Peter D. Phillips, Contributor

Now that all the festivities of Christmas and the New Year are over, we can spend some time in a more sober reflection as to our situation as a nation. There is probably no other culture in the world that treats the festivities of Christmas and the New Year in quite the same way as we do in the Caribbean. And we in Jamaica have our own distinct approach which sets us apart and helps define our distinct national identity to a great extent.

Quite frankly, that 'identity' relates to what is best about us as a people; our tolerance for diversity evident in the Comrade or the Labourite in each family coming together to share Christmas dinner. It is evident, too, in the sharing and caring for the less fortunate in both our rural and urban communities. Sadly, as most of us would admit, this aspect to the Jamaican culture is fast disappearing.

Internationally, and in the region, we are developing a reputation as an aggressive and violent people, prone to lawlessness. Countries, large and small, with increasing frequency in recent times have been placing travel and visa restrictions on Jamaicans.

Unfairness and injustice

Our citizens are being deported in ever greater numbers from countries to which they have migrated. Our performers are picketed for violent lyrics; and all of us who travel are embarrassed by the indignities imposed upon us by virtue of being Jamaicans.

We all protest against the 'unfairness', the 'injustice', and the prejudice that is being meted out to us by foreign authorities. And there is no doubt that much of this abounds in a world that is still much too scarred by the various oppressions of slavery and colonialism. Yet, even so, any balanced and honest evaluation would have to admit that there is much that is true in the appraisal of the world that we are becoming increasingly a violent and lawless people.

In response, we all demand better policing. Many, including me, have pointed to the fact that our investment in our security forces in real terms has not been commensurate with the deterioration in our security situation. Yet, as true as this is, there is also correctly a generally accepted view that some sort of 'social intervention' is needed to bring about a lasting solution to the problem of violence and lawlessness.

It is not always clear what sort of 'social intervention' is considered appropriate by those who call for it. Some speak of various job-creation schemes; others make reference to various resocialisation efforts for the mainly urban youths who are at the centre of the current crime wave, both as victim and perpetrator. Meanwhile, there are still others who point to the urgent need for a transformation of our educational system, in order to produce more people able to participate in the job market.

Social control

All of these prescriptions are undoubtedly correct. They ignore, however, the central role and responsibilities of our political system and political leadership over the years, both in helping to create the problem and in leading the search or solutions.

It is true that violence has always been a pre-eminent tool in the maintenance of social control in Jamaican society. To some degree, violence is an essential underpinning of social control in all societies. But it is also true that the role of all-pervasive and ever present application of violence and threat of the use of force was a more significant feature in the slave plantation environment of the Caribbean where racial minorities enslaved vast majorities in sub-human conditions. As a consequence, violence was the central feature in all social institutions; at the workplace, in the family, at the school and in the community. For their part the police maintained order by the often indiscriminate application of violent force.

The new politics as it emerged in the 1930s and 1940s was intended to bring about a new approach to the maintenance of social order. Indeed, the democracy centred upon universal adult-suffrage which emerged in the 1940s was intended to be an explicit repudiation of the excessive reliance on violence that was so evident in the colonial state and particularly in the excesses during the 1938 labour rebellion.

Universal adult-suffrage

In the "new democracy" violence and direction from "a high" were to be replaced by debate and consensus-building and the exclusion of the mass of the population was to be replaced by inclusion through universal adult-suffrage in national decision-making processes.

Almost from its very inception however the "new politics of the new Jamaica" was to be scarred by the spectre of violence. Violent conflicts between party-affiliated unions as in the case of the strike at the Bellevue Hospital in 1946, was to prefigure violent confrontations between the parties in the run-up to the 1949 elections. The situation was to worsen in the 1960s as the gun became the main weapon used in inter-party conflict.

By 1967, five years after Independence, these conflicts had deteriorated to such an extent that a state of emergency was declared in Western Kingston prior to General Election that year.

There had, of course, been a counteracting tendency. The period leading up to and including the independence negotiations of 1961 had seen episodes of collaboration and consensus building among the political leadership of the country across party-lines. Norman Manley, conscious of the importance of building a national consensus, not only agreed to hold a referendum on the issue of the West Indies Federation, but having lost that referendum invited Bustamante to participate in a national delegation to settle the terms of Independence with the British authorities.

Consensus building

Other episodes of collaboration occurred both prior to and subsequent to those negotiations, over the establishment of the Industrial Development Corporation or regarding the response to the "Black Power" riots of 1968.

All told however, the intertwining of two-party competition with violence in the unrestrained pursuit of sectional interest proved to be the dominant tendency. Fused with the ideological conflicts and the geo-political competition of the cold war in the late 1970s, the resulting violence in the run-up to the 1980 election brought the political system and the country to the brink of collapse.

Since then there has been a clear determination within the respective political parties and among the active elements of civil society to develop consensus building mechanisms around the critical issues that were the source of friction between political parties and thereby minimise the risks of intense political competition spilling over into political violence with the potentially catastrophic consequences such as occurred in the late 1970s. The key institutions that resulted from this effort form part of the national political landscape today.

Among them are the Electoral Commission (formerly the Electoral Advisory Committee) which took electoral administration out of the direct control of the government of the day. The Political Ombudsman and the Code of Political Conduct provided an adjudicating body and rules for the settling of political disputes. Informal formulae were also worked out in respect of job distribution among adherents of the different political parties.

National importance

Quite apart from the fear of political violence, there was a genuine recognition evident for example, in deliberations of the Constitutional Commission and the subsequent Joint Select Committee of Parliament on Constitutional Reform that a cross-party consensus was desirable around issues of critical national importance. Thus, it was determined, among other things, that there should be consensus surrounding critical national appointments to key constitutionally prescribed bodies including the Police Service Commission and the Public Service Commission.

This was to be achieved by requiring the approval of two-thirds of the membership of each chamber of the Parliament namely, the Senate and the House of Representatives. In effect this meant bi-partisan agreement.

Following the 2002 elections, an informal agreement was arrived at between the then Prime Minister and the then Leader of the Opposition that even though the proposed Constitutional Reform had not yet been formally approved, both Government and Opposition would implement these provisions of the proposed constitutional reforms. Accordingly, dialogue was undertaken between representatives of the parties with a view to arriving at the desired consensus as to membership of the Police Service Commission and the Public Service Commission.

Perhaps the most disappointing and disturbing aspect of the current dispute between Government and Opposition, is that it portends the reversal of more than two decades of effort at consensus building in relation to key national and constitutional issues. There have been disputes, otherwise to be sure such as that concerning the Caribbean Court of Justice. Nevertheless, despite these disputes, it has become increasingly apparent that we can only more forward on the critical issues affecting our nation's well-being if there is a consensus about the fundamentals of our constitutional and administrative arrangements and about vital national priorities.

Sacrifice

Arriving at this point was not easy. It required much sacrifice and compromise by the leaders of the day. In the end however, I believe they realised that if we were ever to achieve the full potential of our country and truly embody those higher ideals which we witness each Christmas, then each would have to take the risk. The need is even greater now.

Let us hope that in the New Year all of us, but particularly our leaders, will listen to the voices of the "higher angels of our being". We must be able to find common purpose as a people and transcend that which divides us politically or otherwise.