'Dudus next to God'
By Pastor Devon Dick:
On Thursday last, an unnamed woman expressed solidarity with Christopher 'Dudus' Coke by stating that "Dudus next to God." This affirmation portrays how she perceived both God and Dudus.
Some Christians might find it an affront to God. And it is hardly likely that the churches that will be observing Trinity Sunday in three days time will have such a formulation as they try to explain God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. But it appears to me that this woman was mouthing a concept of God, to which some sections of the church have unwittingly ascribed. Obviously, for her, God is someone who destroys the enemies, dispenses justice quickly without going through legal human channels, provides for them and protects them. And apparently, Dudus has similar attributes. One woman proclaimed that she has six children and Dudus is the godfather, while another testified that she can leave her door open and her children are not raped.
This concept of God is not empowering and definitely one-dimensional. Rather it makes people passive, expecting handouts only. It is a mentality in some sections of the church in which the main philosophy is to give a fish rather than teaching the person to fish. It is a mendicancy syndrome. Therefore, some churches take pride in announcing what they can hand out to persons on the margins rather than challenging the economic system which impoverishes those on the periphery. And there is a similar mentality in our political system in which politicians boast in Parliament how much handouts are given for school fees, to bury dead and to feed people through the Constituency Development Fund.
Hiding behind prayer
Some sections of the church use prayer in this passive role of doing nothing but only waiting on God to do everything. Therefore, as we listen to the prayers to God about our crisis, it is always telling God what to do, as if God does not know the gravity of the crisis, rather than seeking the will of God concerning our role in confronting the tribulations.
So we would rather pray for more rain than build more dams, and channel more rivers to dams and engage in better stewardship of water. We would rather pray to God about the high murder rate rather than have God induce courage to telephone Crime Stop.
And most of our gospel music is not wrestling with issues of economic justice and equality of all. Not even Rastafarian singers will chant, "Get up, stand for your rights".
The Church has largely moved away from an activist role in society. In Rebellion to Riot: The Jamaican Church in Nation Building (2002), I showed that pre-Independence (1962) the Church was leading in nation building in the areas of economic empowerment, educating the people and holistic concept of evangelism, etc. And in the concluding chapter I suggested that we need to return to that activist role.
The Church needs to admit that the theologising that claimed that "Dudus next to God" is a reflection of the failure of sections of the church to present the proper attributes of God. God must be shown also as a God of justice who rewards the righteous and empowers persons to live a life of service and sacrifice, as well as punishes the wicked for their evil deeds.
Let us not blame so much the unnamed woman for the affirmation "Dudus next to God", but perceive it as an indictment on the church which often engages in cowardice and inaction rather than confronting evil and turning the city upside down (Acts 17:6), and serving God rather than man (Acts 5:29).
Devon Dick is pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church and author of 'The Cross and the Machete: Native Baptists of Jamaica - Identity, Ministry and Legacy'. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.
May 27, 2010
jamaica-gleaner
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Showing posts with label 'Dudus' Coke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 'Dudus' Coke. Show all posts
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
A vile attack on the Jamaican State
jamaicaobserver editorial:
The obviously co-ordinated strikes on four police stations in West Kingston by criminal gunmen yesterday represent a vile attack on the State that this newspaper strongly condemns.
That the lumpen gunmen also torched one of the police stations -- that in Hannah Town -- and fired on policemen who were clearing roadblocks in West Kingston demonstrate their utter disregard for law and order, and flies in the face of the very responsible and tolerant approach that the police have so far taken in their effort to execute an arrest warrant on Mr Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.
Based on police reports that gangsters from other communities outside of Kingston and St Andrew have gone into Tivoli Gardens, supposedly to give support to Mr Coke and his defenders, it is clear that his tentacles spread far and wide, and his influence is very strong.
But that influence, we maintain, resides with the minority of Jamaicans, and as such the majority, law-abiding among us need to make a united stand against the terrorism that these riffraffs seek to unleash on the country.
It is against that background that we endorse the limited State of Public Emergency that has been imposed on Kingston and St Andrew by the Government.
While we support the measure giving the security forces additional powers of search and arrest, we caution the law enforcers to utilise these powers with responsibility. For just one case of abuse of a citizen will erode the gains the security forces have made over the past few days with the way they have handled this extradition matter.
