The Editor, Sir:

I would like to encourage Mayor Desmond McKenzie to continue the fight for our nation's survival. We cannot do wrong and ask for right results. Our deliberate individual refusal to make Jamaica the nation we choose "to live, work and raise our family in" leaves us with national disorder such as the Half-Way Tree problem.

Our founding fathers bequeathed us a well-endowed and beautiful land in the '60s. Ignorance has guided us to embark upon a destructive path for our family values, which is producing a filthy and out-of-order nation. But their vision that "as an independent nation we should so manage ourselves as to become the nation other men dream to live in ..." can still inspire us.

If we decide to re-order our lives according to the national vision guided by the transcendent principles in our MAP (motto, anthem and pledge) we WILL succeed as a nation. We must then build our nation "under God" to "increase in beauty, fellowship and prosperity". This means we must change our values and give our children a secure future with the benefit of the order of family life bounded by a clean, crime-free and violence-free environment. We must change our minds!

Garbage dumps

Many of us have decided "to live, work and raise our family" in Jamaica. That's the vision to be achieved over the next 22 years according to the Planning Institute of Jamaica's 20/30 vision plan. Unless we plan to make this work we will not survive as a nation.

Keeping the public space orderly is a part of the vision. We've been going the wrong way in allowing public space to be made into garbage dumps and toilets. So, Mr Mayor I encourage you to continue to do the right thing and let right overcome might in returning our city to order. It is a long mile back to sanity for Jamaica, but someone has to take the first step and as we say in Jamaica: "If yuh 'fraid a yeye, yuh caan eat head." It would do us well to cooperate because in the end we all benefit from the blessing of an orderly nation.

As a tribute to our Olympic athletes and all the Jamaicans who live for the vision, please Mr Mayor, let there be an "increase in beauty" in our city.

Finally, Mr Mayor, I will pray for you and all the other mayors daily, the words of our national anthem as you go about the task.

I am, etc.,

YVONNE O. COKE

handsacrossjamaica

@hotmail.com

Hands Across Jamaica

For Righteousness

Founder/Executive Chairman

Via Go-Jamaica