Shalman Scott, Contributor
Policemen push an old vehicle from the street in Spanish Town. Residents, protesting the killing of Donovan 'Bulbie' Bennett, one of Jamaica's most wanted men, mounted several roadblocks across the Old Capital. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer
WHEN IT suited the rich and powerful to financed the political activities of criminals in the support of a particular party position and ideology, it was done. In the turbulent seventies there were no shortage of political paramilitaries gunning their way to establish the utopia of democratic socialism or free market fundamentalism.
Gangsters known as freedom fighters and 'progressives' could not have been operating their bloody and cruel campaign without the full knowledge of the major political parties. Bruce Golding, although he has returned to the fountain from which some of the atrocities flowed, is still the first major political figure to have confessed his knowledge of the link between the political parties and criminal gunmen.
He was followed by Heather Robinson, who resigned her parliamentary seat as part of her continuing refusal to associate with criminals. She is to be commended for her steadfastness, while Golding still needs time to be believed, but on the face of it he has positioned himself for a turnaway and we ought to be thankful even for small mercies! Never mind the latest incident in Tivoli Gardens.
But this link with and the need for 'muscle' by political parties is not limited to Jamaica's situation, although whatever we do is never like anywhere else in the world. Nor is the need for 'muscle' located only in our major political parties at the exclusion of the private sector. Accordingly, let no single group claim to be morally superior simply because the seeming ignorance of most of us provides an opening for the declaration of innocence and purity ... because we all live here and there are not many well kept secrets among Jamaicans, certainly not with those who are alive!
WRONGS
Further political and business association with criminal gunmen is only a more visible form of wrongs compared to other forms of wrongs which are just as deadly ... (no pun intended) but which are hardly seen, and so I believe herein lies the greater part of our problems ... the activities conducted in secrecy which results in the manifestation of numbing crime rate.
If we believe that making a great noise about the marriage between politics and criminals and the need for a dissolution as a sure way to end murders in Jamaica, we really have not got the true idea of the depths of our moral degradation. If that is the simplistic expectation we hold about our crime situation then not only are we living in a distant past but also in a castle in the sky.
For, indeed, neither do the criminal gangs seriously need the political parties and politicians anymore but they, the politicians themselves, have long lost the appetite for the use of violence in the practice of their craft. Our crime problems are much deeper and more serious than clinging to anachronistic ideas about party politics driving crime in this country.
I suspect every time the criminals see such laziness in thought, they are emboldened in their nefarious activities, assured that the scapegoat the politician is still getting the brunt of the licks. Does it mean that criminals are no longer supporters or aligned to political parties? Of course they are! But the structured relationships in which the politician is the boss has long since disappeared.
This is for several reasons, among them being the fact that the ideological and sensational practice of the politics has very few following, if any at all, these days. The leaders of political terrorism for partisan gain have mostly died out, literally and figuratively.
The remnants are safely ensconced in the security of society's upper middle classes, and being 'street generals' is no longer an attractive option. The political ball game has changed completely along with the context in which it was played. Unfortunately, despite visible evidence of the revolutionary change in the practice of our political engagements, so many, it seems, bother to notice as they cling unthinkingly to the last things they knew.
CRAFTY CRIMINALS
It is this stereotypical mindset and posture that inform the discussions and analyses. So the crafty criminals no longer the illiterates of the society manipulate this lingering perception to their own advantage in terms of where they set up their headquarters in political strongholds, using party sentiments as a cover from which to operate and to get protection from rival criminal gangs.
As the fight for drugs turf, extortion areas and power intensify, there is always the need on the part of these sophisticated criminals for access to ladies and children, at short notice, to demonstrate when the heat is turned up by the lawmen on the criminal's lair. In the ensuring orchestrated confusion this is carefully telegraphed to an unsuspecting nation as an ongoing partisan conflict.
It is ironic that over the period of the most peaceful and fairest elections in Jamaica, starting with 1992 general elections, that there was no noticeable upsurge in violence during those periods of the campaign season. It follows that if the violence were powered by party politics then we would be more likely to have seen an escalation during the campaign time, shouldn't we?
Collin Campbell's denials of the PNP connection with the Clansman gang should not have awaited the death of the gang's leader, for while it is possible that Campbell's claim may be true, because of the long-held perception reinforced by repetition of such allegations, Collin Campbell's declaration has the same cynical question hovering about it as Bruce Golding's declaration back in 1995.
A consistent, stronger stand must be taken by the major political parities against the notions of political association with criminals in the society. Much has been done by the parties to effectively sever the umbilical cord with criminals but the stridency in that pronouncement is just not coming across forcibly to the nation. It must happen, as the possibility exists that politics could slip back to the dungeons from which P.J. Patterson has brought it.
