Stop Jamaica from sliding into the abyss

THE EDITOR, Sir: IT IS fair to assume Port Royal had no warning on June 7, 1692. Two-thirds of its acreage were submerged by a cataclysmic earthquake. This is because there is no warning of seismic events.

However, what is happening in our country is warning enough. We have lost the ability to govern ourselves. In the idyllic ‘50s , murder was miniscule, three per 100,000. Today it has climbed to 60 per 100,000, with the suppression of our civil rights required to keep a tenuous lid on the island’s boiling pot.

As our dollar has become a submersible, keeping company with the sunken Port Royal, and our murder rate climb with our incivility, may I suggest the following solutions:

1. A weekly attendance by John Q. Citizen at Gordon House so we can air our grievances to the nation, while our members of parliament sit in respectful silence. Rachel would no longer be crying in the wilderness, but lamenting in Gordon House.

2. Set up a ministry of human rights so we can get prompt address to our civic needs.

3. There must be a return to the classroom for our prime minister, ministers of parliament, parliamentary secretaries, and permanent secretaries so they can see the faces of those who they represent and learn from them.

4. Have a referendum of the citizenry to find out what the country can do to make us happy and less stressed.

5. Implement mandatory education through high school.

6. Implement mandatory employment until age 21 for those not seeing their way forward.

7. Set up admission to a tertiary institution for all males who have tertiary ambitions until the graduates are equally distributed 50/50.

Anything less than the above is a Jamaica sliding into the abyss as Port Royal did. But note the difference; we now have ample warning.

According to a United Kingdombased economist, we are a threatened or flawed democracy. WILLIAM FOSTER waafoster@hotmail.com