However, we urge the security forces to use this opportunity to clean up the mess that has stained this country for too many years. And in doing so, they need to ignore the politicians -- on both sides -- who have more than proven to us that they have no idea, if any desire, to deal effectively with crime.
May 24, 2010
jamaicaobserver
The obviously co-ordinated strikes on four police stations in West Kingston by criminal gunmen yesterday represent a vile attack on the State that this newspaper strongly condemns.
That the lumpen gunmen also torched one of the police stations -- that in Hannah Town -- and fired on policemen who were clearing roadblocks in West Kingston demonstrate their utter disregard for law and order, and flies in the face of the very responsible and tolerant approach that the police have so far taken in their effort to execute an arrest warrant on Mr Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.
Based on police reports that gangsters from other communities outside of Kingston and St Andrew have gone into Tivoli Gardens, supposedly to give support to Mr Coke and his defenders, it is clear that his tentacles spread far and wide, and his influence is very strong.
But that influence, we maintain, resides with the minority of Jamaicans, and as such the majority, law-abiding among us need to make a united stand against the terrorism that these riffraffs seek to unleash on the country.
It is against that background that we endorse the limited State of Public Emergency that has been imposed on Kingston and St Andrew by the Government.
While we support the measure giving the security forces additional powers of search and arrest, we caution the law enforcers to utilise these powers with responsibility. For just one case of abuse of a citizen will erode the gains the security forces have made over the past few days with the way they have handled this extradition matter.
However, we urge the security forces to use this opportunity to clean up the mess that has stained this country for too many years. And in doing so, they need to ignore the politicians -- on both sides -- who have more than proven to us that they have no idea, if any desire, to deal effectively with crime.
May 24, 2010
jamaicaobserver
Friday, May 21, 2010
Diehards defend Embattled west Kingston strongman Christopher 'Dudus' Coke
Diehards defend 'Dudus'
jamaica-gleaner:
Embattled west Kingston strongman Christopher 'Dudus' Coke received a fillip yesterday as thousands of vocal residents of Tivoli Gardens and adjoining communities took to the streets supporting him.
The protesters, mainly women and children dressed in white, started their demonstration at the intersection of Industrial Terrace and Spanish Town Road just after 8 yesterday morning.
Initially, they concentrated on the reports by the police that they were being forced to stay at home and that their cellular phones had been confiscated by thugs backing Dudus.
"Dem a talk about our phones take away and if we leave we can't come back and that is a lie," declared one angry protester.
"Anybody can come into Tivoli and see the situation. We can go and come as we want, we can walk peacefully and see mi phone here," the woman added.
Her friend rushed to address the Gleaner team as she blasted the police for their claims.
"We a no hostage, a lie the police a tell because them no like the 'Big Man'. We happy and them fi leave we alone," the scantily clad woman said.
But the focus of the protesters quickly changed as they voiced their opposition to any plan to extradite the man they call 'The President'.
"No Dudus, no Jamaica. Dudus a feed the whole a wi and them fi leave him. The police them always have problems with the Coke dem. If you have a pickney now and him name Coke, by the time him reach 20-year-old them a go accuse him," another protester charged.
The protesters also had harsh words for Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller and the party's point man on the extradition matter, Dr Peter Phillips.
"Portia must tell we if the PNP did extradite Anthony Brown and George Flash when them did wanted. How them did have them man deh free and now them want fi extradite Dudus. A just politics them a play," one woman said, referring to two men who topped the police most-wanted list in the 1970s and '80s.
Not about politics
"Dudus tell we fi wear white today and not green because this is not about politics, and the PNP, dem a play politics and Dudus only want peace," another protester said. Green is the colour of the Jamaica Labour Party which the residents of Tivoli support.
With a strong police presence and marshals from the community ensuring that persons did not block Spanish Town Road, the protesters chanted loudly for more than two hours before a shout from one of their leaders saw them heading across Spanish Town Road into the heart of downtown Kingston.
Around St William Grant Park and across East Queen Street went the crowd which was growing by the minute.
Then came the shout "mek wi march to Gleaner", signalling a sharp left turn on to Duke Street towards the North Street offices of The Gleaner Company.
