MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL: Who is the guilty of us all?
THE RECENT bloodletting at the Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries (PIKRM) sent shock waves throughout Jamaica. People are jostling on WhatsApp and YouTube to retrieve records of the church members who were terrorised by their influential patriarch of a pastor. This megalomaniac used violence as a power and control mechanism, with multiple manifestations of the resulting psychosocial immobilisation of the victims of his charade. This church cult debacle calls into question what actually constitutes religion, which, of course, must be divorced from spirituality, its antithesis.
Jamaica is reputed to have the most churches per capita in the world. This record was set in motion from the plantation days when colonials colluded with missionaries to reinforce the enslavement of African peoples’ minds and bodies for profit. So, we are very well used to the hypocrisies that pose as pastoral religious guidance. Many a church member has been samfied by leadership injunctions to share not only one tenth of one’s earnings, but other valuables as evidence of sincerity about giving back to “The Lord”. Never mind that many members return home to dire poverty after contributing their gifts to the pastoral beneficiary. Church believers rationalise their compliance with platitudes about the blessings that flow from God’s storehouse for this generosity. However, this is not an attempt to devalue the link between faith and works. It is an attempt to introduce critical reflection on what is really “common assault” of our empathy sensibilities.
What occurred at the PIKRM should be held up as a mirror for society’s habit of hiding from its own realities. When one looks into this glass, it will show every instance when the society, like ostriches, has buried its collective head in failure to support social justice. In light of graphic You Tube revelations about the excesses of ‘His Excellency’ Dr Kevin O’Neil Smith, we have to ask the obvious questions. Why did all the people who are now coming forward with their stories protect the perpetrator with their silence? I did a search and found several accounts recorded in The Gleaner and THE STAR, providing horrific details about alleged crimes committed. The guardians of the sacred have knowledge of the profane in no uncertain terms. Yet, intentional amnesia and political cover-ups mask dire deeds about rampant moral decadence. The problem is that exposure runs the risk of reducing, if not nullifying, the influence of the Church as a primary institution of socialisation and ethical rectitude. It would put too much pressure on the State or civil society to provide alternative oversight for moral authority. As you know, that is a tall order.
DESENSITISED TO VIOLENCE
The ritual murders committed in the church are shocking. Astounding, too, is the fact that the average person has become desensitised to violence and can easily turn a blind eye to cries for help. The severed head of a victim of violence in Spanish Town is being shared among students, some of whom have posted it as their status. We are happy when there are exceptions to this rule. Since the watershed moment of 800 persons being murdered in political violence in 1980, the routine annual recording of over a thousand violent killings of citizens in their prime, identifies Jamaica as a society at war, by United Nations standards. In light of this, should the congregants at PIKRM be charged with complicity for the alleged crimes of their now deceased leader, ‘His Excellency’ Dr. Kevin O’Neil Smith? After all, they repeatedly witnessed and participated in his rituals. They looked in the mirror every day and witnessed their faces as members of an institution that embraced a convicted criminal as their Shepherd. How come no one remonstrated with him for spitting in their faces to transfer his imagined power? Where was their outrage at a master manipulator, fleecing them of their hard-earned cash and other valuables? They must have known that the children that are now in State care were being exploited and abused. Why, if they saw something, did they not say something? That is what the advertisement says we should do.
We all know why the PIKRM was able to flourish. If we honestly describe what we see when we look in the mirror, we can attest that we feel nothing these days at the gristly nightly television news, which is not shy to provide the gory details of routine human haemorrhage. People are deterred from speaking out because of the compelling ‘infaama fi dead’ code. This is intelligible at all levels and effectively prevents people from sharing what they know. This trap of fearful silence is real; there is a political economy of speech. Blindfolds are voluntarily donned to prevent mice too meek to face the men of violence from seeing the unspeakable, even if they know.
EMBODIED INTERSECTIONS
These contradictions reveal the many ways in which gender, class and race intersect to make poor black people most disadvantaged and susceptible to violence. Looking out for self and not one’s neighbour is threatening social capital. You handle these hot-potato-taboo issues at your own risk. Isn’t it curious, too, that the videos circulating on social media speak to a gendered division of embodied deployment of approval in the PIKRM services? Why is it that for the most part, women are the ones getting into ecstasy-like, screaming-accentuated spirit and rolling on the ground? On the other hand, why are the boys and men fawning on this man who the Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewelyn admits was convicted for sexually abusing a young man?
Forgive me for being cynical about the shock and awe being expressed that this charlatan was busy running an extortion ring among his congregants. The members were fully aware that their leader was verbally abusing women about their sexuality in the full hearing of church members who apparently internalised the oppression.
MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS
As if it was not irregular enough that ‘His Excellency’ Dr. Kevin O’Neil Smith was being transported in an unmarked vehicle from Montego Bay to Kingston, flanked by two outriders, the vehicles were involved in a fatal accident. ‘His Excellency’ and a police officer were killed. As these extraordinary turn of events have unfolded, we are left with more questions than answers.
• Why were the persons in the other two civilian vehicles not interviewed?
• If the vehicle was being escorted, how is it that the escorted vehicle could have been involved in an accident and the vehicle in front was not?
• Why are emergency vehicles like the police not allocated free passes for the toll?
• Why was an ordinary vehicle used to carry a high-profile prisoner?
• Was there a dash-cam or other cameras in the vehicle?
• Why was there no separation between driver and prisoner?
• Why didn’t the authorities secure the crime scene?
• How could looters have had free access to the material evidence at the scene of the crime?
• Why charge the person who did the actual murder if the others who aided and abetted the crime were not also charged?
• Who determines who is a victim as against who is a perpetrator?
These are questions for the police and State. No wonder our crime rate is so high and there are so many unresolved crimes. Even if you only binge watch crime movies, you know these are basic procedures. Could it be that the political will does not exist to solve the crime problem?
Dr Imani Tafari-Ama is a research fellow at The Institute for Gender and Development Studies, Regional Coordinating Office (IGDS-RCO), at The University of the West Indies. She is the author of ‘Blood, Bullets and Bodies: Sexual Politics Below Jamaica’s Poverty Line’ and ‘Up for Air: This Half Has Never Been Told’, a historical novel on the Tivoli Gardens incursion. Send feedback to imani.tafariama@uwimona.edu.jm.