Ronald Thwaites | Straight thinking

Several events and expressions last week demonstrate the need for straight rather than crooked thinking especially when it comes to national affairs in this febrile election season.

The police report lowered incidents of crime. They also abuse credibility by reporting those for whom they are judge, jury and executioner being “fatally arrested”. These items dominate the nightly news with every incident attributable to some successful crime fighting policy. Really?

Straight rather than superficial thinking would require asking how come there are apparently unlimited numbers of unlicensed firearms despite the quantity recovered. Clearly the flow continues. Why? Until that is checked, reasoned thought will conclude that there will be no open windows and unlocked doors as promised. Holding out hope that the new United States administration will help us to slow the importation of killing-power is delusional thinking.

The people who promote unlimited access to weaponry, both there and here, are firmly in power now and there is no shortage of money to purchase these instruments of death either- whether from scamming or public corruption.

WHY GANGS?

Next, have a serious thought about the epidemic of gang culture. Who is considering why young black men join gangs. For if you don’t stop the flow, remove the incentives, the problem will persist despite the official lurch towards Bukele or Duterte.

Don’t we see what is happening in Haiti? Has it occurred to our policymakers that the loneliness, fear and insecurity experienced by those who feel abandoned by the system (like the more than ten thousand leaving school without subjects, certification or ethical foundation every year) creates a fertile terrain for various mafias.

Any national security budget which fails to think straight on the flow of arms and the origins of gang culture cannot be effective. As Dr. King put it “you can’t murder murder”.

COLLATERAL?

The law which permits a licensed financier to accept chattels as security for lending to individuals and small business persons is unlikely to be helpful, even as the category of pledegable items are expanded. Will the banks start accepting such security now? For until that is assured, needy borrowers will remain unbanked and the pawns of the moneylenders.

THE GAG

Straight thinking has caused me to change my position on the so-called gag clause in the Integrity Commission Act. There is a real risk of a public official’s good name being smirched unjustly by premature disclosure of an allegation. Restraint protecting against such mischief can be legislated. Balance that against the public right to know in the context of widespread corruption and I conclude that the present “gag” clause is too absolute. It would improve public confidence significantly if it were not so. Surely straight thinking by the parliamentarians could achieve an accommodation between both concerns.

KING CHARLES’ SPEECH

I know that Acting Governor General Fuller, a very measured gentleman, must have blanched at the text given him to read in Parliament last Thursday. Sir, as things stand now, none but the most hardened partisan could stomach the Kool-Aid that “our nation stands at the dawn of a new chapter in its journey” and all the pro-administration clap-trap that followed. For the majority of Jamaicans those aspirations have no resemblance to their reality.

MORE TO THE POINT

On budget day the bigger story was the nationally-felt outrage that an innocent hero like Usain and others could be robbed of billions because of poor supervision by government of a licensed financial institution.

While the King’s Viceroy was speaking, most others were nursing suspicion of how some depositors likely got a “prips” of the coming auto claps, enabling them to withdraw their funds in time while the rest have been left to suck salt. Add to that the lies being told about Bolt’s money. If that can happen to him, how secure and confident can the rest of us be?

WILFUL MISSTEPS

Consider what crooked thinking makes us do for ourselves. The whole effort at constitutional reform has miscarried because stubbornness triumphs over consensus. Shame!

We have not begun to consider the tsunami of Trumpism which is already affecting us. We indulge vapid discussion about “technical recession” while the definition is very clear and most of us already know how it go from our daily personal struggle.

Partisan cussing takes priority over serious attention to the reality of food insecurity among the majority of our people. We prate blithely about expanding agriculture while credit for primary production still does not exist and titling of land is fraught with obstacles instead of facilitation.

We are too bright to continue like this.

THREE GOOD MEN

Three men who gave humble, quality service to generations of Jamaicans passed on to higher life recently. All three were Christians whose lives and work were inspired by their faith.

Dr. Alfred Sangster was the father of the University of Technology. Strong, committed and gracious, he god-fathered hundreds into careers of technical competence.

Sir Roy Augier, “Prof” to hundreds of his students, ushered brain-washed Euro-centric students of history into the knowledge and validation of our history as a Caribbean people. He went further to labour for and lead the impetus for excellence and appropriateness in regional examinations.

Archbishop Edgerton Clarke, an earthy spiritual leader, gave himself to be pastor to thousands across the nation; always available, always practical and ecumenical.

None of the three, like so many other patriots of the pre-and early post- independence period, asked much for themselves, or sought personal honour. All three, in their separate disciplines were straight thinkers. They did not suffer selfish fools patiently. By contrast they lived textured lives of wholesome relationships, relishing the joy and fulfilment which comes from building institutions and helping others to flourish.

What a way to live!

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. He is former member of parliament for Kingston Central and was the minister of education. He is the principal of St Michael’s College at The UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com