THE EDITOR, Madam:
THE REPORT in Saturday's issue of your paper indicating that the UWI has consented to the relocation of some of the squatters who now occupy the land opposite the UWI hospital raises two questions in my mind.
One, how will the government get off that piece of land those who now have legal rights to residence after 40 years of "squatting", as the environmentalist John Maxwell gleefully pointed out in welcoming the now common cause those squatters have with the Elletson Flats residents?
Two, why are the dear lecturers in their campus haven kept comfortable by taxpayers on by no means small salaries and emoluments, allowing the likes of politician Colin Campbell to keep thinking that social snobbery is what is fuelling their objections to relocation? Surely they must have genuine concern for the cancer hospice, the paraplegic community and the Mona Rehab Centre as do Mr. Maxwell and Lady Golding.
As a UWI undergraduate I lived in Elletson Flats at a time when my very peers regarded Elletson Flats as a virtual slum. I myself had come from a neighbourhood inhabited by people of no higher socio-economic standing than those in Elletson Flats. The UWI lecturers are now complaining about the proximity of transplanted "squatters" to Preston Hall which I would imagine have occupants many of whom are of poor background and are being transformed into respectable civil citizens. Why is this opportunity being denied others. Is it because those people are not good enough? How could these lecturers help to make them better?
What has happened to the tradition set by Roy Augier, M.G. Smith and Rex Nettleford working with Rastas in Wareika Hills and West Kingston back in 1960 followed by the recent Craig Town initiative led by Barry Chevannes, Hutton and Bogues? Is it that the UWI can go to Craig Town but not vice versa. It must be very difficult for the present Vice-Chancellor whose common touch with that of others of his colleagues has helped to sustain the credibility of the ivory tower which so many others would like to have Mona remain.
I am more on the side of the John Maxwells than the UWI lecturers who seem to forget from whence they came and that they are public servants who must be part of the solution and not of the problem in a country which is now badly in need of their help.
The politicians Colin Campbell and Foggy Mullings may not have made things easy for the project but the UWI must keep its own focus on what is good both for itself and for the nation. The politicians on the other hand must not compromise the position of this country's and the region's finest institution of higher learning which has produced many of us who have remained to serve our country.
I am, etc.,
A. GRAHAM EDWARDS
Widcombe Crescent,
Kingston 6.