But by then, the police had had enough and after allowing the demonstrators free rein through the heart of the commercial centre, the cops used their vehicles to form a line on Duke Street in the vicinity of the country's Parliament building, Gordon House.
A single explosion from a policeman's gun was enough to convince the protesters that the cops were serious and that it was time to head along Beeston Street down North Street and back into Tivoli Gardens.
May 21, 2010
jamaica-gleaner
jamaica-gleaner:
Embattled west Kingston strongman Christopher 'Dudus' Coke received a fillip yesterday as thousands of vocal residents of Tivoli Gardens and adjoining communities took to the streets supporting him.
The protesters, mainly women and children dressed in white, started their demonstration at the intersection of Industrial Terrace and Spanish Town Road just after 8 yesterday morning.
Initially, they concentrated on the reports by the police that they were being forced to stay at home and that their cellular phones had been confiscated by thugs backing Dudus.
"Dem a talk about our phones take away and if we leave we can't come back and that is a lie," declared one angry protester.
"Anybody can come into Tivoli and see the situation. We can go and come as we want, we can walk peacefully and see mi phone here," the woman added.
Her friend rushed to address the Gleaner team as she blasted the police for their claims.
"We a no hostage, a lie the police a tell because them no like the 'Big Man'. We happy and them fi leave we alone," the scantily clad woman said.
But the focus of the protesters quickly changed as they voiced their opposition to any plan to extradite the man they call 'The President'.
"No Dudus, no Jamaica. Dudus a feed the whole a wi and them fi leave him. The police them always have problems with the Coke dem. If you have a pickney now and him name Coke, by the time him reach 20-year-old them a go accuse him," another protester charged.
The protesters also had harsh words for Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller and the party's point man on the extradition matter, Dr Peter Phillips.
"Portia must tell we if the PNP did extradite Anthony Brown and George Flash when them did wanted. How them did have them man deh free and now them want fi extradite Dudus. A just politics them a play," one woman said, referring to two men who topped the police most-wanted list in the 1970s and '80s.
Not about politics
"Dudus tell we fi wear white today and not green because this is not about politics, and the PNP, dem a play politics and Dudus only want peace," another protester said. Green is the colour of the Jamaica Labour Party which the residents of Tivoli support.
With a strong police presence and marshals from the community ensuring that persons did not block Spanish Town Road, the protesters chanted loudly for more than two hours before a shout from one of their leaders saw them heading across Spanish Town Road into the heart of downtown Kingston.
Around St William Grant Park and across East Queen Street went the crowd which was growing by the minute.
Then came the shout "mek wi march to Gleaner", signalling a sharp left turn on to Duke Street towards the North Street offices of The Gleaner Company.
But by then, the police had had enough and after allowing the demonstrators free rein through the heart of the commercial centre, the cops used their vehicles to form a line on Duke Street in the vicinity of the country's Parliament building, Gordon House.
A single explosion from a policeman's gun was enough to convince the protesters that the cops were serious and that it was time to head along Beeston Street down North Street and back into Tivoli Gardens.
May 21, 2010
jamaica-gleaner
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Christopher Dudus Coke may be the most powerful man in Jamaica, says Phillips
'Dudus' may be the most powerful man in Ja, says Phillips
BY KARYL WALKER Online editor walkerk@jamaicaobserver.com:
FORMER minister of national security Dr Peter Phillips says Tivoli Gardens strongman Christopher 'Dudus' Coke is possibly more powerful than the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government which has been attracting a lot of flax over its refusal to act on a United States extradition request for Coke.
The Americans submitted the extradition request last August, accusing Coke of drug- and gun-running. However, the Bruce Golding-led Administration has said that the evidence gathered against Coke breached Jamaica's Interception of Communications Act.
But for Phillips that argument holds little water and is an indication of the fear that Coke drives into the hearts of the ruling party. According to Phillips, Coke may be the most powerful man in the country.
"That inference can be drawn when we see all the resources they are putting in to defend him. It certainly looks like he is very powerful," Phillips told the Sunday Observer yesterday.
