Claude Mills, Staff Reporter
AS I crawled by the eight car pile-up on the Causeway last Monday, I reflected that the accident scene itself was a metaphor for the larger carnage that is taking place in our country. Not far away, four people, including two women were dying horrible deaths at the hands of marauding gunmen in three separate incidents.
It is always the same accident/murder scene. Sometimes it is three-underpants wearing victim broken by bullets on some dirty stretch of concrete, with the bystanders on the sidelines, hands in their pockets, curious to see the bodies trapped in the wreckage, or the bloody bodies under the sheet.
It is the same scene every day, the characters just change.
I take morbid pleasure in reading the death pages sometimes, just to see who else I have outlived today. The country is on some ghastly death lust where we feel compelled to meet our daily quota: 2.86 persons a day. Maybe it is natural selection gone awry, our sacrifice to appease some terrible monster, who if not sated, will come down and devour the towns people.
It is madness. Madness, I tell you. Madness.
As I write this article, the death toll stands at 925; when you read this, it could be about 942, or 945 if the WI lose the One Day International series.
Even in death, there is no alacrity, or dignity. The state of affairs is such that if you were to die today, your chances of being interred before New Year's Eve are pretty slim.
And it just keeps getting better.
During the last election campaign, I was amazed at how our leaders pandered to the lowest common denominator as they reached out to the masses in order to get a mandate to lead the country. Our wanna-be leaders openly courted the mad malevolence, the love of chicanery and lawlessness, and the dark side of our national experience from platforms all across the country. And the masses delighted in it. Bring the fatted calf here and let us kill it and...you know the rest.
It is that private wickedness, that dark quality, coupled with the natural assertiveness in our blood, that has created a network of 21st century Lokis at all levels of society. It is treachery from on high, which I am told, is the best kind. This miasma has spread to our ports of entry, our justice system, our police force, our business dealings, and how we relate to each other. You've heard it all before: 'man haffi hustle pon de side fi mek it. Zeen, father-yute.'
Nobody in Jamaica believes in anything because we are all living a lie. We are a two-faced race of people, and that is not because of the proliferation of bleaching cream. We live clean public lives in the spotlight of scrutiny, but underneath the peppermint facade, we beat our wives, abuse our children, hatch sinister plots, covet our neighbour's wife, and in some sick cases, even his dog.
We have a Prime Minister who I want to admire but can't, if only for the simple reason that I think his heart may be touched by an early frost. Did you read about his defiant four-fingered gesture to the jeering crowd of JLP supporters outside Gordon House last week? You can strike 'quiet dignity' off the list of things I could have admired him for.
Maybe, the PM has found a new level of peace within himself. He seems to have stopped trying to toil under the illusion that he can make a difference in the lives of the people of this country. He has turned in the direction of the skid; he has embraced our dark side.
And then there is that pack of jesters who sit in Parliament. I think about politicians like the way they think about me with contempt. Still, if I am ever in an aeroplane flying over an ocean somewhere, I would want to be seated next to one of our politicians if only to use his head as a floatation device in case of an emergency. Who needs MPs who are capable of missing any one of the first three questions of 'Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?'.
But then again, maybe we do.
All the reporters had a big laugh last week over OT Williams' gaffe regarding his 'great humilation', but I am not surprised.
We need 'doofuses' in Parliament for not just entertainment value, but for a cause. For if there were none of these sorts, who would speak for the legions of dolts, idiots and nitwits in our larger society? Hey, who wants a Parliament that is unrepresentative anyway.
But I digress.
Our lives in Jamaica is the stuff of fear. We are imprisoned by them: the first rush of worm-like anxiety as the rapist leaps from the mouth of the alley, the surge of adrenaline as a white Toyota Corolla rolls slowly up towards your domino table on your avenue, or the coppery taste that invades your mouth when the phone rings after midnight, and your eldest son hasn't come home yet.
Fear.
It has addled our brains. And we have good reason to be afraid what with the Molotov cocktail of guns, alienated male teens, and angry, hurting people and who have no faith in social capital unless it is directed towards a mob-killing. There have been nine mob-killings this year, almost doubling the number in 2001. The police have also classified 289 killings as reprisals so far. What does that say about the faith in our justice system?
So what should we do? Will anything sensible be done?
Well, I do what I can. I write little humour columns to break up the monotony of my day, and to tick off the literati, the feminists and the moralists. Like Mutty, I like to stay at the fringes and snipe a little. I don't roll up my sleeves and get involved, I never contribute anything to the society really.
I try to soar above it all, instead of tuning in to watch the gibbering, suit-wearing, malaprop-speaking, pencil-throwing buffoons who call the shots in this sorry excuse for a country.
I think my reluctance to be taken in is infinitely more noble, and I sleep better at nights. I don't have dreams and nightmares anymore, and I find that it is a relief.
You can e-mail me at cmillsy@yahoo.com
