, and the Opposition members are supposed to be the constitutional watchdogs over the rights of the people, the public purse and the integrity of the operations of the Government.
Instead of watchdogs what we have are opposition lap dogs perfectly groomed, trimmed, and muzzled by no less a person than the emperor himself, his Imperial Highness the Most Honourable P. J. Patterson.
Without realising it, it seems we voted for a coalition Government, and, as everybody knows, that grinds on endlessly to nowhere, with every track covered by an endless stream of paper. It's a perpetual holiday from responsibility.
Mr. Patterson has also succeeded in making the holiday as general as possible by creating a 22-man Consultative Committee to include the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, Jamaicans for Justice, the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights, the Lay Magistrates, the Jamaica Council of Churches, the local universities and the Evangelicals. Has he left anybody out?
This committee has had not only the kitchen sink thrown in, but the dishwater as well. If all of these groups, including the Opposition, are official advisors to the Government on the struggle against crime then how can any of them dare criticise the outcome?
It would be a moral conflict of interest. Effectively therefore, Mr. Patterson has silenced not only opposing politicians, but civil society as well.
ALL IS NOT LOST
All is not lost, however, because the weak, the poor and the defenceless still have Frank Phipps, chairman of the Farquharson Institute, and Yvonne McCalla-Sobers of Families Against State Terrorism (FAST) to speak up on their behalf with dogged determination, and no conflicts whatsoever.
Add to that mix Wilmot Perkins who has far more patience and courage than I'll ever have, and at least we have three good people to hide behind when the licks, and other "extreme measures" come raining down upon our heads without interruption.
The new PNP administration when it was very old only a few months ago, said that crime was everybody's responsibility, not only the police's.
Since the election they have indeed made it everybody's responsibility, where before crime had only been our daily burden. Now in addition to having it as a problem apparently only to ourselves, we are to be held responsible for solving crime as well.
I didn't vote for myself, nor Jamaicans for Justice, nor for the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica. I voted for a political party to do the job for me, because it is quite beyond me and anybody else I happen to know.
The existence of this new Consultative Committee demonstrates, however, that the fight against crime is also completely beyond the governing party elected to reduce the mayhem, and this is why they have recruited every group they could shake a fist at.
Crime-fighting was the sole responsibility of the public authorities, and no private ones were involved, not even the church.
The reason boundaries exist is to ensure the proper ordering of society, and the peace and tranquility of the people therein.
It is assumed, therefore, that the parson will not have to run down the thief himself, and that the policeman will not have to say the last rites, that entrepreneurs will manage businesses without having to pay money to the protection racket, and that lay magistrates will not actually be required to serve in court.
All this within the blissful system of the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy.
It seems that when people didn't care and most weren't looking, Jamaica was transformed in the twinkling of an eye into an African court or a Middle East palace, replete with endless consultations with chieftains, sheiks and television cameras rolling for the local news only.
It is all sound and fury signifying nothing.
