Mrs. Gerry Grindley (fourth left), wife of the Jockey Club president, presents the Jockey Club Stakes Trophy to Joycelyn Clark whose versatile filly 'Wild Orchid' won the valuable seven furlong race for native bred three-year-olds, at Caymanas Park on September 14, 1991. Looking on (from left) are Dr. David Levy, a former president of the Jockey Club; J.W. 'Judge' Hardie, a life member; Gerry Grindley, president of the club; trainer Andrew Nunes and 'Wild Orchid's' breeder, Ivan 'Bobby' Clark (right), whose wife owns the filly. - file

Today we begin excerpts from the book Judas Mentality written by former advertising executive Gerry Grindley who has in the past done work for both the governing People's National Party and the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party. Judas Mentality is available through amazon.com.

I have a theory and it is not so profound and intellectually compelling that it needs vast amounts of empirical data to back it up. It is a pretty basic perception that I have concerning how Jamaica has been shaped by destructive mindsets and avaricious people. I hope that I can convince you that some of the events I share in this book are strong, working examples of a general mindset that has fuelled the nation and, therefore, has contributed tremendously to the demise of Jamaican society. In my view, the results have been a total collapse of all that is good and solid in Jamaica, and this mindset has been so malignantly pervasive across our society that it has indeed managed to compromise the potential of Jamaica to be a first-world Caribbean nation. I want you to understand my theory of the 'Judas mentality'.

A nation endowed with natural resources is one that has the ability to be unequivocally self-sufficient.

Jamaica has some of the best products in the world - coffee, bananas, bauxite, sugar cane, pimento, to name a few - all economies of scale; and let us not forget the miles and miles of white sand and the warm Caribbean Sea. But we have managed to barter ourselves into a lasting debt that has now come toaffect the lives of our people who have, quite naturally, become disillusioned and selfish.

Dastardly mentality

They do not understand how productive patriotism and self-preservation can be. Our people have not been taught how to take care of themselves, and when they realise that, in truth and in fact, they need to depend on a broken-down system, the disgrace they face fuels their desire to pass on generations of this dastardly mentality.

All throughout this book, the stories I tell demonstrate, in various ways, the influence that power has had on our society, the obsession humans have with power, and the all-consuming and ensuing in-sidious effect this power has had on Jamaicans. It is this very addiction to power that has incited the development of nasty, 'low-down' thinking in Jamaican society.

One cannot deny that power is like a hard drug. I do not speak from personal experience, but I imagine that the effect of its dispensation is euphoric and you just can't get enough of that feeling. The feeling is so overwhelming that, the truth is, most people cannot beat it. Henry Kissinger says that power is "the ultimate aphrodisiac" and I say that our little country has been guided by many a man who just could not beat that sumptuous thing. The heart-breaking thing is that our failure as a people to beat the addiction has caused for the precipitous and perennial development of a mentality that has destroyed the overall potential of Jamaica.

The Judas mentality has infiltrated the minds of the influential men and women that preside over the institutions of our nation for far too long. As a result of their poignant focus on the various manifestations of power, these influential men and women encounter power in its purest form and tend to have the greatest access to it.

Constant Infiltration

Undoubtedly, one's lust for power can be a good thing.

However, in Jamaica's case, the people who set about attaining it did not truly understand it. Only the human who understands it can 'extract the maximum benefit from his work, however skillfully it is performed'. The benefits accrued to these people were therefore short-lived.

They did not realise that power does not have to manifest itself as tantamount to evil. And so it was this very lack of understanding that caused the constant infiltration of dark forces and the resulting precipitous development of the Judas mentality.

This account is in no way an historic event, and I certainly do not want anyone to believe that I am serving up some sort of dissertation for what has caused Jamaica to have drifted so far back in time. Rather, it is my own personal experience of people and of how their behavioural patterns have contributed immensely to the development of a society in which pleasant, courteous, and productive citizens relinquish themselves and their values to a mentality that discredits, grudges, envies, maims and crucifies all that is good and purely Jamaican.

Moral breakdown

They relinquish simply because they are forced to, in order to survive.

The by-product of such a dastardly cycle of behaviour has been the development of an embattled society, an equally defeated nation, and this attitude that has damaged the best of what Jamaica has to offer its people and the world - socially and politically. A sort of moral breakdown has occurred in Jamaica and this collapse of probity, if you will, has been due to a number of unfit people ending up in positions of influence. What is more is that they set out destroying honest people with the greatest determination to ensure that their positions would endure. Such behaviour becomes cyclical, and anything cyclical is powerful enough to affect the direction of an entire nation. It creates a vicious human circle that ends up ruling. This is how I see my country.

Greatest advantage

Now, I am not contending that such a malignant level of darkness and corruption is not typical of the world, typical of societies across the globe. Of course not! Butshould this fact exonerate Jamaica and Jamaicans from the culpability that we all bear, that we have allowed corruption to consume our society, and as such destroy all that is good about it? As individual Jamaicans, we have had phenomenal opportunities to quell the dirtiness because we are a small nation, a small Caribbean society. This is our greatest advantage. Solving problems should be easier for those who genuinely wish to do so. Yet we have gotten caught up inextricably in this Judas mentality - the kind of thinking and attitude that enjoys the instinct to betray.

It is very ugly. Moreover, the ramifications to Jamaica have been very 'unpretty'.

Mrs. Eli Matalon cuts the ribbon at the formal opening of the new Grimax Advertising Limited, 15 Haining Road, Kingston 5, in this 1974 file photo. The Minister of National Security and Justice Eli Matalon was guest speaker, and the opening remarks were given by Gerry Grindley (centre), managing director of Grimax. Oliver Jones extended congratulations to Grindley and the company. Also pictured is Mrs. Gerry Grindley.