Phillips, whose questions in Parliament in March threw the spotlight on the JLP's dealing with the US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, said Jamaica's reputation had been terribly sullied and the Government should move to clean up the country's image.
The JLP has since admitted that persons in the party engaged the services of the law firm to negotiate extradition issues with high-ranking members of the Obama administration.
"It is time we decide if we are going to be a narco state or we are going to abide by the rules of law and order," Phillips said.
Last week, Toronto police arrested 12 members of the Shower Posse and have charged them with drugs and weapons offences. The cops said the arrested persons had links to drug traffickers in Panama, the US and the Dominican Republic.
Coke has been named by North American authorities as the leader of the 'international cartel who had been pulling the strings in Toronto's north-west end, supplying drugs and guns to smaller gangs and fuelling violence in the area'.
Headquartered in Tivoli Gardens in Kingston, the Shower Posse reportedly has branches in over 20 US cities, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Phillips himself earned the wrath of People's National Party (PNP) supporters when, during his tenure at the security ministry, Clansman boss and known PNP supporter, Donovan 'Bulbie' Bennett, was cut down in hail of police bullets at a palatial residence in Tanarkie, Clarendon in November 2005.
In the aftermath of Bennett's death, irate PNP supporters burnt effigies of Phillips and T-shirts bearing his image in sections of St Catherine and Clarendon.
Party insiders say Bennett's demise may have cost Phillips the leadership of the PNP in the contentious presidential race which he lost to Portia Simpson Miller in September 2008.
May 09, 2010
jamaicaobserver
BY KARYL WALKER Online editor walkerk@jamaicaobserver.com:
FORMER minister of national security Dr Peter Phillips says Tivoli Gardens strongman Christopher 'Dudus' Coke is possibly more powerful than the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government which has been attracting a lot of flax over its refusal to act on a United States extradition request for Coke.
The Americans submitted the extradition request last August, accusing Coke of drug- and gun-running. However, the Bruce Golding-led Administration has said that the evidence gathered against Coke breached Jamaica's Interception of Communications Act.
But for Phillips that argument holds little water and is an indication of the fear that Coke drives into the hearts of the ruling party. According to Phillips, Coke may be the most powerful man in the country.
"That inference can be drawn when we see all the resources they are putting in to defend him. It certainly looks like he is very powerful," Phillips told the Sunday Observer yesterday.
Phillips, whose questions in Parliament in March threw the spotlight on the JLP's dealing with the US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, said Jamaica's reputation had been terribly sullied and the Government should move to clean up the country's image.
The JLP has since admitted that persons in the party engaged the services of the law firm to negotiate extradition issues with high-ranking members of the Obama administration.
"It is time we decide if we are going to be a narco state or we are going to abide by the rules of law and order," Phillips said.
Last week, Toronto police arrested 12 members of the Shower Posse and have charged them with drugs and weapons offences. The cops said the arrested persons had links to drug traffickers in Panama, the US and the Dominican Republic.
Coke has been named by North American authorities as the leader of the 'international cartel who had been pulling the strings in Toronto's north-west end, supplying drugs and guns to smaller gangs and fuelling violence in the area'.
Headquartered in Tivoli Gardens in Kingston, the Shower Posse reportedly has branches in over 20 US cities, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Phillips himself earned the wrath of People's National Party (PNP) supporters when, during his tenure at the security ministry, Clansman boss and known PNP supporter, Donovan 'Bulbie' Bennett, was cut down in hail of police bullets at a palatial residence in Tanarkie, Clarendon in November 2005.
In the aftermath of Bennett's death, irate PNP supporters burnt effigies of Phillips and T-shirts bearing his image in sections of St Catherine and Clarendon.
Party insiders say Bennett's demise may have cost Phillips the leadership of the PNP in the contentious presidential race which he lost to Portia Simpson Miller in September 2008.
May 09, 2010
jamaicaobserver
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Jamaica: Deceptions, dons and underdevelopment
Claude Clarke, Contributor:
It was Mahatma Gandhi who said "to believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest". In election after election in post-Independence Jamaica our leaders have invited us to trust what they professed to have been their beliefs; but they have failed in almost every instance to live up to them. Gandhi would have condemned them all as dishonest.
