Earl Bartley, Contributor
THESE DAYS as the Jamaican middle and upper classes go through their frequent paroxysms about crime I am reminded of Malcolm X remark about "chickens coming home to roost" referring to President John Kennedy's assassination who had been plotting to assassinate President Fidel Castro. In my lifetime I have being in a good position on three occasions to view the spawning and development of crime. And I believe these observations may be helpful in understanding the nature of the crime monster and how we may evaluate the adequacy of measures being tried to curb it.
THE EGG IN THE WOMB
From 1958 to 1968 I lived in Rose Town, in "Kingston 12", that Bob Marley made famous in his song Trench Town Rock. If Trench Town gave Jamaicans reggae music it is also one of the original spawning grounds for crime. From the early 1960s one could see the buds emerging. Then, whilst at least one parent had a job (usually the men), the great majority of young people who had "out" school had few training or employment opportunities. Job possibilities for young women were to get a job in a store downtown which only a few obtained, or to work as a domestic helper in Upper St. Andrew which nearly all spurned. Available training opportunities was to learn dressmaking or hairdressing.
For young men opportunities were equally sparse. There was the possibility of becoming a 'gardener-boy', or a messenger, or to become an apprentice in the motor mechanics or construction trades. Only a few of the young people got jobs in factories which were far from ubiquitous despite 10 years of Industrialisation by Invitation. What was noticeable however, is that though opportunities were scarce those young people who followed their parents urgings "to put on your clothes on a Monday morning and go walk and inquire in stores and factories" did eventually find something to do.
Most of the other young people spent their days in idleness. The girls sat around in their backyards and talked about the latest dance they had gone to or were planning to attend and got into all kinds of 'su-su' and 'carry-go-bring-come'. The young men for their part, spent the whole day and at least half the night 'clowning' on the street corners and engaging in penny-penny gambling.
Despite the idleness and manifest laziness of many of these youths their parents often indulged their indolence providing them with accommodation and food well into their late twenties instead of insisting that they go and learn a trade or get a job.
THE EMERGENCE OF RUDE BOY
Round about 1964 rock-steady supplanted American rhythm and blues as Jamaica's leading popular music only to be rapidly eclipsed in an even shorter time by the more scrappy and assertive reggae rhythm, which launched the 'rude boy' phenomenon. Reggae music and rude-boy was to Jamaican social progression what the Roaring Twenties and the Jazz Age was to American social evolution. It marked the emergence of youth culture as the dominant influence in society. But whereas jazz was a sophisticated music developed by aspirants for inclusion in society, reggae was developed by unschooled youths not particularly sure of their identity, their purpose, or place in society. In the first assertion of their social selves these youths celebrated their invincibility, toughness, and fearlessness with Desmond Dekker 1965 song, Rudie Don't Fear being the anthem of the age.
Reggae was the first thug music long before hip-hop became popular. It had its own style of dress thigh foot pants and Clark's shoes, and it's own dance called "skanking" a bumptious assertive strutting and posturing which was truculent in the extreme. Despite the many other styles that have being associated with reggae over the years roots and lovers rock in particular the thug influence has remained the most resilient and enduring feature.
The 'Rude Boy' phenomenon blurred the difference between good and bad and made the youths vulnerable to negative influences and sly manipulation. The years 1966 and 1967 were watershed years in Western Kingston and Jamaican politics. Signalling their entry as a dominant force in Jamaican society, young men associated with the rival candidacies of Edward Seaga and Dudley Thompson shot it out for the power and the glory of their candidates in what was then the most violent election contest in Jamaica's history.
The involvement of the youths in politics in this life destroying way was a cynical manipulation of their idle and misguided energies. But the level of public outrage was remarkable for its insignificance. Though a State of Emergency was instituted in the area for six months, there was no Commission of Enquiry to try to unearth the source and suppliers of the guns. Though Martin Luther King was intoning "that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere", people in Havendale, and Mona, and Montego Bay to Morant Bay, seemed not to have cared. The main concern was to cauterise the area with the dismissive hope that the fools 'down there' would cease from killing each other.
