Letter Of The Day - Time to heal a sick society

THE EDITOR, Sir:

I refer to the horrific killing in Yallahs and the commentary published by you relating to same.

With the greatest respect to all that I have seen and heard so far, our singular focus on the perpetrator, though heartfelt and genuine, is somewhat misguided.

This is not the first such incident in recent times. A policeman in St Mary recently ran amok, killing and wounding family members before killing himself. Women (pregnant or otherwise), children, old people and even dogs are slaughtered regularly by both criminal elements and our security forces.

Since the 1970s, I would estimate that in excess of 50,000 lives have been destroyed by violence. In spite of these extraordinarily gruesome murder statistics, in spite of the pitiful and rapidly declining living conditions of an increasing number of people, the unbearably hostile behaviour of our citizenry and the revolting vulgarity of our social interactions, we still cannot accept that the Yallahs and St Mary incidents are not isolated deviations from the norm (madness). These are symptoms of a sick society, a perverted body politic and hallmarks of a failing (if not a failed) state.

Pointing a finger only at an obviously deranged young man, driven over the edge by unknown domestic pressures, without the support of adequate training, education, professional counselling and subject, is an easy placebo that enables us to push back the nightmare that must haunt the sensitive among us nightly.

SAVE JAMAICA

It is time to wake up and smell the fetid, decaying breath of the reality that is around us. We have become a society without functional values, without humanity, without decency.

We trumpet our achievements with arrogance, beat our chests when we excel on the world stage but step gently around the gaping failures that threaten to make a mockery of our Vision 2030 goals.

We urgently need a Truth and Reconciliation Campaign to discover and expose the defective infrastructure of our civic and political systems which allow our representatives and leaders to escape accountability for their corrupt crimes against society.

We must lay bare, analyse and prescribe cures for the rampant tribalism and classism which divide and rule us and find ways to adjust our crass materialism so unbecoming of a small island state.

Mr Editor, unless we realise NOW that it is us who are deviant, perverted, deranged and spiritually sick, we will continue to kill more and more of our mothers, abuse more of our children and parents and pillage our state Treasury until the stench of our own decay stifles what is left of us as a nation state.

HOWARD MITCHELL

Attorney-at-law

howsam1@yahoo.com