Death and disorder

Over the years there has been this growing trend where Jamaicans are allowed to sell just about anything on the streets of our towns and cities. I guarantee you can buy just about anything on the streets of Jamaica, pan di corner; from peanuts and fruit, water, hot beer and cigarettes, beadie, ganja and crack, to icepicks and machetes.

Whereas we seem to be aware of and have policies and programmes in place to deal with the selling of dangerous and deadly substances and substances that are abused and which cause others to abuse, I cannot for the life of me understand why persons are allowed to sell machetes on the streets. These vendors saunter up to just about any road user, pedestrian or motorist, with machetes held and displayed in a fanlike design.

n this culture of murder, we allow street vendors to ply our busy thoroughfares with bills, sows — both known as machetes, kitchen knives, choppers and icepicks. These can all be used to do great harm to unsuspecting and innocent persons. And even before we get to that, these things are downright intimidating and threatening.

Do something
In a country where over 1,500 people were murdered in 2007, and with the start we’ve had in 2008, we should not tempt fate. Machetes and those kinds of things must be sold in markets, shops, supermarkets, hardware stores and the like, where there is some amount of control. Not naked on the streets.

Will someone please do something! It is really very simple. Do a public education campaign showing various graphic scenarios of what can happen when a ‘hignarant’ smaddy, or any a dem careless bwoy grab one of those implements. Some insane persons get quite aggressive at times, so too some substance abusers. Can you see it? Instant death!

Frankly, I don’t want to read about, hear on radio or see the lifeless body of another yout, an elder, a mother or another ‘brodda’ on the evening news. And just as bad, I would rather not be 10 metres away watching someone’s neck being slashed, head split open, or entrails spilling out. Believe me, it is going to come to that if we don’t put a stop to this practice now.

And you know the irony is this, that kitchen knife may be used on the vendor right there before our very eyes. It is intimidating and frightening.

Murder sold
It seems that as a society we are preoccupied with death. Some dancehall artistes make death their mainstay. Many of us Jamaicans show approval with the sign of a gun. The names of the gangs bear out this fixation. Nah live fi nutten gang. The fact that so many young men don’t live to see their 25th birthday; and that so many young men - long before they are 25 - mek so many duppies. Translated, that means they have killed so many persons. This is testimony to the fact that we appear enamoured with death.

Murder is sold from the sound system boxes and street side pirates day and night. Just listen to the lyrics of several of those recordings that are peddled on the streets and tell me if what is being sold isn’t murder.

The words are of particular concern, but so too the vulgar utterances of the sound system operators. It’s all one giant cesspool of nastiness that assails us as we travel to and from work and school, or as we try to rest for those few hours left out of a day.

Words are powerful. Don’t fool yourself by saying is only a CD. Is my boss man latest chune! It is much more than that. It is influence. It is a way of life. It is power. We say we will kill, and we massacre. We use a threatening tone and pitch and we become beasts. Have you ever noticed how fierce and evil several of those murderous sounding entertainers look? How they fix their faces. The expressions that form their daily wear are terrifying.

Gentler society
We need a gentler society; a society that values life, not death; a smile, not a grimace; a soft word, not a machete. We need to return to a sense of what is appropriate and what is not. We need to know that selling machete and kitchen knifes on the streets is wrong. We need to have order. And that will mean that there is a place to sell things. There is a place to sell fruits and vegetables, a place to sell clothes. There is a place to board the bus. We need to know that it is not all right for Half-Way Tree to look like one haphazard clothesline, especially at Christmastime.

I am not one of those who believe that all the old days were good. But some things were and for the betterment of our beloved Jamaica, we need to go back to those things: Order, discipline, graciousness, thoughtfulness, courtesy, punctuality and being respectful to others and their property. And pickney mussen grow up too fast, because pickney is pickney. And pickney need their parents to be parents.

Well, if we don’t take heed, it will be death to the society we call Jamaica, death to our identity, and death to brand Jamaica. The patient is ailing…sick bad. Has the physician fled? Or dead? Fire deh a muss-muss tail an’ im tink a cool breeze.

My column is published every other week, so back with you on January 27. DV. Walk good!

Fae Ellington is a broadcast journalist, lecturer in radio and a communication consultant. Your views and comments are welcome. Send to fae@mail.infochan.com

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