Blame yourself for crime situation

THE EDITOR: In a recent letter to the press the TTMA’s membership stated therein that they held Prime Minister Manning totally and personally responsible for the crime situation in the country. Prime Minister Manning is not the sole inhabitant in the country...there are 1.3 million of us. How therefore can he be held personally responsible? The present situation is not something that has happened overnight. It has taken many years to occur and we, the citizens kept putting our heads in the sand and denying the signs before us as long as it did not personally affect us. Well now it is up in our faces and there is no denying it now.

The corrupt business men who bribed customs officials to look the other way when the items in the container were not what was stated on the invoice, you are responsible. The union officials who demanded increase in wages for your membership and did not ensure your members gave their employers an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, you are responsible. The governments who did not pay the members of the protective services and other public servants a fair, livable salary, you are responsible. The mothers who had four, five, six children for as many men, you are responsible. The children’s fathers who turned their backs on them financially and emotionally, you are responsible.

Mothers who knew their sons were not working but wearing $1,000 sneakers and financially supporting the family, after he was shot dead, had the nerve to tell the public that he was a good boy and used to help everyone, you are responsible. Communities who knew that there were those among them who were into illegal activities but accepted it because they kept them “safe”, you are responsible. Those of you that throw garbage out of your cars, break traffic laws, you are responsible. The politicians who refused to sign bills that were for the good of the country and who during a period when we had no government tried to prod the citizens to “civil disobedience”, you are responsible. Politicians who have kept us at loggerheads with each other using race as the bogeyman, you are responsible.

And we the public who allow them to divide and rule us, we are responsible. When we forget to practice the simple laws of society like Good Morning, Good Evening, Thank you, please and care about what happens to our fellowman it is then that we start to fall rapidly into the pits of hell. No organisation or individual is going to get this country back to some semblance of discipline and order. It will be us, the citizens, who are responsible for the present situation will be the ones who will have to fight, scratch and claw to get our country back from the vultures who are bent on destabilising our society. It is going to be a hard fight because those who are currently profiting from the crime spree, fear and uncertainty, are not going to easily give up. We have never had to repel a foreign invader or fight for our independence, it was given to us. Well this is one fight we must win because the only people who are causing us distress are our own people.

It all starts in the family. When a parent habitually tells a child “you are a good for nothing like your father,” he will start to believe it. And when an adult comes into that child’s life and appears to care, he has a devoted, mindless slave, though the adult has negative motives and is only using that child for his own profit. The vultures within our society have no problems with seeing our young men killed and kill innocents in the vilest manner. They are only a means to an end and there are countless bodies to take their place. When a parent habitually breaks the laws such as driving through red lights, going up a no entry street, spitting in the streets, you are teaching your children to break the small laws which will lead to them breaking the bigger laws.

The bottom line is that we all have created this mess and allowed those within our community who have subversive motives to control us and unless we move now to reverse the situation this beautiful country that is so full of wealth, caring and talented people will fall by the wayside. Do you think it is a coincidence or a whim of history that so many people from different countries, of different colours, religions and cultures have been brought together to live in such a small space? The Man upstairs has a plan for us, let us not fail Him...and show Him his faith in us was not misguided.

JOHANNA WALTERS
Diego Martin