By G.A. Dwyer Astaphan
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Shortly after I was elected to Parliament in 1995, a Jamaican gentleman with a good name in the region came to speak with me.
He began by telling me about the Jamaica he had known between the 1950’s and the 1970’s.
I recorded his comments. Here is some of what he said.
“Back then, we saw the shattering of our innocence, with the emergence of garrison communities, serious gun crime, and deadly gangs. Gangs which, in some measure, were formed, financed and even armed by, or under the auspices of politicians”.
He said: “Those gangs were made up of young men from the poorer neighbourhoods, especially in the Kingston area; and when not carrying out the bidding of their bosses in terms of political intimidation and influence, they would, not surprisingly, seek their own survival within the parameters of their own skills sets, which, for uneducated and under-socialized ghetto youths, meant crime.”
“And not just petty crime, but heavy stuff relating to drugs, robbery, prostitution, illegal gaming, smuggling, extortion and murder (including grudge, turf and contract killings).
“And pretty soon, other gangs, independent of politicians, and made up of ghetto youths who were also in search of their own economical and social advancement, and to committed to defend their turf, began to form, reaching the point today (remember, that was in 1995) where there are over 100 deadly gangs spread across, and even with connections beyond, Jamaica.
“As part of that process, there was a merging of the gang culture with music and marijuana (both of which played a conspicuous role, not only in serving the needs of Jamaica’s tourism industry, but also in defining/branding Jamaica in the eyes of the region and the world), each feeding off the other.
“Remember the business side of all of this. We saw uneducated young men suddenly ‘flush’ with money and influence, and living it up.
“That would have been, and in fact was, very enticing to Jamaican youths. But it would also have been a stimulus to further crime within the ghetto, because more money and other trappings in a ghetto, where the mindset of desperation and deprivation had not changed for the better, meant more crime and violence against ghetto people.
“The result was a dramatic, destructive and deadly shift in the lifestyle of young Jamaicans from all socio-economic levels, attracted to the ‘gangsta’ lifestyle through the influences of youthful rebelliousness, romance and peer pressure, leading to a collapse in the social fabric of our nation and to the dreadful increase in crime and violence which we have seen over the past thirty to forty years.”
He said that rather than the lowest common denominator being elevated and empowered by the rest of Jamaican society, the latter caused itself to be dismantled and pulled down to the levels of large scale depravity at which antisocial and criminal behaviour patterns become embedded.
He could not resist the temptation to poke his Jamaican politicians by saying: “If those buggers had any decency, or love of nation, they would have found ways to educate and empower poor young Jamaicans and their families, rather than feeding off their poverty, desperation and despair and, in the process, turning things from bad to deadly!”
And he also vented his wrath on Jamaican society which, he said, had also exploited, disrespected, abused and neglected the poor.
He said that too many people in positions of influence, whether socially or economically, either disregarded the mushrooming problem or showed contempt for the less fortunate in Jamaica.
The most they did was pay lip service and try to increase their security. But they never really got to the core of the problem.
Neither did he spare fathers and mothers, and Jamaicans generally, saying that too many of them were shirking their responsibilities
Well! That was an education for me back then in 1995.
But I wondered why the good gentleman had chosen to speak to me about Jamaica and crime. So I asked him.
And he said: “My Friend, St.Kitts today reminds me of the way that Jamaica was thirty years ago”.
“How so?” I asked.
He invited me to look at the facts.
He said that in the early 1980’s in St.Kitts, there were two gangs about which certain of your politicians boasted, one called the “Warriors of the East” and the other called “Force 10”.
Their political sponsors freely and openly boasted about these gangs, and about what they could and would do.
That was exactly how the political gangs had started in Jamaica.
“They learned well from their friend, Eddie Seaga”, he said.
At about the same time, some relatively privileged, well connected and well protected youths were setting up gangs in the schools. And it was no secret what these gangs did.
“It is also no coincidence that around the same time, the retail gun trade took hold on the streets of your island, and everybody knew who the dealers were.”
He told me that the assassinations of Police Constable Stafford Grant in the early 1980’s and Police Inspector Jude Matthew in 1994 were two ugly and tragic milestones in our downward path to becoming a second Jamaica.
