The Realities of the garrison

I had difficulty deciding whether to laugh or cry on hearing the prime  minister, in defending the revived Innercity housing programme, under which numerous  non contributors will get houses, compliments of many poor contributors who pay into the fund but will never be able to qualify for a loan, claiming that if the inner city recipients do not pay the mortgages, their houses will go up for auction like any other mortgagee in the country.

Did the prime minister, a person who has represented a garrison constituency all her political life really say that with a straight face? Could it be that the prime minister has become so far removed from the Jamaica that she leads that she is no longer aware of the realities of the garrison life?

Would the prime minister tell us who in their right mind would ever dare try to go into a garrison to live in a house that they had bought at auction, assuming that anyone could even go into put up the notice signs? Does the prime minister really believe that even another garrison resident would dare to try and move into a repossessed  unit?

As I listened open-moutedly to the prime minister's defense of the progrramme,  I could not but recall the desperation with which a mechanic who I knew approached me some time ago. He lived in a garrison and had managed to get a government house for which he paid a small mortgage. When his mom got ill in St. Thomas, he went to the country for about three months to stay with her.

When he returned, his belongings had been packed away around  the back of the house had had been paying for for years and other persons were living in his home. He was told that he had a house in the county and it was other people's turn now to live in the house! When I suggested that I would go to the police with him to deal with the matter, you can guess the response.!

The reality of garrison life is that the vast majority are decent people, but they live under the gun and  are modern day slaves as the concept of free will in most of those areas is nothing but a dream.

 In fact, the Gleaner must be commended  for trying once again  for trying to awaken our collective consciences by putting the nasty realities of garrison life  back on the front burner with the recent editorial  entitled "Tyranny of the Ghetto, which began "A police superintendent has this week confirmed what was often rumoured about girls who have been reported missing from inner-city communities. According to Deputy Superintendent Steven Moodie, some teenage girls living in such neighbourhoods are sent away by their mothers to the country, or to relatives elsewhere, to get them out of harm's way. These girls are then reported missing.

By sending their daughters away, parents are trying to prevent their daughters' sexual exploitation by inner-city dons who are known to summon these girls, explained the deputy superintendent. Presumably, there are some parents who have nowhere to send their daughters, which means they have no alternative but to expose them to sexual abuse."

What the Gleaner highlighted once again is something we all know but prefer to live in the world of "See No evil, Hear No Evil" although we have no problem speaking evil.

But are we speaking with a desire to bring about change and liberate those who live under the gun in this country?

 Oh yes, garrison politicians pretend they do not know the enforcers and have nothing to do with them, but you don't see them at election time campaigning in those constituencies to try and win a seat like in real democracies,  for they are secure in the knowledge that the enforcers that they "do not know and have no association with "will ensure that all the votes are delivered in the boxes in their  absence as they prance around in other constituencies to assist weaker candidates!! 

So don't tell me that garrison politicians do not have a responsibility to liberate those who live under the tyranny in the garrisons and don't tell met that people can go into a garrison and buy a repossessed unit and live happily every after in a home which has been sold for non payment of mortgage.

You know what is sickening about Jamaica too?  We  are reputed to have more churches per square mile than any other country in them world and a higher proportion of persons professing to be christian than probably anywhere else, but  most of these "upright" persons and people of high morals have chosen to ignore the sections of the bible which speaks to being our brothers's keeper ! For if Jamaica was really a christian country or if modern day christians were against slavery as were some of their counterparts centuries ago, they would have risen up with one accord long ago and united to demand from the political beneficiaries, the freedom of those thousands of Jamaicans who live under tyranny in the garrisons, while the politicians who benefit try to pretend that they have no idea what is happening.

It was the late Martin Luther King who said "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."  I wonder what he would say if he reincarnated in  Jamaica today where we seem all too happy to remain silent about the wickedness that passes for normal circumstances and democracy in this country, with the tacit complicity of the huge religious sector?