Ronald Thwaites | The ‘rude boy’ mentality

‘If children acquire the values of goodness, you don't have to discipline the adults’.

These wise words are attributed to the ancient Greek mathematician Pythagoras. Many of us have yet to appreciate the imperative of children, and all citizens, acquiring the values of goodness.  Having been put down so long and so cruelly in history, we define goodness as the freedom to do what we can get away with; to pursue personal goals irrespective of others’ needs.

For many, self-restraint resembles slavery, postponing gratification is imprisonment, debauchery replaces modesty, exhibitionism masquerades as self-affirmation. 

Having schooled our children into this pseudo-liberal dystopia, check the national budget, the courthouses and the police to find out how much we spend to discipline the adults.

How else can you explain the support for the Rude Boys mentality or the Ragashanti phenomenon. And, when our senses are overwhelmed by our own smell, we revert to the strategies riveted in our DNA - repression, wooden reliance on effete rules, brutality dressed up in official robes, instead of dealing with root causes for our sadness, fear and poverty. 

RIGOURISM

The repressive mentality of the right takes us into the same dark spaces as the libertinism of the left.  Consider the continuing burlesque of Gordon House where ‘hataclaps’ nearly took place when Member Burchell, following in the rich tradition of Isaac Barrant, Maxie Carey, Cleveland Stanhope and others, spoke in the perfectly proper Jamaican Creole language – the only idiom fully understood by the vast majority of the people she, and they, are sworn to represent.

The reaction was predictable from the unemancipated.   Punishment for you if you continue in ‘broken English’ just as for the children marked down daily in classrooms because, when asked in a language test to give the meaning of a word like ‘extinction’, blurt out ‘a likkle bit a dem lef’. 

The purpose of language is communicative, not performative. Miss Lou would be appalled.  

GENEROSITY OF SPIRIT

The Grade 7 Academy began two years ago with limited state support. There was fear, despondency and indifference among many school personnel.  

The transformative effort thrives through enthusiastic private sector commitment and the volunteerism of people with great spirit and wisdom. Among them were senior students from Campion College who served as literacy and numeracy coaches for their struggling peers. No money, no big-ups, just sharing talent and solidarity. On completion, unbidden, they left a handwritten note of encouragement and friendship for each 7th Grader who they had befriended.

But there’s more. A year later, three of those brightest volunteers, now star university students in medicine, computer science and engineering, have chosen to devote their summer break to teach, mentor and enthuse another batch of struggling youth. That is redemptive.

The deeply humane and Christian principles riveted into them at home and high school have taught them that privilege is not for them alone but finds its fulfillment and sustenance in its sharing with others. 

This is not just a pious good deed. These young people, the retired teacher who comes from Canada every holiday to coach non-readers, the several other professionals who donate their time to model behavioural change and learning assessment; all these embody the Jamaican national spirit without which no inclusive prosperity can come, no NaRRA-inspired build-back can happen. 

BYPASSING 

Bypassing inefficient bureaucracy, not correcting it, but spending richly to keep it in place unreformed, is no triumph.

Consider the pathetic excuses proffered last week for the unspent build-back cash while tens of thousands still suffer. Instead of partisan cussing, ask why the promised housing for the people sheltering in the Petersfield School is far from ready.

 In the prevailing national mood of division, preening and one-upmanship, the State simply cannot deliver the services expected. Right now, serious unease is growing among Jamaicans in the diaspora who responded sacrificially only to have their urgency wasted. It is an embarrassment that so many donors specifically avoid government agencies. 

The State, which we hoped to be the protector and liberator of the dispossessed, has now become their predator.

In the same vein, Mr Chai Chong was a most convincing witness. The brutish attempts to discredit him flopped. The evasive response of the minister has not improved public perceptions. 

MEASURING LAND

I hope that Korean technology will help accelerate land titling in Jamaica. But that alone can’t solve our problem. Just as Portia did when there were scores of needed medical personnel who could not afford training, endowed UTech’s surveying school with 40 scholarships a year for 10 years, so that bonded Jamaican students can train to become commissioned land surveyors. That’s the sustainable solution for reliable measurement and available services. 

As with the Chinese construction teams, we are grateful for the help, not to replace but to assist in training and enabling our talented people. Is that happening, though?  

When, by deliberate policy, innocent Cuban lives are strangled on the altars of revenge and regional hegemony, a crime against humanity has been committed. And those who by silence, cowardice or connivance are complicit, they are culpable too.

OPTING OUT

Just asking: Does Maroon ‘independence’ permit disobedience to an order of the Supreme Court?  Who else can opt out of Jamaican jurisdiction? 

WASTE

Who is accountable for the hemorrhaging of increasing billions of taxpayers’ funds at the Jamaica Urban Transit Company? Having given away their source of legitimate revenue to private operators, the public must pay both the taxis and the purposeful losses of the franchise holder. Again, the State becomes a predator rather than a protector of the public interest.

GIVING THANKS

Dennis Lalor was a consummate Jamaican nationalist. Like Danny Williams and others, he built a local and regional insurance institution, growing and spreading wealth fairly, crafting partnerships, building bridges; achieving personal goals through national service. 

Equally at home with Michael and Eddie, he displayed an intense commitment to public affairs, through the Gleaner, The University of the West Indies, and many other causes. His influence and power were gained from the respect he gave to others. He, unlike the louts who infect the political process or the Rude Boys, deserved to be called ‘Honourable’.

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. He is former member of parliament for Kingston Central and was the minister of education. He is the principal of St Michael’s College at The UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.