Amina Blackwood Meeks
MISS LADY observes that it is that time of year again when everybody seems to believe in magic, or at least seems to want to find something they can believe in. Maybe peace or happiness, goodwill and joy.
But, according to har, almost everything we do for the 11 months preceding that sabotages the ability to find the ever illusive magic of Christmas.
Teck, for example, de big to-do over the new bus station and new traffic arrangements in Half-Way Tree. Miss Lady sey she personally glad dat she did leave har yard and go out deh go look.
For if she did stay home and follow certain sections of the media, she wudda swear and believe that the whole country was falling apart.
First of all, dem spend de entire weekend before de new arrangements was to teck effeck gloating how de ting nat ready.
Den dem predick chaos, den when de day come dem glad fe report sey de chaos come wid it an people did not know where to find whatever dem was to find.
She sey is like dem never hear bout a period of transition. Almost like dem get so accustomed to rioting over any and everyting dat dem tink dat dem job was to incite it. Suppose all dat energy did spend giving people advice and repeating information about de new system and how to help it work?
Miss Lady sey she wonder if dere are people who doan want anyting to change. Better we have something to complain about so dat we can complain bout how we love complain.
Meck it stay just so. Is like dem saying whatever confusion exist is we create it, we used to it, we proud a it and we do not intend to spend the time learning anything else.
Dat is a direck sabotage of any magic we want to find at Christmas or when tourist season open or any adda time we tink is de right time to put awn we bes behaviour. Miss Lady sey yu have to have a ting firs before yu can put it awn.
IGNORANCE VS STUPIDITY
An she sey de worse behaviour we show to wan anedda is dis way we have of callin adda people idiot. She sey she listened to two morning show radio people a laugh and ridicule and call people stupid, yes dem did use dat very wud, because de smaddy cudden read de new 'international traffic signal' what put up to regulate de change.
Since when is ignorance or lack of familiarity with anything stupidity? Dat is what Miss Lady want to know. She sey dat is a big example to her as to how de society get dysfunctional.
Dysfunctionalism is the direct result of how we treat each other, too much scorn and derision. Christmas will not solve it. Two jokes that follow that will not solve it either. We have to be more careful and more consistent in our behaviour and our attitude to wan anedda.
For Miss Lady sey some people behave like de attitudes and values campaign is only for children in schools and have nuttin to do wid big people an maybe big people attitude is de problem dat cause de brukking down of Jamaica in de firs place.
She sey it come in like sey how we relate to wan anedda is a deliberate engineering of social confusion and exclusion.
We draw too much line round weself an between weself, who betta dan who, brighter dan who, prettier dan who, have more money dan who, till all de church land up inna de confusion an tink sey de way to solve de problem is to buy and sell and all who can be bought will find demself once more in de human marketplace.
Now dat is a confusing place fe end up inna. For dose who are doing de buying might also decide dat some who come fe sell demself is not worth being bought an we find sey we condemn again a whole set a weself to a dungle heap of humanity, engineered to create de same confusion and mayhem dat we expeck Christmas to magically abate.
SOCIAL COHESION
Miss Lady, a wonder if we cudda direck at least some of dat time and energy into doing something everyday to create social cohesion. She doan mean so-so law an order and police inna plaza a try prevent smaddy from rob smaddy else in order to gain access to de sinting dem dat media sey everybaddy mus have fe Chrismus but nuff smaddy doan have de means fe get. See?
Right dere ,she start to argue how exclusion lead to brukking dung of de nation and same time she start argue fe an approach, even if we kean engineer a national policy of social cohesion.
She sey she nuh tink sey it so hard fe everybaddy live wid everybaddy else like sey dem believe sey all a we belong to wan anedda. If we cudda jus use a fraction a de resources we spend fe be betta dan de nex wan, maybe we wudda find a way to create the kind of magic that makes Christmas last.
Den we wudden haffe hand out so much ole clothes and leftovers fe confirm pan people sey dem nuh have nutten an haffe depen pan who have fe eat a good food once a year.
ENJOY VALUE-ADDED
If we find de way fe add value to everybody fe de whole year, den maybe eventually de whole a we wudda enjoy de value added to de society in de reduction of the economic, social and territorial inequalities in standards of living and levels of opportunity.
Unless of course, we happy wid Christmas jus being a likkle magic show and we know sey it nuh real an when de show dun we can go back to grumbling bout street sign and who stupid and who have superior international wisdom and all de tings dat doan solve de problems we say a go kill we.
Well, maybe we won't all die but, ascarding to Miss Lady, since dere is no holy place in well, we will all be stricken. And since Christmas is about de magic of life, maybe we all want to live.