We need only compare the ideals expressed by our recent prime ministers while campaigning for office to their actions when those beliefs were put to the test. The most recent and I believe most striking example of this is Bruce Golding's abrupt about-face on his professed abhorrence of garrison politics.
We should have known better. Many of us were prepared to put the most favourable interpretation on this 'new and different' Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader's choice of 'the mother of all garrisons' to be his home constituency; and were willing to believe that his purpose was to reform from within, and in so doing create a model on which all other garrisons could be reformed. But recent events have proven us to have been far too generous with our trust.
Two and a half years after coming to office, and 15 years since he walked away from the JLP and declared his independence from the garrison form of politics, Golding's constituency is as deeply steeped in garrison politics as it ever was.
In two and a half years as chief executive of our country, Mr Golding, despite his earlier strong human-rights advocacy, has missed every opportunity to take a public stand in defence of the rights of our citizens; that is until he was confronted by the case of Christopher Coke. His stout defence of Mr. Coke's rights, from all appearances at the risk of Jamaica's international relationships and economic well-being, speaks powerfully to the value he places on this individual.
Not that the Government is not duty bound to stand up to the mightiest of forces in defence of the rights of the least of our citizens. It is. Not that the Government does not have the right to deny an extradition request in Jamaica's public interest. It does. What is remarkable about the prime minister making Coke's extradition case his first notable effort to protect the rights of a Jamaican citizen is that he has obviously calculated that, notwithstanding the consequences to Jamaica, a greater interest is served by protecting Coke.
Since the prime minister's human-rights epiphany so strains credibility and logic, we are forced to conclude that he believes that Coke's protection is in the public interest; in which case he is allowed by the treaty to deny the request.
But what is it about Mr Coke that makes him so valuable? 'Dudus' Coke is widely believed to be the country's most prominent and effective practitioner of the garrison style of social and economic organisation. He is Jamaica's 'chief don' and commands the title 'President' in the area that he controls. What is the message conveyed to him and his 'subjects', to Jamaica and to the world, when a prime minister invests him with such high national value?
So much so that the Government now has to be defending allegations that it directly or indirectly engaged a firm of US lawyers to lobby the United States government, with a view to preventing his extradition. Doesn't this effectively provide the ultimate imprimatur for the activities for which Mr. Coke is notorious? And doesn't this seriously contradict the anti-don, anti-garrison beliefs Mr Golding earlier espoused?
For those of us who believe economic development cannot take place in a social and economic environment dominated by garrisons, this is a most frightening situation. Not simply because of our opposition to garrisons and dons, but because we recognise that the growing control of our society by garrisons and their dons has been a major cause of the underdevelopment of our economy and society. Their suppression of our people's 'unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' is manifested in the growing lawlessness and fear under which we have lived since this freakish phenomenon began to engulf our society in the 1960s.
The right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness is no less an entitlement of the Jamaican citizen than it is of the American. And the obligation to secure these rights for Jamaicans is as binding on the Jamaican Government as securing them for Americans is binding on the US government. But garrisons undermine the ability of Government to deliver on this obligation. Dons usurp the role of government, and have no purpose but to use the people under their control to secure and strengthen their own wealth and power.
They operate through patronage, intimidation and fear; it is never their purpose to secure freedom and opportunity for the people they control. Despite this, respective Jamaican governments have been prepared to condone and co-opt the garrison into their practice of politics, even while they grandly inveigh against them officially.
Social and economic freedom is at the core of successful economic activity. Without it, no effort by Government to promote investments, production and development will ever achieve the peace and prosperity our people crave. The garrison system not only denies our people these basic conditions, it sucks life and substance from the economy. It channels taxpayer-funded government contracts to dons, and feeds official corruption. The enforced 'protection services' of the dons is an unwanted and unproductive cost of doing public and private business, compounding the uncompetitiveness of our economy. They are a deterrent to production and the efficient functioning of the formal economy. Above all, the garrison form of organisation denies economic opportunity and employment for our people and leads them instead to a future of street scuffling, crime and servitude.
warlords
Garrisons must be seen and treated as what they really are: the means through which our people are kept enslaved and denied the right to be all that they can be. They will take us in the direction of Somalia, controlled by warlords, rather than Singapore, characterised by order and prosperity. They lead us towards backwardness and jungle justice, not modernity and the rule of law. The loud, clear and eloquent statement made by the prime minister by his stance in the Dudus affair is that he will pay any price and force the country to do likewise to protect the favourite don of his favourite garrison. In doing so, we may have crossed the Rubicon towards the utter failure of Somalia, rather than climb the first rung towards the success that is Singapore.