“When you contaminate minds and make guns freely available, the results are easy to predict,” he said.
“And the legacy of gun dealing has passed from fathers to sons. It is this legacy, plus the systemic and institutional corruption it helped to create, which explains why, even today, with a new Government in office (995), it would be most difficult to make a charge stick in Court against any of those same gun dealers.
“At the same time, and the records at the FBI, DEA, Scotland Yard, and other similar institutions will show this, your island became a trans-shipment point for cocaine passing from Colombia and Bolivia to North America.”
More guns, more depravity, more human destruction.
With all of this ‘opportunity’ becoming available to the politically connected and protected gangs, poor ghetto youth decided that it was time for them to get in on the act.
So the ‘Real People’ and other independent, neighbourhood gangs began to emerge.
Exactly as had happened in Jamaica.
And it came as no surprise when leading figures in St.Kitts in the 1980’s declared war by calling for all kinds of punishment and humiliation to be meted out against deprived ghetto youths from Irish Town and elsewhere who were looking to set up their own, independent gangsta-style enterprises.
At least against those youths whom they could not control.
Competition was not to be tolerated. Crime was not to be an equal opportunity activity.
So instead of seeking to elevate and empower the less fortunate through a radical approach to education, socialization, values building, responsibility training, skills development, property ownership, entrepreneurship, and so on, a kind of tickle down mentality prevailed, with the hands of power always at the ready to punish and condemn.
He said: “You claimed to be the free-est nation on the planet, but that was a joke. However, you may have been among the free-est in terms of diluting people’s appetite for effort, analysis, objectivity, perseverance and excellence”.
The mentality of those in authority was to give a ‘freeness here, and a freeness there’, but there was very little emphasis placed on helping the poor to redefine themselves in a positive way.
In addition, he told me that these islands in the Caribbean had all missed the boat with regard to the dangers of cable television, citing a frightening study done in 1969 which revealed that by the time the average American child reached the age of 10, he or she will have seen at least 13,000 killings or maimings on TV, whether in cartoons, action series, situation comedies, movies, or the news.
In other words, the study revealed that Americans generally become numb to violence at an early age.
And he said that the indiscriminate adding the lewd sexual content to the already pervasive violence would only further erode the values, sensibilities, ambition and potential of the youth.
The gentleman left me with much food for thought.
Towards the end of our conversation, he told me: “The callous killings and scandals involving relatives of high-level politicians between 1992 and 1994, the known passing of guns and other contraband through your ports with the knowledge and approval of persons in authority, were clear omens that St. Kitts was under threat of becoming like Jamaica.
“And that was one of the main reasons your party was elected to office. The people had had enough and they were ashamed and afraid.”
From time to time over the ensuing years, he and I have chatted. But recently we hooked up again.
He said to me: “Your Government has done a lot to empower poor people, with impressive performances in the areas of education, health, housing, lands, and so on. But you have not stabilized the society, because all of the elements of destruction which I had told you about in 1995 still exist today.
“The system and institutional corruption and inefficiency are still there, perhaps even more deeply embedded after fifteen years. And your society is more ‘free-for-all’ than orderly and disciplined.
“People behave the way they do because of biochemical, spiritual, psychological, social or economic reasons. You all have not gotten down sufficiently into the root causes of these behaviours, and you have not taken a sufficiently strong and disciplined stand as a Government in driving the process of stamping out the bad and inculcating the good. You have sought not to offend people because of politics, and that makes you just as guilty as your predecessors for what is happening.
“But your Government have not at all been the only culprits. Governments can never do it alone.Your social and economic partners, civil society, the media, and parents and adults generally are all to blame, as most of you have looked at each other to arrest and reverse the problem, rather than taking up your responsibilities as individuals, as citizens and as a society as a whole.
“What is worse, and even more daunting, is the fact that those who now wish to replace you in Government have said or done nothing to indicate that they are anywhere near to being able or inclined to take the bull by the horns.”
“What will it take?” I asked.
His answer: “Keep making your case, My Friend!”
And he left me.
