Somehow it seems as if we have been here before; the proponents of casino gambling calling for its introduction, citing its merits, especially in enhancing the tourism product. On the other side there is the church with its collective head above us, breathing the rarefied air of a perfect world while shirking its duty of bringing man closer to the best his spiritual being can make him.
Essentially, the church exists for the main purpose of empowering the church, its priests and leaders. Its mission statement, unclear to many of its passive followers, will vary depending on the politics of the moment. Indeed at many times in our history, what is called 'the church' has been the politics, and in-between those medieval times and the rise of secularism, the church has always coveted the power of the politicians and their influence on the common man making up the state.
In these modern times in the western world, the face shown to the common man by the church ranges from crude but glitzy American evangelism where crass, money grubbing, snake oil preachers feed the ignorant and spiritually downtrodden all the emotion they can bear, to those preaching the return to a spotless, sinless Garden of Eden.
The church exists on a long forgotten myth, but it is here and has no plans to leave us.
Its usefulness to the politicians springs from its appeal to a wide cross section of people seeking 'something else' other than the harsh reality of a life filled with more than what some of us believe is its fair share of misery, disease, pain and death.
Right behind every church preacher thumping his Bible, hurling brimstone at his terrorised congregation and promising conversion and renewal after death is a politician waiting to collect votes. This synergy between politician and preacher is often lost on the converted who are, anyway, too eager to taste the brew of milk and honey in the land of far-beyond.
Where was the church?
Ever since the April 1999 riots, I have been convinced that Jamaica is sitting on a social time bomb. In those riots, which began after a gas price increase, the unemployed, the criminal and those motivated by the then JLP Opposition took to the streets in four days of blocking roads, burning and looting. During those riots, I watched the street-lumpen elements creating damage with the utmost glee printed on their faces.
At one main intersection in an uptown area, I saw young men, women and children hurling dozens of empty bottles at a gas station then laughing and dancing as they headed back for more 'ammunition'.
I watched as one supermarket operator opened a small door and gave the rioting boys sacks of rice, corned beef and beer as if to say, 'Deal with this now, protect me later'.
The poor, the powerless and the supposedly ignorant had 'massa' over the barrel in those four days. I saw the fear on the face of the privileged just as much as I registered the glee and satisfaction of the street elements as they found and revelled in a power they never knew they had. The power to destroy what others had built; power to drive fear in the hearts of those who believed their established power was cast in cement.
For the life of me, I cannot seem to recall the church making itself felt during those troubled times. As someone who has been writing for newspapers for 15 years now, I know it is easy to write a few column inches on crucial matters and convince myself that I have done my bit. Although I have been in the trenches at times, somehow I believe that it needs more than just a few words written from a safe position.
But then again, in my writings I have never pretended that I am a social activist and one who is ready to take to the streets in protest against the latest atrocity.
The church is different. Its role in our society ought to be defender of the poor and powerless rather than defender of the faith. Both the Catholic and Anglican churches have worked wonders in education and continue to do so. As examples, we have Kingston College, my alma mater founded by a giant in the Anglican faith, the late Bishop Percival Gibson.
Close to where I live is Immaculate Conception High School (run by the Catholic Church), another giant among schools which have consistently performed at high standards.
As our society evolves, so ought to be our main civic, social and religious institutions. If the church wants to make itself more meaningfu it must bring a new approach to an old theology. To be fair to the church, it cannot deny the theology which is the foundation of its existence. But it ought to recognise that in its search for a perfect world, its path is littered with the reality of warts and boils as its leads its flock towards Nirvana.
Reverend Canon Ernle Gordon of the Anglican Church is one of the few churchmen that I respect. Monsignor Richard Albert of the Catholic Church is another. Writing in the Observer of November 1, Canon Gordon speaks of the myth of casino gambling as if its proponents had ever indicated as he said; "Poor people are being told that they will be wealthy very soon, as casino gambling will hasten this mythical Alice in Wonderland vision that the spinning of the roulette will bring riches instantly to the Jamaican poor, which has never happened since 12,000 BC when gambling was documented."
Rev Gordon, it is not true that casino gambling is being sold to the gullible as the solution to poverty. The very fact that he has stated that gambling was first documented 14,000 years ago more than indicates that gaming comes naturally to man as drinking alcohol. I would not recommend either as the solution to the problems besetting the poor.
