Vernon Daley

There was a bizarre story in the international news over the weekend about an elderly man who had died for about a year before being discovered.

When police were called to the man's Long Island home, they found his mummified remains in front of a blaring television set. He had died of natural causes.

Upon hearing that story I questioned how such a thing could happen. Even if a man had no family or friends, the least one would have expected is a little vigilance from neighbours.

Well, as it turned out, when neighbours hadn't seen the 70-year-old man, who was diabetic and had been blind for years, they assumed he was in the hospital or a long-term care facility. Apparently, none even bothered to check.

Meaning lost

Neigbourliness seems to have lost its meaning - not just in places like Long Island but also right here in Jamaica.

Anyone who has had the experience of living in any of these gated communities across the island would know how possible it is for someone to die in his or her apartment without the next door neighbour ever taking notice.

If that man had died in almost any of these communities here in Jamaica, it might have been well over one year before anybody would have discovered him. And, I'm afraid his remains wouldn't have had the luxury of the television to keep them company. The Jamaica Public Service would have seen to that.

People walk up and down in these swanky communities - often not seeing each other at all. There are stories of residents living side by side for years without ever saying a word to each other. But, it's worse than that: people sometimes don't even know who is living beside them. And they don't want to know.

We are suspicious of each other. It's a suspiciousness that is bred in an environment of insecurity. So, even when the denizens of these communities lock themselves behind their security gates, their fears are not extinguished. They take it with them right to the apartment door and their neighbours, who should be their keepers, become objects of their suspicion.

US/CARIBBEAN CONFERENCE

The long awaited U.S./Caribbean conference takes place in Washington from June 19-21 and Caribbean diplomats are reported to be working feverishly to pull off a successful event.

Plans for the conference came together last year when U.S. Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice met with Caribbean Foreign Ministers in the Bahamas. Nothing much came of that meeting but I recall the communiqué stating that both sides had confirmed their intention to collaborate on an arrangement against the illicit trade in firearms.

The region wasn't told, as far I'm aware, what was the nature of this arrangement. But, whatever it was, it's clearly not working here, given what law enforcement officials are telling us about a growth in the guns- for-drugs trade between Haiti and Jamaica.

For this conference in June, the public will have to demand some clear information about the nature and extent of the cooperation between the U.S. and the Caribbean, especially as it relates to crime and security.

The more information the public has, the more capable it will be of measuring whether targets are being met.

Vernon Daley is a journalist. Send comments to: vernon.daley@gmail.com