I do not know whether the prime minister will change direction before our final disintegration into the squalor of a failed state; but for Jamaica's sake, I hope that he or someone else will salvage the situation and pull us back towards sanity. Jamaica can still develop into a state which can deliver on the promise of freedom and the optimisation of human potential. But our approach to leadership must be radically changed.
This fiscal year, the Government spent almost 45 per cent of the country's output, and yet it could not provide the public goods and services that a modern democratic government is expected to deliver. When Government takes so much of what we produce, we have every right to expect top-quality affordable health care, education, water, electricity, public transportation, roads, public safety and justice.
We have every right to expect a social and economic environment that encourages and facilitates our hopes for economic upliftment. We have every right to expect our Government to foster a high-quality social capital that enables us to achieve levels of production that can create peace and prosperity. The Jamaican Government squanders much of our resources through general economic mismanagement, but has made the situation far worse by rendering itself hostage to dons and garrisons.
Now that the very leadership which we were led to believe was committed to breaking the links to these garrisons has instead elevated itself to a position of national importance, we seem to be perched on the precipice of social and economic disorder.
Our country desperately needs to be rescued. Do any of our political leaders have the honesty, moral authority, courage and political gravitas to make this change? Are there men and women who will live what they say they believe and summon the courage to act on those beliefs?
The Christopher Coke case has found our prime minister wanting. Can anyone else in the Government or the Opposition rise to the required standard of leadership? And will he or she speak up before it is too late?
Claude Clarke is a former trade minister and manufacturer. Send feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.
March 28, 2010
jamaica-gleaner
It was Mahatma Gandhi who said "to believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest". In election after election in post-Independence Jamaica our leaders have invited us to trust what they professed to have been their beliefs; but they have failed in almost every instance to live up to them. Gandhi would have condemned them all as dishonest.
We need only compare the ideals expressed by our recent prime ministers while campaigning for office to their actions when those beliefs were put to the test. The most recent and I believe most striking example of this is Bruce Golding's abrupt about-face on his professed abhorrence of garrison politics.
We should have known better. Many of us were prepared to put the most favourable interpretation on this 'new and different' Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader's choice of 'the mother of all garrisons' to be his home constituency; and were willing to believe that his purpose was to reform from within, and in so doing create a model on which all other garrisons could be reformed. But recent events have proven us to have been far too generous with our trust.
Two and a half years after coming to office, and 15 years since he walked away from the JLP and declared his independence from the garrison form of politics, Golding's constituency is as deeply steeped in garrison politics as it ever was.
In two and a half years as chief executive of our country, Mr Golding, despite his earlier strong human-rights advocacy, has missed every opportunity to take a public stand in defence of the rights of our citizens; that is until he was confronted by the case of Christopher Coke. His stout defence of Mr. Coke's rights, from all appearances at the risk of Jamaica's international relationships and economic well-being, speaks powerfully to the value he places on this individual.
Not that the Government is not duty bound to stand up to the mightiest of forces in defence of the rights of the least of our citizens. It is. Not that the Government does not have the right to deny an extradition request in Jamaica's public interest. It does. What is remarkable about the prime minister making Coke's extradition case his first notable effort to protect the rights of a Jamaican citizen is that he has obviously calculated that, notwithstanding the consequences to Jamaica, a greater interest is served by protecting Coke.
Since the prime minister's human-rights epiphany so strains credibility and logic, we are forced to conclude that he believes that Coke's protection is in the public interest; in which case he is allowed by the treaty to deny the request.
But what is it about Mr Coke that makes him so valuable? 'Dudus' Coke is widely believed to be the country's most prominent and effective practitioner of the garrison style of social and economic organisation. He is Jamaica's 'chief don' and commands the title 'President' in the area that he controls. What is the message conveyed to him and his 'subjects', to Jamaica and to the world, when a prime minister invests him with such high national value?
