“And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.” Malachi 4:6
In the years leading up to the notorious events that would later be infamously called the Dudus affair, my writing hit a feverish pitch raising the alarm that Jamaica had already become a narco-state, its institutions of law and governance overrun and corrupted by the influence of untouchable drug barons, and whatever semblance of decency and normalcy that seemed to cloak the regular affairs of civil society, was but a bubble of self-delusion.
Until the wake up call of those three days when the entire island shut down under the open threat of organized terror from progressively more unified criminal gangs acting in concert to challenge state power, only then did those warnings ring true. Eventually, both church and private sector did stir themselves to put an ultimatum before the state and its organs to respond unequivocally to the challenge of the anarchists, but I recall several moments of real frustration when it seemed to me at the time, that my words were being dismissed outright as reactionary and alarmist.
It was in one of those moments of frustration, that I remember penning the words for which (like Jeremiah Wright in the US) I was strongly censured from all quarters: ”God damn Jamaica”. While I admit to the intentional use of shock effect, for me this was neither malediction nor curse, but statement of observable fact. What else do you call a society overrun by mayhem but God-forsaken? Or do you continue to cling to platitudinous shibboleths with no effect like ‘Eternal Father bless our blood-soaked land.”?
Malachi simply understood that society has roots, and if a generation should arise who does not recognize and honor those roots, the social project is already lost, if not immediately, eventually…. unless Elijah comes to restore the fallen bridges of communication between the fathers and their estranged sons.
In the spirit of Elijah then, I raise again another Ebenezer memorializing our national journey, that has become distorted (through partisan political prisms), neglected, and forgotten. The God of our fathers no longer speaks to this present political generation; the spirit of sacrifice which birthed our present freedom has largely been replaced by untethered personal ambition and petty partisan vain-glorying, legitimating graft, normalizing the irregular.
In a healthy Jamaica, the 4th of July should never pass by unnoticed, as if we in the Caribbean do not have as much reason to celebrate the day as any other nation in the hemisphere.
Norman, talk to your children, and may we hear and remember, because a generation has arisen who we failed to cultivate, who grew up on the streets, and have no defense against Babylon.
YeKengalé 