Jamaica is Burning!!

Jamaica is on fire and our leaders are busy rearranging the furniture. The act of vandalizing and burning vehicles in Portmore and the reported half-hearted response of the police is cause for great concern. The reports about our missing children are sending shrills up the spines of many decent family loving Jamaicans. We fear for our children. In the midst of a nation steeped in aggression and belligerence we continue to argue about the merit of music entertainers whose lyrics are lewd, violent and crass. Imagine people getting uptight about banding sound systems from public transportation!

Our nation is in crisis!! There is need for action now!! For any action to succeed and have sustainable impact there is need for courageous, selfless leadership of the highest integrity. This leadership must come from the church, civil society and the political directorate.
The church is busy seeking to preserve its own traditions and appears to be caught in a deep slumber while “Rome burns”. The word to church leaders and members like me is, “Awake Zion awake!!” Our mission as a church is to live and declare the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to wrestle against principles and powers that seek to dehumanize and destroy our nation. Have we as a church been sidetracked from our mission? Have we become caught up in entertainment and a gospel of ease and comfort? The call is for a renewal of commitment to our core mission which will lead us to promote good and expose and war against evil in the power of the Spirit. We must lead the change that the nation seeks.

The past few days have been very frustrating for me as a Jamaican. The source of my frustration is the seeming inability of our political leadership to make the necessary strategic moves that could possible move us further along the path of restoring of law and order to this country. Our leadership is either incompetent, fearful or corrupt. Simple legislation that Parliament needs to enact to give greater support to the security forces and the judiciary is languishing in ‘never never land’ while our leaders philosophize about our cultural and social decline.
I sympathize with the DPP and the Acting Commissioner of Police as they struggle with the mammoth task of fighting crime and corruption in this country. We have complicated a simple extradition matter leaving many Jamaicans to surmise that the government is giving special protection to its allies.

There is a leadership vacuum that needs to be filled in this country. If the church and civil society do fill it fast then the space will be occupied by the most undesirable of characters. It is time for action!