Casino gambling will enhance and broaden the tourism product
Let us face one fact. There are many of us with black skins who harbour a quiet resentment against those white-skinned tourists who have earned the sums required to comb our beaches and live the life of luxury for a week or two. Those over-educated ones who wear their blackness on their chests have been, at times, openly hostile to the fact of tourism. Fortunately for us who exist in a global village, those are in the minority.
Like it or resent it, tourism as it is made up for the Jamaican marketplace is a fact. The all-inclusives have grown and they have attracted tourists who are more interested in our ganja, red rum (they can't handle the real Wray and Nephew white rum), sex and sunning than our politics and social edges.
During the 18-year run of the PNP administration, the calls for casino gambling were few because we pretty much knew where the PNP stood on it. The JCC (Jamaica Council of Churches) has always aligned itself to the PNP, if not always its politics. It was, therefore, taken as a given that the political compatriots would never stray too far from each other, especially in the touchy area of casino gambling. Now that the PNP has been displaced, the subject has naturally resurfaced.
The dark shades of the church
Many of us are familiar with the reports, months ago, of a deacon driving around in a van with a female child while two teenagers in the back fondled her and videotaped the whole sordid episode. We are all familiar with the end result of sexual repression among churchmen, especially in the Catholic Church. Convinced that somehow it is God's will for male clergymen (and nuns) to remain celibate, a few have been caught at the wrong end of some very embarrassing situations.
In recent times, we had the spectacle of Pastor Phillip Phinn playing Rasputin to Portia, forex trader to those so inclined and public plaything to those of us who fancied live, public sitcoms.
Questions. Where was the church in the furniture and zinc scandals in the early days of the PNP administration in the first part of the 1990s? Where was the church in the NetServ scandal? Why did the church not call for the resignation of Minister Phillip Paulwell?
Even if we skip the many other scandals which seemed only to cement in place the PNP Government, where was the church in Trafigura? Where is the church now in the light bulb scandal?
Many of the churches in Jamaica employ not even a single gardener to tend the flowers, yet they collect and pay no taxes. In the moralising over casino gambling, have they considered the challenges of globalisation and how it impacts on developing countries like Jamaica?
Today's world is one single market in which all producers compete to sell their goods and services. Those of us who support casino gambling are in no way asking the church to support it. What we would like to see is a more pragmatic approach to a worldly matter, an appreciation that just as how there is no real milk and honey in heaven, there are no quick fixes to the travails of the poor.
The church ought not to waste its time competing for space in the world of Mammon. Gambling is second nature to man because man is by nature a competitive animal, and gambling is seen as a chance to win, or lose.
Gambling exists all over Jamaica
Every street corner in Jamaica has a game of dominoes going with the betting ranging from $20 to $100. Each village in rural and urban Jamaica has its bingo game with women wagering as little as $10 to gain entrance in the game. 'Drop han' has not died, and Supreme Ventures controls the roost in what has been made legal.
Although I do not buy Lotto or Cash Pot, just about everyone I know, especially the poor, buys it. I prefer Crown and Anchor, and occasionally I will 'invest' $500 in a slot machine in a bar. Has Rev Ernle Gordon ever sat down with a poor person and tried to convince that person not to gamble? I am certain that he has. I am also certain that five minutes after that poor person has promised never to place another bet, he is again wagering.
There will always be those who will spend the family 'fortune' on liquor, womanising and gambling. Those persons are simply irresponsible, but I am certain that the large pharmaceutical companies will soon tell us of a disease associated with that and a medicine to heal it.
The proponents of casino gambling have not been championing it as poverty alleviation. It is simply all about increasing the space in the tourism product. It is all about taking more dollars from our visitors than we do now. It is all about competing in an environment which can be quite unkind if one is left out.
Sun, sea, sand and sex have taken us this far. As I said in a previous column, the ideal place to 'guinea pig' casino gambling is in the Rosehall area just outside of Montego Bay. Large hotels are there along with numerous supporting amenities and, even if at first, all the casinos are installed in the hotels, there is space for expansion for stand-alone gaming lounges in that tourist area.
Will our morals decay?
In an ordered and civilised society, all views will, and must contend.
The viewpoint of those who sell morality by the cut or weight is that casino gambling will add organised crime to our 'vulnerable' society.
As far as crime goes, there is nothing about Jamaica which can even be remotely classified as vulnerable.
