Dawn Ritch Dawn Ritch
RECENT years there has been a lot of meaningless talk about "Values and Attitudes". It will remain just that until these things come from the top down and not from the bottom up.
This is a matter therefore that concerns not only the highest elected official, but the people at the very apex of Jamaican society. Above all theirs is the responsibility to set an example and to lead.
The battle to maintain high standards in behaviour is not a paper war, nor is it fought in rooms and hallways. It is the daily battle for decency which must be fought with determination and vigour by the haute bourgeoisie. These are the few people to whom any society accords its highest social and economic position, and with it the power to determine the wider "Values and Attitudes".
ABANDONED RESPONSIBILITY
They are the grease that lubricates any functioning society. If Jamaican society is squeaking like nobody's business, it is because our elite has abandoned its responsibility for standards in the most abject fashion. Once that happens, good behaviour does indeed become 'nobody's business', as Jamaica is discovering to its especial pain.
Half a century ago nobody of quality in any race lived in Kingston. Those Jamaicans lived almost exclusively in Montego Bay. They didn't like, but had to come to Kingston occasionally, from which they fled with relief back to Montego Bay. They would meet on their verandahs and remark on how unutterably nouveau the Kingston so-called high society was; that they had money, but no code of behaviour. They found Kingstonians loud, and short on principle. We didn't look down on thieves.
On the other hand, Montego Bay high society stood for something then. The scion of one the great families there got married, but continued to keep a mistress on the side who was deeply in love with him. Although he always told her he was going to divorce his wife, he never did.
After many long years the mistress realised the hopelessness of her situation, and decided to strike up a relationship with someone else with whom she fell in love. That gentleman then asked her to marry him, and she accepted.
She told her former lover of her good fortune. He then took it upon himself to pay her intended a visit, and tell him a whole lot of terrible things about his former mistress. When the story of what he'd done spread to the rest of MoBay high society, they took a dim view that he'd tried to spoil her second chance in life. A few of its prominent male members therefore waited for him in the dark outside the Montego Bay Yacht Club in the car park after cocktails. They greeted him, and then one of them quickly flattened him while the other two prevented his escape and explained why he was getting a beating.
They pushed him into the back seat and drove him to a remote open land where they beat him within an inch of his life with a cow cod whip. When they were done, they drove back into Montego Bay and dumped him in the Creek.
Even in those days the Creek was nasty. They held his head down in it and said "Drink man, drink! If you don't drink Creek water you don't belong to Montego Bay."
That was a Friday night. Early Saturday morning the market vendors came to town and saw him still lying half-dead in the Creek. With cries of "Missa 'So and So', Missa 'So and So'," they lifted him and carried him to the police who took him to the hospital.
HAPPILY EVER AFTER
Not a soul was ever prosecuted, nor was the matter reported in the press. But everybody knew who did it, and why, and they thought the beating well-deserved. The woman he'd tried to ruin went on not only to get married, but to live happily ever after.
These are the old attitudes and principles that have been abandoned in exchange for a favourable mention in the social columns of today's newspapers. But thank God, the old habits die hard.
An incident barely a decade or so ago bears repeating in this regard. It concerns yet another young scion, this time of a famous political family, who was planning to marry a young lady. Her granduncle decided that he was going to send for the young man, and did. The scion went to the house, and the two men sat down quietly.
The granduncle said, "I hear your father likes to beat his women. If you ever lay a hand on my grandniece... you see this here (patting a gleaming machete beside him)? This is what is coming for you. So don't watch my age, I just want you to understand what marrying her means."
The young man didn't have a good night's sleep for about two weeks. He kept remembering the granduncle's cold voice and his machete. If it had even entered his head to beat his wife, the thought he said was banished forever.
Those were the old days when men were held to account by each other, for their behaviour. That kind of peer pressure is what is vanishing in Jamaica today. No one should be surprised therefore, when they have no values and display the poorest of attitudes.
Calculated consequences for bad behaviour no longer obtain. More than ever it seems Kingston people don't look down on thieves, or bounders. Today it's not the quality of your guest list, but its length.
If high society can't keep it together and regulate themselves, nobody anywhere in any part of the society will be able to keep it together. Today in order to find the kind of principle that used to animate the upper classes, you have to go up into the mountains of rural Jamaica. There honour is not a national medal, but still a way of life. They don't shout, they don't scream, they give the correct change, and can't be bothered with the pointlessness of Kingston.
Even more than political leadership from politicians, we need social leadership from those who have had that traditional duty in any society. People who stand for nothing will fall for anything.
FOOTNOTE: Mr. Patterson's legion of leftist and racist admirers have been excoriating me up hill and down dale for criticising him. Be patient. Soon I'll be criticising the JLP and Edward Seaga again, and you can all take a much-needed rest to contemplate the advice I've been giving the Most Honourable.
Mr. Warren Wilson Jr., writer of "Letter of the Day" last Sunday, wants to know what I'd replace CARICOM with. You can only replace something that is serving some useful purpose. Since CARICOM serves none, there is no need to replace it.
