Hartley Neita, ContributorDear Mr. Patterson:
Congratulations. To have recovered from the low popular support level you had one year ago, and to win back the disaffected with a campaign providing information, and so win the general election held last Wednesday is a feat which should be analysed by serious research.
Your party has been elected to another five-year term of office. You have already indicated the direction you would like to lead us, to enable all Jamaicans to live in harmony and peace. This objective is mine, too, and it has been the hope of all my friends. It has dominated our get-togethers and our telephone calls, and the e-mail contacts some have with each other. So, we welcome your announcement.
I remember, very well, when you spoke some years ago of the need for the restoration of the quality of good values and positive attitudes in our lives. Some of your detractors poured scorn on the idea. They gave no reasons for their dissent. They laughed because it came from a country boy who had travelled from his village to Kingston by a country bus. And I was incensed, for many of us also came by bus and train from many districts in the country with names like Mocho, and were laughed at by young men and women of Kingston who had grown up in pleasant sounding suburbs such as Constant Spring, Hope, Seymour Lands and Mona.
Bustamante was a country boy. So, too were Norman Manley, Donald Sangster and Hugh Shearer. And so too, were Marcus Garvey, Sam Sharpe, Nanny and Paul Bogle, as well as country girl, Nanny. All were achievers who helped Jamaica move forward in their own ways, unlike these mostly self-appointed analysts and critics who would really prefer if Jamaica was still a plantation, as long as they were among the house slaves in the Great House and could scorn those labouring with the sun burning their backs in the fields to provide them with their daily bread.
Maybe the time you announced that programme was not right. The violent confrontation which had existed between our two main political parties for the preceding 30 years was too recent in memory. It has not been as antagonistic for the past five years, but I see signs of men and women who have re-entered the political scene and the appearance of a few disciples of the old order, who could well ferment the anger and hatred of yesterday among our people.
And so that it does not recur, please let the young know what it was like when neighbours shouted 'good morning' to next-door families as a daily ritual.
Let them know that the music they play at home or in their vehicles need not be loud. Let them know they need not crush their way into elevators or the entrances to offices, or tumble over each other at polling stations, or blow their horns at traffic lights before these lights turn green.
Mr. Prime Minister, I would once again, like to hold a party at my home, starting at midnight, and dance to "Long Time, Me No See No Nice Time" without an army of security guards on the road protecting my guests and their cars.
I would love to open my newspaper and not see the photograph of a mother crying her heart out because someone has raped and knifed or shot her child to death.
And by the way, Mr. Prime Minister, the face of one of the figures painted on the wall enclosing Seaview Park, just above the headquarters of the People's National Party, and which was developed in memory of Michael Manley, is peeling off. If you really intend to demand standards of excellence in your new team, the Minister who was responsible for these paintings should promise he will take steps to rectify this horrible mistake before he or she is re-appointed to your Cabinet.
Yours sincerely,
HARTLEY NEITA
P.S. I will be at Emancipation Park on Wednesday to hear the oath you will swear to serve the people of Jamaica. It is, Sir, like a marriage when both groom and bride swear to love and honour each other, as long as they live together. Maybe, we should also consider having spectators respond with their oath at further swearing-in ceremonies.