Jamaica leads the world in areas which make us cringe. For God's sake, we have been murdering our babies, and I have not heard that we are into any ethnic cleansing! Every inner-city community has a network of criminality which is supported by about 90 per cent of the residents.
It may be out of fear of the very criminals which roam those cramped communities, but from my experience, residents in the ghetto communities have taken the practical view that criminality practised outside the community brings more to the community than the political leadership and the uptown links bring in.
So when we hear talk that most of the inner-city residents are law-abiding, it is true up to a point. The irony which drives home my point is that 'law-abiding' behaviour has no utility value to it. It doesn't send the children to school or pay the bills.
To be law-abiding, one would have to disconnect the illegal electricity connection. One would have to condemn the 'shotta' who openly fingers his gun when the Water Commission contractors arrive to disconnect the water supply. One would have to forgo the lunch money which the criminal gives to the little old lady for her grand-daughter to attend school.
What many of our inner-city criminals are doing now is playing their real-life game of catching up because the 'system' has only empowered them as vote-gathering machines, nothing else.
The condition is gloomy, the prospects for the future are dim and the solution seems to work only on paper. The politician will never put it that way, but there are many inner-city communities which will never be assisted by any government - PNP or JLP.
Any government-controlled spinoffs from the venture of casino gambling will have to be targeted to those inner-city communities like the troubled Flankers, Rose Heights, Glendevon, among others.
It is no quick fix. I am in no way suggesting to the church that it should support casino gambling. That is an impossibility.
What the church ought to be doing is appealing to the goodness inside the breast of every one of us. It must give of itself in that pursuit as it has done in the past.
For it to go further, it has to seek reconciliation with itself and seek forgiveness from a higher power for the misdeeds of its past.
And it also must recognise that where it has no money to fill the place of its mouth, it must leave the game of Mammon to those who are willing to take that big risk.
What is the truth about the Yallahs bridge?
A reader has sent me some concerns, but I have not had the time to investigate the matter as the e-mail arrived on the day before the posting of my column. It concerns the erection/construction of the Yallahs bridge.
Readers will recall that earlier in the year three companies responded to the advertised tender. All were rejected for various reasons and E Pihl and Sons, an outfit from Denmark, was just given the contract to erect the bridge at a cost of $400 million. It is going to be interesting to see where the final figure reaches. The e-mail states:
"I kept your article on the Yallahs bridge, because as a resident of Yallahs and St Thomas, I have interest in its development or rather lack of. Acquiring a good bridge that lasts would help enormously. I was therefore dismayed by your article and resolved to 'watch that space'.
"Now that the work has begun, I'm hearing some worrying news about it:
1 The bridge is being constructed 500 feet shorter than was originally planned. (think back to St Mary's bridge).
2 No one in the parish council has seen the contract (unconfirmed report).
3 No plans of the proposed bridge or phases of the construction have been made available to the residents of the parish. Drawings could at least have been published in the papers. It's time we the people are treated like intelligent human beings.
4 Rumours that parts of the bridge and equipment left in river bed, have been washed away. Also that the work in progress, is just testing. This I was told had been done a year ago.
5 At a recently held meeting, the company Pihl was not adequately represented, as a representative present was unable to furnish information required (hearsay).
"Mr Wignall, I wanted to contact you, as you posed some serious questions for the then minister, Mr Pickersgill, in your article and I wanted confirmation of the outcome before getting on the radio to publicise my concerns, but I like to have my facts straight first.
"Hence my efforts to contact you.
"Could you please at least e-mail me, even if just for encouragement and guidance as to how I can most effectively phrase my concerns?"
At present, the minister in charge of local government reform, Bobby Montague, is in the process of formulating a workable bottom-up plan for local government but to date, that's all we know. The concerns of the reader highlight the very problem that those of us who support the county council idea have been putting forward.
The community concerned is in the dark. Those people ought to have a say in what concerns them and not some bureaucratic fat neck sitting in an office in Kingston. Minister Montague, the residents of Yallahs want answers now, not next week.
In the interim please inform us about your plans for local government. I am certain that you know that you hold one of the most crucial jobs in the present administration. It is all about efficient service delivery to the community concerned. How can this be done without the input of
the community?
Anxious to hear from you, minister, even though you have told me that your offices are open to me. I will call you, minister, but I promised the reader that I would publish the concerns. |
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