So much so that the Government now has to be defending allegations that it directly or indirectly engaged a firm of US lawyers to lobby the United States government, with a view to preventing his extradition. Doesn't this effectively provide the ultimate imprimatur for the activities for which Mr. Coke is notorious? And doesn't this seriously contradict the anti-don, anti-garrison beliefs Mr Golding earlier espoused?
For those of us who believe economic development cannot take place in a social and economic environment dominated by garrisons, this is a most frightening situation. Not simply because of our opposition to garrisons and dons, but because we recognise that the growing control of our society by garrisons and their dons has been a major cause of the underdevelopment of our economy and society. Their suppression of our people's 'unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' is manifested in the growing lawlessness and fear under which we have lived since this freakish phenomenon began to engulf our society in the 1960s.
The right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness is no less an entitlement of the Jamaican citizen than it is of the American. And the obligation to secure these rights for Jamaicans is as binding on the Jamaican Government as securing them for Americans is binding on the US government. But garrisons undermine the ability of Government to deliver on this obligation. Dons usurp the role of government, and have no purpose but to use the people under their control to secure and strengthen their own wealth and power.
They operate through patronage, intimidation and fear; it is never their purpose to secure freedom and opportunity for the people they control. Despite this, respective Jamaican governments have been prepared to condone and co-opt the garrison into their practice of politics, even while they grandly inveigh against them officially.
Social and economic freedom is at the core of successful economic activity. Without it, no effort by Government to promote investments, production and development will ever achieve the peace and prosperity our people crave. The garrison system not only denies our people these basic conditions, it sucks life and substance from the economy. It channels taxpayer-funded government contracts to dons, and feeds official corruption. The enforced 'protection services' of the dons is an unwanted and unproductive cost of doing public and private business, compounding the uncompetitiveness of our economy. They are a deterrent to production and the efficient functioning of the formal economy. Above all, the garrison form of organisation denies economic opportunity and employment for our people and leads them instead to a future of street scuffling, crime and servitude.
warlords
Garrisons must be seen and treated as what they really are: the means through which our people are kept enslaved and denied the right to be all that they can be. They will take us in the direction of Somalia, controlled by warlords, rather than Singapore, characterised by order and prosperity. They lead us towards backwardness and jungle justice, not modernity and the rule of law. The loud, clear and eloquent statement made by the prime minister by his stance in the Dudus affair is that he will pay any price and force the country to do likewise to protect the favourite don of his favourite garrison. In doing so, we may have crossed the Rubicon towards the utter failure of Somalia, rather than climb the first rung towards the success that is Singapore.
I do not know whether the prime minister will change direction before our final disintegration into the squalor of a failed state; but for Jamaica's sake, I hope that he or someone else will salvage the situation and pull us back towards sanity. Jamaica can still develop into a state which can deliver on the promise of freedom and the optimisation of human potential. But our approach to leadership must be radically changed.
This fiscal year, the Government spent almost 45 per cent of the country's output, and yet it could not provide the public goods and services that a modern democratic government is expected to deliver. When Government takes so much of what we produce, we have every right to expect top-quality affordable health care, education, water, electricity, public transportation, roads, public safety and justice.
We have every right to expect a social and economic environment that encourages and facilitates our hopes for economic upliftment. We have every right to expect our Government to foster a high-quality social capital that enables us to achieve levels of production that can create peace and prosperity. The Jamaican Government squanders much of our resources through general economic mismanagement, but has made the situation far worse by rendering itself hostage to dons and garrisons.
Now that the very leadership which we were led to believe was committed to breaking the links to these garrisons has instead elevated itself to a position of national importance, we seem to be perched on the precipice of social and economic disorder.
Our country desperately needs to be rescued. Do any of our political leaders have the honesty, moral authority, courage and political gravitas to make this change? Are there men and women who will live what they say they believe and summon the courage to act on those beliefs?
The Christopher Coke case has found our prime minister wanting. Can anyone else in the Government or the Opposition rise to the required standard of leadership? And will he or she speak up before it is too late?
Claude Clarke is a former trade minister and manufacturer. Send feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.
March 28, 2010
jamaica-gleaner
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