The shrinking Jamaican middle class lead by our bloated and terrified upper class are clamouring for a police state. They yearn for some despot to come forth and ‘usher in peace’ and they weep tears of anguish while hurling abuse whenever they hear of instances where local despotism is pushed back. These are strong words, am I seriously saying that those ‘better educated’ and well off are more than willing to welcome some form of government which would bring order to the nation?
Yes, I am saying that, and any honest person who has lived in this country or spoken to people in these classes will agree. These classes of people who are tired and frightened of the ever increasing violence and corruption which our politicians have been unable to stem have for years and in poll after poll, both formal and informal, clamour for some benevolent leader who will make their 50 year nightmare come to an end.
These people are cowards, cowards of the highest order and if that weren’t enough, they are hypocrites who wish to see others suffer while they and their kind frolic and get fat at the expense of the others. Why do these people demand that we have our paper rights taken away from us? True the nation is bleeding at the hands of gunmen, and true, our public sector is like a sieve where money is never quite accounted for, but in case we forget, it is not poor people who make up the ranks of the government, nor do they make up the ranks of the civil service or governance bodies for state companies.
Neither do these poor people finance drug boats and the hordes of guns which enter our country. No, it is the upper class and middle class who fill the ranks of overseer and who act as seed money and continual financier of the gunmen who haunt us.
The delight and joy with which Jamaicans of those classes welcome the dictatorship was borne out in the response to the arresting of the gentleman who scandalised the PM and the placing on watch lists the over 4000 people who entered the country between March 18-24 and have not declared themselves to the health authorities. While this gentleman surely broke curfew rules and while his comments against the PM and police force were impolite, his treatment and immediate response by the outraged state and the classes which prop them up differ markedly from the amount of time, patience and rope given to the people who flew in and have not reported.
Yes the man broke the law, but did he pose more of an immediate threat than say, the 4000 undeclared people? in case we forget, while poor people do fly and study abroad (many vendors and students are stuck in China after our government refused to repatriate them), it is not to the same extent as the rich and middle classes, and with poor students abroad still publicising their struggles, one can bet with some confidence that the people who flew in were the rich and middle classes trying to get in at the last minute as Europe and America went visible to pots in a short space of time.
This section of society has joined our PM in using the opportunity for renewing the call for NIDS, a form of identification which has been thrown out as unconstitutional and which mimics the failed attempt made by the fast-discredited Indian PM Modi. They are demanding that this crisis be used as the reason behind more stringent social policies and furloughing workers while at the same time demanding that the state either protect their industries, their specific jobs and their lifestyles. This yearning for a tighter grip on society can be seen in the 8pm-6am curfew which in the end has little to no bearing on those in the more well off classes but which could spell doom for those who aspire to middle class lifestyles and those struggling at the bottom. This was spelled out in a sad fashion as the police took taxis off the road while nurses and call centre workers had to navigate home on foot.
We have never had rule by majority what with both parties funded by the uber rich and their ranks swelled by members of the middle or upper classes. We have seen where laws are passed to the benefit of those classes while also passing laws which belittle, dehumanise or criminalise the actions taken by the poorer members of our society. we know this, but at least we have the illusion that through voting (or even not voting) we are somehow letting our voices be heard. Truth be told, if one listens to the richer classes, even this near useless paper tiger would they have wrenched from the poorer classes as they wish to cement their ultimate and sole rule.
We see where the poor voters are mocked for taking the crates of Guinness, Heineken and Red Stripe. They are chided and lampooned for accepting the few thousands of dollars for votes (or not voting). We during the election cycle are bombarded with comments of how the lumpen choose our leaders and how the more well-off wish that would change. funnily enough, these same people making these comments are often non-voters (thus ceding the political ground to the ‘lumpen’) and the ones who finance the campaigns which buy off the poorer members of society who still cling on to this dying ritual.
This want of society to be ruled by its betters is not new, it is as old as the nation and was even suggested by NW Manley in the form of a literacy test to be eligible to vote. This is an itch and urge every third world countries upper and middle-class has and it is something which needs to be guarded against. The pace at which military men are being given civil positions, the disregard for due process and the legal system when it comes to crimes of the poor (note that we are demanding the jailing of Mr Reid but we want the hangman for the murderer) lays bare the fact that those who have are hell bent on ensuring that a system already set up to their advantage is wholly in their hands.
This wish to be totalitarian and authoritarian on the part of the elites is nothing but hypocrisy, it shows itself in the way they jump through loops in order to excuse the worst actors among them. Never do they mention that the corruption, graft and theft which their ilk partake in actually cost lives. Monies taken out of PATH funds, monies redirected from hospitals, schools and even police stations all cost lives. The undervaluing and selling off of public lands costs lives as those monies which should (and would in a world where the masses have power) be invested in critical areas which the country is lacking, it costs lives and pushes people to a life of crime. But to mention those crimes and to hold them to the same standard that the man from Arnett gardens is held would mean being on the same level and sharing power with the poor, and then invariably losing it as the poor are the majority.
This is not to say that all in those classes are of that ilk. There are many noble persons who call those classes home, they are the class traitors who see the woods for the trees and who for altruistic reasons or reasons of self-preservation are more than willing to peel back this dictatorship of the minority and welcome the downtrodden to the halls of power. They are not many, and they are not vocal (understandable when life as you know it may be at stake), but they exist. It is up to these people to break with their peers fully, decry the creeping dictatorship and help the masses throw the door open to a real form of self-rule and democracy. If they fail to stand against their class and their short-term interest then anarchy, despotism and chaos will be the natural conclusion.
jamaicachange 