"You will know the truth and the truth shall set you free," says Jesus Christ. It has been proven to be so, on a national and personal level, many times the world over. In Jamaica, truth-telling has begun with the confession of Detective Constable Carey Lyn-Sue, which was published in The Gleaner on Monday, January 21, 2008. The truth-telling continued in the confession of the unidentified gunman in The Sunday Gleaner of January 27, 2008. In our nation, these accounts go against the tide of what has become acceptable in Jamaica, which is to see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil, which has come to mean that no matter what evil is going on around, make sure that you do not speak about it.
Therefore, to speak the truth in Jamaica when it involves others means that you are labelled as an 'informer'. Currently, it seems that to speak the truth to the authorities is the worst crime anyone can commit in Jamaica. This seems to be worse than rape, murder and incest because we are willing to endure these vicious acts rather than speak the truth.
Culture of silence
A very sad example of how this culture of silence has twisted the thinking of our young is what was related to me by one of my teachers. He told me how, upon hearing about the murder of the Jamaica College student, he spoke to some of our boys and pointed out to them that if even one student had informed the school authorities of the conflict that was brewing between the two students, then the victim's life would have been spared. Their response was chilling. They said that they would not have told anyone, even if it meant saving a life because, "dem no informer".
This informer culture has probably been developed from our years of slavery when giving information against your fellow slave was a cruel, self-serving act. We need to realise that we are now our own masters and that not speaking the truth in our nation has resulted in our becoming enslaved by the ruthless criminals whose cause is served by our seeing no evil or speaking no evil.
Oppression, injustice and crime grow in this culture of secrecy and this is what has happened in Jamaica. By our silence, by our lack of truth telling, we have fed the monster of corruption, violence and extortion among us. We, the citizens of this nation, have agreed that this culture is what we want by our very acts of silence. This includes the businessman who pays the protection money to the area dons, to the middle-class citizen who agrees to pay off the policeman who gives him a ticket, to the mother who gives her daughter to the don to take her virginity. It envelops us all.
Therefore, when Detective Constable Lyn-Sue spoke the truth, it was a courageous act, which will help to break this culture of silence that has fed this monster of violence, extortion and oppression in our society. I salute him for listening to the Spirit of God in him and his response of speaking the truth. I believe that for this evil monster to die in our nation, truth telling must be one of the weapons that we use. I think it is vain for us to expect the leaders to begin using this weapon of truth since they have too much vested interest in allowing things to stay as they are. They have too much to lose. We need a leader with the courage of a Mandela, a Martin Luther King, a Marcus Garvey, to do such a thing. Is there such a leader among us?
Nothing helped us to understand how much we have bought into this culture of silence and acceptance of wrong as right and right as wrong like the response of some of Carey Lyn-Sue's comrades to his speaking the truth. Some felt that Carey Lyn-Sue was breaking a "secret pact not to backtrack from a contrived storyline, regardless of the consequences." These cops felt that Lyn-Sue was a traitor because he spoke the truth. It has been reported that other cops felt that someone had paid him off to say this. They described what he did as, "duttiness".
Lyn-Sue's confession, however, has started a snowballing effect, which I think will continue. The account of the unidentified gunman gives indication to this, and the self-confessed paedophile in Wednesday's Gleaner adds to the effect. The account of the unidentified gunman confirms further what is being spoken about by many Jamaicans: That there are policemen and politicians who are in league with criminals, "No ends (turf) can exist without di police help." He continues with, "How yuh tink man get rifle and money more time? One ends (turf) right now have 15 rifles and a politician mek dem reach deh." More Jamaicans need to come forward and speak to their involvement in the criminal culture of our country and what they know about how this system operates. Truth-telling needs to continue to break the hold of crime over our nation.
Revealing is Healing
I commend Detective Constable Carey Lyn-Sue on doing what his conscience dictated and I pray that many others will have the courage to do what he did: Speak the truth. The slogan for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa was 'Revealing is Healing'. Let us begin the revealing and so begin the healing in our nation. We cannot hope for any economic recovery with this culture of silence which feeds crime and oppression in our midst. We cannot expect our people to develop a culture which sees each man expecting to honestly earn a day's pay to buy what his family needs, to get justice when a wrong is done and to live in peace if we do not change this culture of see no evil, speak no evil. No matter how many initiatives are generated to jump-start our economy, if this culture doesn't change, they will all peter out to nothing. It is only the truth that shall free us as a nation, that can heal us as a people. Let's begin the healing.
Esther Tyson is principal of Ardenne High School, St Andrew.
