Vernon Daley

One week, religious groups are telling us it is wrong for women to have abortions under any circumstances; the next week, we're told that two perfectly fine pieces of literature are to be removed from the CXC syllabus because of a few expletives.

People are being murdered in great numbers and thousands of young people can't find work. Yet, we find huge amounts of time to talk about relatively unimportant matters. Maybe I'm not seeing the connections or maybe I'm just a bit bored by the misguided moralising that characterises these discussions.

Minister of Education Andrew Holness tells us he's going to remove Beka Lamb and A Kestrel for a Knave from the CXC syllabus because of a few 'bad words'. Some CXC students, it is said, might be too immature to appreciate how those words are used.

"Even though we acknowledge that literature should be given a greater level of flexibility, the stakeholders have to understand that not all students are prepared to appreciate the context in which the expletive is used or not all students are at the level of maturity to understand the use of expletives in a literature book," the minister said in a interview last week.

Appreciating words

I cannot imagine a child reading for CXC in Jamaica who wouldn't understand the context in which the expletives are used in those books. I suggest that any child, at the age to write an English B exam, who cannot appreciate how those words are used, has no business writing any CXC exam at all.

Beka Lamb and A Kestrel for a Knave are two excellent books. I had the pleasure of doing both at CXC.

Beka Lamb, in particular, has left me with an important life lesson about the need to use educational opportunities wisely.

Most of us who have had access to these opportunities are often not as talented as those who have been deprived. That puts a great responsibility of service on us. I have Zee Edgell to thank for riveting that in my brain.

It would be a great shame to rob young people of some of these important values because of one or two 'bad words'. Now that I think about it, I don't remember the expletives in the book at all.

By the way, these books have been on the CXC list for more than 15 years, to my certain knowledge. Why the big deal now? Where there is no mischief, we seem to have an ability to go out there and create it.

When Mr Holness discovers that some of these so-called bad words are in the English dictionary, I wonder what he is likely to do.

Regional talk-shop

Caribbean Community (CARI-COM) leaders held their inter-sessional summit in The Bahamas over the weekend. A number of matters were on the agenda, including crime. The region was looking for some solutions; instead, it got an agreement by the leaders to have yet another meeting on the subject.

That meeting will take place in Trinidad next month and there we are likely to hear of plans for yet another meeting. And so the 'poppy show' continues. CARICOM summits have been held to be nothing more than talk shops and they seem to be living up to that reputation. We know that there are difficult matters before the region, especially growing crime.

These are issues that can't be solved overnight. But the leaders, I'm afraid, have pulled us into a state of further despondency by being big on talk and small on action.