Amina Blackwood meeksSOME TIME ago I asked my sensible friends to help me figure out the place to which I had returned. One Mr. Charles Hyatt responded by reading me one of his poems called Thinkers Anonymous.
He claimed it was about a society he had either established or was about to establish, but anyway he was recruiting members. Well, I teck kin teet and kibba de fact that I was worried that my friend had gone and tilted his head.
Charlie boy, I am declaring publicly that if you are still recruiting members send me an application form. Send a few, for sometimes I am not the same person two days in a row and all of them want to apply.
I think I am living proof that multiple personalities result from an inability to cope with extremely painful experiences so that part of the brain splits off and shuts down to allow the core self to better cope.
Charlie, you and I have had some intense discussions about this crime situation, so you are well aware that one of me really believes that if we find the root cause of this thing and pluck it up we can talk about other things, like the Prime Minister's commission on ganja. But I needed to finish the thought on crime first. I thought it was priority. So, just like that, the ganja contemplation part of me shut down.
Back to crime. How to deal with this thing? De-criminalise ganja. In the middle of that thought somebody asked my thoughts on the Street People Commission Report. Before I could say I had not yet completed my reading of it somebody else asked if I thought Miss Jenny Cameron would ever get justice and what are my expectations for the prison beatings Enquiry. Baps, the Enquiry part of the personality split off. Right where I was trying to figure out if failure to dispense justice is a crime.
Or is the crime that some people cannot afford justice? I recalled hearing about plenty of millions stashed up in a train, riding all over the island. Charlie, do they have enough for funding people who produce words, stories, and articles, speak uncomfortable truths like "people must be allowed to operate with dignity"? Would that count as information technology and be funded from the hundreds of millions in that pool? Going into a pool now with certain known maladies, is that a crime?
How about some of the NDJF money for small business? You think the EXIM officials supporting people who carry the culture abroad and bring back tourists to see what else we have? Is that import-export or carry-go-bring-come that threatens the industry?
Maybe someone just trying to frighten us with money. Maybe they think that by hearing that all these millions available for various projects we might believe that sooner or it will become available to us. There goes another personality. Almost over the edge.
Stop. Think about the number of women in mental institutions. It has been said there are more women there because of failed relationships, than there are men. They say that women deal with failed relationships by moving to a level at which they can cope, new personality. Men, they say, respond by eliminating the problem, hence the number of murders/suicides in which women are slaughtered and men then lay themselves to rest. Back to the crime story, Mr. Commissioner. What exactly is domestic violence?
Is that what happens to me every week in the supermarket where my dollar buys less and less, while officials talk about the progress on the road to eliminating poverty? Is poverty a crime or does it cause crime? Like the top ten- per cent eating 12 times more than the bottom 10 per cent? I am not going back into the supermarket because I turn into a different person in there. Does that make me guilty of impersonating a consumer? Crime again. How to solve this thing?
Maybe we need more educated people. But look here now, plenty children not going to school with any desired level of regularity. Plus every year a guaranteed number of schools will not open as scheduled. If I struggle any more to be reasonable about the various reasons advanced I would be guilty of hiding from my consciences. Another split.
Charlie, I thought about your poem and switched off the radio and television, did not look at a newspaper for two whole hours and I detoxified.
Copasetic
Crime went down by more than a few per cent. Operation Dignity completed its job down the road and headed up the road. Equilibrium in the budget and nobody took up themselves and tried to sell shares of any kind abroad without informing the Minister of Finance. The traffic was copasetic. No need to schedule my appointment as if I were going to do war against it. I reserve the warring for crime.
But Mr. Amnesty said crime is not a militaristic thing.
It is social, economic and political. And in the middle of my wondering whether he thought he was making sense, I got the urge. Not like in the sexual vibes book here.
I'm still coming to terms with how all who was supposed to know the contents of said book seemed not to know till Mr. Anthony Johnson asked if they knew. I got the urge for the very thing to which I had become addicted. I needed a thought about all this happening at the same time. And more.
Serious problem, Charlie. Once a thinker always a thinker. Will I forever be in recovery? Hold that thought. Just send the application forms. I have faith that with the help of the right sponsor, appropriate encouragement and inspiration, I will triumph over this. One thought at a time.
What you think, Charlie?
Amina Blackwood Meeks is a communications specialist
