Monday's headlines in the local newspapers were about 13 people killed over the Emancipation Weekend. Among those killed was a policeman.
The next day's news headlines were about the other usual run-of-the-mill events, the main one was the crash of a ganja plane and the death of its occupants.
Commonplace occurrence
I reflected on the news items of both days and concluded, that generally, despite what took place in Jamaica over the previous days - the murders, set against Jamaica's Emancipation and Independence - that the taking of innocent Jamaican lives by cowardly men have become such a commonplace occurrence that such events merit just a passing mention in the news media that day and the next day, such reports of murders seem almost forgotten and ignored. Why this quick national amnesia?
Is it that people don't or can't care anymore? Is it that they feel powerless, afraid, traumatised to do anything about the conditions of murder, crime and violence? Is it a deliberate attempt on the part of the leaders not to scare anyone, particularly the tourists, why little or nothing is said about such destructive and revolting acts that took place hardly one or two days before? Or is it that, because worse atrocities have happened before, that this latest spasm of murder seems relatively insignificant in comparison to past murders?
State of homicides
Even you editorial of August 3, brings to our attention, once again, the state of homicides in Jamaica. It comments: "In Jamaica, our murder rate is over 60 per 100,000, near to the world's highest. Suspects are identified for less than one-third of the over 1,600 homicides here each year and even fewer cases reach to court". - Time to fast-track national ID system, August 3, 2009.
This problem of murder is an epidemic but it is not treated as such. Were it an epidemic like dengue fever, swine flu, small pox, or such deadly pathogen, then the authorities would take swift and decisive actions to deal with the problem.
I am, etc.,
GEORGE GARWOOD
merleneg@yahoo.com
Florida