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In responding to any act of violence, does one apply the military rule and ratchet up the violence to a higher level?  Does one take another course and find the cause of the violence and thus try to eliminate or reduce violence? Is it an 'eye for an eye' or is there an element of forgiveness?

These are not philosophical matters to be thought about in ivory towers. Instead, these are questions that ordinary citizens must answer every day.  

       Ultimately, it comes down to discipline. Though we sit in splendid geographic isolation, our Bermudian community is no different than any other community anywhere else on this globe. All societies and communities face exactly the same issues. Every community needs discipline. But does the needed discipline come from within?  Is it imposed from without? If discipline is imposed - by a heavy-handed police force or other state enforcement mechanism - is it likely to be more effective?

Looking at the murder rate in Jamaica, and the rate at which Jamaican cops were said to dispatch (that is, kill) fellow Jamaicans, it would appear that this is not so.

     But I've experienced a different Jamaica. Years ago, while training Bermuda Regiment soldiers in Jamaica, I'd spend days at a time living all alone on a Jamaican hillside, well away from the Regiment base camp. This was in rural Jamaica - near Shettlewood in Hanover. Each morning, I'd leave my personal gear in the small tent in which I slept; go off and complete an action-packed full days training; and return each evening to find all my gear intact. This gear included a small personal radio.

     I was not without company on these evenings. Usually a small group of Jamaicans would stop by. We'd chat for while, and they'd move on.    

      One evening, on returning, I discovered that my radio was missing. I expressed my sadness to that evening's visitors who, in turn, expressed their horror that a 'guest' in their community was treated so badly. The next evening, my visitors returned and brought back my radio. They explained that they'd 'dealt with' a 'youth' who they said had taken the radio. They apologized, to me, for the behaviour of their community.

Community discipline

I accepted their apologies and thanked them. We talked a while longer and they moved on. The next morning, I again left my small radio in my open tent, expecting to return and find it still there. It was there.

     Clearly the community discipline and community values in rural Jamaica are - or were at that time - different from the community discipline and community values in Kingston Jamaica with its always high killing and murder rate.

     Same imbalance between Canada and the U.S.. Canada has a far lower murder rate than its neighbour. Canada does not have the death penalty. The U.S. - at last count - had 3,263 on various 'death rows'. In Texas alone, there were 361 convicted persons awaiting execution.

     If imposed discipline worked, then the U.S., Texas, and urban Jamaica should be crime-free. Canada and rural Jamaica with far lower regimes of State power impositions should be high-crime areas. But that isn't the way it is. What's different? It's the level of community self-discipline.

     A community sharing the same good values will express those good values through its communal behaviour and will likely be a community with low-crime. A community with a big divergence in values will likely be a community with higher crime - even if it has a draconian and well-armed law and order regime riding shotgun on it.

      So should we really go SWAT'ing at crime, or should we look inwards and see what needs fixing?  Looking inwards is certainly less glamorous than riding around while 'dressed to kill'.  But as Texas and the whole of the U.S. proves, neither 'dressing to kill' nor killing actually lowers or even deters drive-by shootings, knife attacks, or drug crime.

     And, why do we so breathlessly rush for U.S.-style answers anyhow? What real solutions does the U.S. have? Good God! They're still dithering over having a female or black president, and this alone keeps them fifty-one years behind the rest of the world; and thirty-seven years behind us.[[In-content Ad]]

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