LETTER OF THE DAY - In time of urban chaos, where are the leaders?
published: Saturday | February 7, 2004
THE EDITOR, Sir:
A MAJOR metropolitan area is under siege. Khaki-wearing bandits brandishing guns have overrun the streets. The people scatter in confusion and fear. In the congestion of the chaos motorists leave their cars behind for a faster exodus on foot. A large shopping mall provides refuge, people pile in and the security guards slam the gates shut. Inside this massive fortress of concrete and steel they wait out the storm of gunfire.
What better metaphor for the victory of thugs over the people. While criminals roam the streets at will, the people barricade themselves inside virtual prisons. This is not Bosnia circa 1998. This is Spanish Town, Jamaica, 2004. It could just as easily have been Kingston or Montego Bay. The place and time is a matter of the discretion of the dark forces that exercise rule over the streets. Where are our leaders, you ask? For lack of will, they stand powerless while their people cower in fear.
In the aftermath of Spanish Town, our Prime Minster's first response was to beg mothers to stop sheltering their criminal sons. The impotence betrayed by this response is as dispiriting as it is subtle. The hundreds of people who will be gunned down in the streets this year will find that the mothers of criminal sons did not heed the Prime Minister's noble call. Is that all you have, Mr. Prime Minister? Just when we thought the Prime Minister's non-responsive response had marked the bottom of banality, the Leader of the Opposition came along to add to our despair. Continuing to show signs of mental atrophy, the Leader of the Opposition went into an incoherent rant about political enemies inciting violence to destabilise one of his proteges. Is that all you have, Mr. Leader of the Opposition? Is that all our leaders have? God help us!