Still, up until 1974 the entire area now referred to as the "Ghetto" was one seamless whole. Almost anybody could walk from Tivoli through Rose Town to Maxfield Avenue, or from Arnett Gardens to Bumper Hall. Then one day in the summer of 1974 thugs associated with the self -styled 'Trench Town Rock' former Housing Minister Tony Spaulding descended on Rose Town and proceeded to systematically drive out the people and burn down their houses. The apparent purpose to create a no-man's land or buffer zone between Arnett and Tivoli Gardens.
After the razing of Rose Town and the fixing of the political boundaries, things definitely changed for the worst. People could no longer move from one community to another. Guns and armaments built-up in these areas to fight the political wars soon found an outlet in criminal enterprise. The dons, generally the most ruthless and domineering thugs, emerged as community leaders supplanting all previous civic leaders. Then, having established a structure of fear and intimidation, the don imposed taxes on all who passed through or conducted business in these areas claiming to protect them from random attack by his minions. Thus the eggs laid in indolence and idleness in the early 1960s, hatched and nurtured in the heat of political war and social indifference, have now become full-blown chickens roosting where they will and demanding all the corn.
CRIME AND POLITICS
Further cementing my childhood observations, in the early 1980s I worked as economic adviser in one of our major political parties and observed close-up the functional integration between politics and crime in Jamaica. I noticed how easily the 'fryers' gunmen inter-related with the rest of the administrative staff. At times, aggrieved over the slow pace of disbursement of some benefit or other they would complain loudly, "I fired my gun for the party, and I will turn and fire my gun at the party." The dons for their part, would have their quiet audience with elements of the Party's leadership as scheduled. In our frequent after work drinking sessions, one was often regaled with tales of past political wars. One of my more indelible memories is the admission of a former party official that during the near civil war of 1980 he personally handed out 300 M16 rifles in a two-month period.
CRIME IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR
Then towards the end of the 1990s, I worked within the Public Sector and witnessed brazen corruption and the craven forces of greed, sycophancy and careerism which facilitated it. Generally, whatever the Minister wanted the Minister got even if it meant turning long-standing regulations and procedures upside down. Moreover, public funds were often spent not to optimise public benefit, but to maximise private gain to the politician, or bureaucrat, or to support the political patronage system. On several occasions contracts would be awarded to renovate a facility, the money would be spent, and like the Goodyear factory renovation, the purpose would be scrapped soon after.
What was most appalling was that the great majority of public sector bureaucrats, at least in the agency where I worked, though recognising the waste and possible misappropriation of public funds, failed to resist these schemes as required by their professional and public duty. Instead, they often did their utmost to advance them in order to advance their careers. Today I hear many of these same people complaining about crime.
REMEDIES
As the experiences I have described illustrate, crime is interwoven in the fabric of Jamaican society and infects most of our major institutions. What is more, crime is today a $20 billion industry with the main revenue sources being the extortion racket, drug-dealing, and public sector fraud. Measures such as plea bargaining and electronic eavesdropping, greater use of undercover operatives, publication of the photos of suspects, and improved mobility of the police could help in the fight against crime. Domestic murders might also be reduced if Jamaicans resurrected two of our more common words of former years 'hush and never-mind' instead of always dealing with each other with this aggressive give-no-quarter attitude we have developed over the past fifteen years.
More than anything, Jamaicans are going to need to toughen their national will and relinquish their 'see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' attitude towards crime. The problem is, I cannot see the leadership for this effort coming from our present crop of political leaders, many of whom have been sullied by their association with violence and corruption. Nor does the record of the Commissioner of Police or the Director of Public Prosecution engender confidence in their leadership in the fight against crime. Maybe, not until we get a new attitude, a new generation of leadership, and a new constitution will we be able to defeat the scourge of crime. Let us hope that John Maynard Keynes and the criminals are wrong, and in the longer term we won't all be dead.
Earl M. Bartley is a businessman and economist. You can email him at adapapa@cwjamaica.com
