Tony Hendriks, ContributorAn article the other day suggested there are more suicides in Jamaica now than ever before. This is intriguing but hardly surprising. As soon as you turn on your radio (if the station doesn't keep popping on and off the air), open a paper (if you're lucky enough to be able to read), or switch on the TV (unless you have no power due to power cuts or don't have any light where you live), you are bombarded by headlines: "War Is On!", "Murder Up!", "Crime High!", and "'Tapanaaris' Teef Tek Weh Alla We Money!". Worst of all: "No Jobs!" Rob people of hope what else do they have? Where there's life there's rope.
What we need to do is lift people's spirits; give ourselves a sense of well-being and un-depression. Give ourselves something to applaud and enjoy in life. Let us bring back hanging as entertainment for the masses. Justice is never seen to be done so life doesn't seem fair. When a little man tries a scam or piece of ginnalship he gets caught and locked up often without a trial. If Mr. Big even gets caught he simply denies it and that's the last you hear. At the very worst he migrates to his house in Georgia. Okay, Ms. Big got convicted and is serving time but that exception only proves the rule and shows how misogynistic the law can be.
In America a senior vice chairman of Enron took his life after losing people's life savings. He took the money but couldn't take the ignominy or tarnation (tarnished reputation). No Jamaican scandal ever ends with the chairman of a 'finsackrupt' bank or corporation shooting himself in the Crown or Lexus. They shoot themselves in the foot all right but it doesn't stop them running off. We want more than that! We want blood.
Let's bring back public flogging to appease the public, cheer everybody up and increase tourism. Imagine the head of a bank and hotel group who lost billions of other people's dollars, baring his ass in Liguanea Park next to the Crazy Golf and getting 40 lashes of the cat-o-nine tails. Inhumane? Ask the people who lost all their savings. It'd be so much fun we'd want to do it weekly. We could have "Slappy Hour!" on Fridays and take turns to beat the daylights out of embezzlers, fraudsters and suddenly wealthy politicians. That would certainly cheer people up.
Let us create an environment where people feel they have something to live for. Stop all the ridiculous promises of a false reality, give people small and attainable goals. Achieve a few, we'll see things aren't so bad and be cool.
Constant harping on about September 11th, war on terrorism means whenever we see a plane overhead we expect it to fly into a skyscraper, explode like a Y2K fireworks display or land in Mona. The realisation that there are hardly any jobs for young people except as drug mules, murderers or al Qaeda fighters is enough to drive anyone to extreme measures. Suicide with fame is not such a bad option.
Talking of terrorists, how come their parents always refuse to admit their child has done anything? They're always so unconditionally loyal. Palestinians, Israelis, Irish, Muslim Fundamentalists, Jamaicans, we're all the same, even the mother of the white boy al Qaeda from America. "He was such a good boy! He never fought against America." I kept looking to see if her nose was getting longer. What, he was on a backpacking trek in Afghanistan at just the wrong time? Right! No one is ever guilty but isn't it about time we found an honest mother to stand up and say: "He was a dutty, stinkin', no good, likkle tegreg and him deserve what him get! Him fi heng! Awhoa!"
Let's outlaw disco-loud car stereos. The drivers are erratic. Hip-hop songs have police sirens wailing mixed back in the tracks and it surprises drivers, causing them to swerve and pull off the road when no one is expecting it or flee like they're being chased by police, screeching through traffic-calmed areas to get away. Punish the drivers by depriving them of sleep, stick their heads between two bass speakers till their eyes swap sockets, tease them by turning off the music, then rev an expander in their ear and give 'em a taste of their own medicine.
I've put a sign in my car that says: FOR STEAL! It's easier to lose it than sell it, there's no commission, the price is better and I'll get back some of those premiums I've been paying for all these years of car insurance.
By the way anyone hear of Enron before they went belly up? Microsoft had. If you write Enron in MS Word it recognises it. Which for a word that isn't a word at all, that's scary.
Tony Hendriks can be reread at www.JamaicanPaleface.com or e-mailed and roundly chastised via JamaicanPaleface @aol.com
