We need strong , vibrant and non aligned civil society groups

No government ever, including the current JLP administration should be given unfettered access to power as we all know power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The opposition party is meant to provide some sort of accountability meter to check on and report on issues in government that are inimical to a proper functioning democracy, they are expected to hold the government accountable at all times.

Civil society groups on the other hand plays a slightly different role, where they too seek to hold government accountable however their focus has no political agenda, and is purely about pushing for greater accountability and better governance .

What has happened over the years however, is persons who seemingly are politically aligned, but wants to operate under cover, has infiltrated the civil society groups and have now become the faces and voices of these groups. They have moved away from being objective and now seem to swing depending on who is involved, to determine if the respond and if they do, the type of response that is given.

Let’s examine a few recent cases.

A week ago word news emerged that a serial rapist had his life sentence cut to 15 years on appeal. Initially civil society commentators were livid on this “injustice” but as soon as word emerged that one of their own Dionne Jackson Miller, the moral and ethical police was the lawyer who had successfully argued the case, the outrage fizzled to a whisper and then silence .

How can any group which is said to support higher moral and ethical standards can suddenly stop speaking on a matter that has shocked the country given the cruel and abhorrent nature of the crime, as if they don’t want to offend the attorney involved. Why were they outraged in the first place, did the issue that caused them to be outrage change and if not so, why have they gone mute?

Have civil society decided that issues like these no longer warrant their outrage and if so, why and who should we look to for answers from the judiciary.

Why civil society groups have not continued to speak and demand that our judges get back around the table and modify these sentencing guidelines given the Jamaican reality and the need to send a VERY STRONG signal to CRIMINALS.

To say I am deeply DISSAPOINTED in these groups would be a gross understatement in how I truly feel, in fact I am compelled to say they have been DERILICT in their responsibility and have now been severely compromised, making it very difficulty for them to regain the trust of the public.

Once again we see the emergence of two society and unequal application of outrage as it been a different lawyer from Dionne Jackson Miller the outrage would have continued.

I will not even bother to cite the other cases as I am so upset about the turn of events in this one, just read the Jamaica Observer of today of the report where the young victim spoke.

The public therefore demand that these groups remove themselves as the face of moral , ethics and accountability police and new and truly independent people step forward who we can trust to speak on matters and not be worried about the issue of partisan politics guiding those comments.

Jamaica deservers better than what we are currently getting

Bless

We demand honesty from our social commentators’, stop the unwarranted attacks

When news broke yesterday that the famous Ricks Cafe in Negril had hosted a massive party in Negril catering exclusively for tourist, social media and many well known social commentators exploded in outrage .

Many expressed outrage that while Jamaicans were locked out of the entertainment industry for over a year and were in deep financial trouble, the Holness administration issued and permitted or otherwise sanctioned the event and gave it its blessing. Some may even suggest they made no effort to stop it if it was that they never sanctioned the event

They accused the government of displaying double standard in how the rules were being applied in the covid restrictions and expressed alarm that the government could have given such an approval.

Carole Narcisse, a well known social commenator wrote on Twitter in response to JTB denying giving written or implied approval for the event

Carole shoots down JTB official statement

Another well known commentator Ingrid Riley chimed in with her own version of the truth and wrote

Ingrid shoots down official government agency statement

Not to be left out of the barrage of machine gun on automatic like tweets, Senator Lambert Brown fired off his own tweet

Lambert Brown error filled tweet

Social media platforms have provided an avenue for people who had no platform to get their voices out, but at the same time it has provided a avenue for those with a voice to speak even louder.

People like Carol Narcisse and Ingrid Riley are among many other who will be quick to point out that there is a deep sense of distrust for governments built up over the years. They will be the first to say this is because governments have lied so many times that they could very understand why there is this distrust.

What is over ironic is that neither of these persons’ are helping to build any sort of trust and to change that perception, when they continue to rush to social media and propagate comments to suggest as in this case the government agencies are lying when they themselves have no factual basis to support any such statement. In fact what they have skillfully done is to continue to present information to cement that perception of lack of trust in government deliberately so I must add.

Carol Narcisse etal must resist that innate urge to sully the character, reputation and integrity of people who work in government as they seek to “attack” the government for perceived wrong doing without facts. We simply cannot allow these social commentators to dirty up people’s character then slither away when they have been proven to be wrong, which has occurred over and over again.

People must recall that we all have family members working in government and its the responsible thing to do, to seek answers by asking questions but not to accuse people of wrong doing without facts or even dismissing these official statement simply on he basis of ” Me nuh trust dem, we not idiots , we can figure it out on our own” . Its not only unfair its also reckless and disingenuous

I will not use this medium to ask for any insincere and fake apology, as their modus operandi has gotten clearer and clearer to me over the years of reading the output from these folks, the fact is they meant what they said in the first place.

The government has moved to rescind the designation of Rick Cafe as being covid compliant entity as well as suspending their license to operate for 7 days following the revelation that they held an event, which now appears to have in fact NEVER been sanctioned and was indeed a breach.

The next statement I expect from these very people is this is all a sham and the government is only reacting in a knee jerk fashion to save face, or simply silence from them as they have done since the Dayton Campbell pedophile allegations rocked the nation.

The management of Ricks Cafe has yet to respond with a strongly worded or any statement yet to the actions of the government , which appears in and of itself to make a statement, but I won’t fall into the hole that many commenters do by rushing to make any statement of fact comment, and will therefore wait on Ricks Cafe to comment before passing judgement.

I rest my case.