Mark Wignall | Good luck with Christmas lockdown!

First there was the unprecedented nine-month lockdown in 2020 when the country was caught up in the uncertainties of an unwanted visitor: COVID 19. Then in 2021 as we swore we knew enough about it, the Government instituted haphazard versions of many lockdowns of the moment. At these times, even as many of our people reposed some form of trust in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government, many of us were forced to admit that in instances, Andrew Holness and his team were just as confused as the rest of us.

Much of the success of the ‘no party’ directive will be tied in to the huge fallout in earnings from job loss and the business slowdown in the years 2020 and 2021. Small entrepreneurs, especially those whose business is to sell ‘good times’ – parties where liquor and food and music flows is good for them.

It releases one from the enormous stress of the times. Now with all of that, the Government is insisting on the most convenient lockdown since COVID 19 crashed-bomb us in March 2020.

“Wi nuh wan break di law, but dis is my way of feeding my family. Mi nuh wan no freeness from nobody,” said a 35-year-old bartender to me.

A 72-year-old Ras was more straightforward when we spoke. “At dis time every year my sister send me a few thousand Jamaican dollars. I split it into a treat for the children in my little garrison neighbourhood and a promotion to make some money. Di only ting short is pork. Government or lockdown or lockup, my ting is keeping and nutten nah stop it.”

I suspect that the Government is expecting many in the Christmas holidays to break the rules just like in 2020 and beyond.

With all of these pressing realities, I fear for the possibilities of the spread of COVID 19 and the Omicron variant. It seems that it was just a few weeks ago that we were made aware of this variant. And yet in the United States, a nation of 335 million, fully 75 per cent of all new COVID-19 patients have been infected with Omicron.

That clinicians do not know enough is reason to be extra careful if not scared. Many of the people I know of at street level are becoming strangers to me because I have concluded that since they insist on not taking any “Bill Gates vaccine with chip”, I would prefer to indulge the idiocy of my own company and enjoy myself and my family, all of whom are vaccinated.

HOW DO YOU FIX JAMAICA?

Allow me to go back in time where Jamaicans were kind and always had a thought for our neighbour. Now I know that that Jamaica is not likely to return. Recently, I was at a little depressed area, which was a regular haunt for me from 2009 to 2015.

A youngster of about 34 then was just about everyone’s handyman – roof work, lawn cutting, pruning of trees, plus he peddled in charcoal. Now his head is ‘gone’, and all you have to do is enter his physical space. A bag of Jamaican badwords.

A girl in her early 40s seems tormented by something. She cusses from morning into the early afternoon. And then something strange happens. As dusk begins to fall, they both cool off, and a personality transformation takes place. Everyone is their friend afterwards.

Whenever I ask the elders in the little depressed village about them, I get one answer: “Dem can’t deal with stress. Months ago gunfire erupted in the village and one old man succumbed to gunshot injuries. Many of us believe that after an eruption of gunfire it is a simple thing to just dust off, retune, and segue into normal. “

Not so easy. After I was shot in the arm in September last year, for three nights, instead of sleep, I experienced vivid flashbacks. And I didn’t quite believe in sharing the mental horrors with those who loved me. On the fourth day, I attempted to drive back to the spot of the shooting but could not quite do it. A few days later, I visited, and as far as I was concerned, my demons were no more.

Some can recover easier. One young woman I know who was stabbed with a kitchen knife by her boyfriend (still eluding the police as if it’s no big thing) cries whenever she calls me – four years after the incident.

The most problematic of all the likely fixes is devising the best community response to troubling matters such as murder and praedial larceny. Often, there is no real community association, so at best, the district is paralysed from the get-go. The first resort is to catch and kill – not a sustainable fix.

REMEMBRANCE OF GOOD TIMES

My late father and mother were Santa and Mrs Claus when I was a toddler. The wish for those of you who may have fallen into a pit of depression is not to seek out those who have fallen in the pit before you.

The Christmas tree was obviously the centre of happiness when we lived in Moneague and other places off Waltham Park Road. If you can, remember even a sliver of that happiness as your father or mother or someone in the community placed ‘play play snow’ on the tree. Then the shiny red and silver wrapped presents. If you still cannot find it, I had a friend who suffered a brief mental breakdown.

Whenever I visited him he asked me to read him specific verses of the Psalms even though he knew I was an atheist. I would read to him through his Valium popping until he fell asleep. Then I would let myself out.

As adults the most difficult thing we will ever have to face is the reality that there is no Mom and Dad to call on when we are low – real low. There is only the man in the mirror. Try this. Get yourself a Christmas card and write it to yourself. Have a merry Christmas.

Mark Wignall is a political and public affairs analyst. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and mawigsr@gmail.com.