Mark Wignall | Corruption in the class and colour lanes

One should not be afraid to reaffirm one’s understanding of a norm or a class construct even if its admittance or discovery is socially embarrassing.

Let’s use lottery scamming as an example. Most law-abiding Jamaicans believe that it’s wrong. And yet, in a perverse way, there’s a view among some law-abiding Jamaicans supportive of lottery scamming.

Let me explain. Smart, young Jamaican men criminalise themselves by hoodwinking gullible, elderly white Americans. In this process, significant funds (closing fees) are transferred to the Jamaicans while elderly, white Americans wait in vain for a lottery-win payout that is pure fantasy.

Many Jamaicans see the illegally obtained funds as reparations for slavery. One young man with commercial printing skills told me a few weeks ago, “If you have the means and the patience to put aside US$500,000, then surely you must have the sense to sniff out a fraud long before it turns down your lane.”

“OK, I’m there with you. But you go much farther.”

“Sure. Why not? The white man owned our brains and the muscles fuelling his plantations and generational wealth. Well, it’s time we reclaimed a part of our brains.”

The printer admitted that the negatives attached to lottery scamming were frightening. If a scammer wanted to hold on to his illegal wealth, he needed guns and men to fire them. The results were obvious, but that did not shake his basic beliefs in the illegal reparations.

WHEN POWER CORRUPTS

It seems insignificant, but it points to how conveniently powerless the political directorate can fail to act when the miscreants represent wealth.

On the road close to the bottom of the hill of Red Hills Road for about 100 metres, concrete on the road has stolen one lane

The concrete was leaked there over many years as they crawled up the hills. Big developers can’t be bothered with the inefficiency of men mixing cement on the site. They used the mechanised trucks from concrete batching plants.

These concrete plants allow this because of their potential to fund the political parties/key politicians as elections roll around.

“Nobody gwine trouble dem,” said a shop owner in the area. “Is brown people control dat. Is dem own government.”

And because of that, one lane is stolen. Especially in the mornings and peak times in the evening.

CONSPIRACY AND CORRUPTION

Last Wednesday, I was in the middle of a few transport operators at Chancery Street as they expressed strong displeasure at the Holness administration.

One young man pulled me aside to express more. “Listen, we know the game, yu know. Di country corrupt. So wi know di ground rules.”

Another very vocal young man urged me to look at his hand and to listen to him.

He shaped his hand like a clock and said,”Tick tock, tick tock.”

It was meant to signal that a day of reckoning for “the authorities” was on its way.

KIND-HEARTED BOLT

A reader writes: “I was intrigued about what you wrote about Ms Panton meeting with Mr Bolt and requesting money from him to repay those who she fleeced. Mark, I cannot work out why she would do that. It is so unusual that nothing can be ruled out as possibilities. Did she tell Mr Bolt who took his money and hoped to use that information for leverage and take advantage of his kind nature? I feel comfortable proffering Ms Panton could know who took Mr Bolt’s money if she did not take it. Presently I am leaning towards the idea that some very senior officials at you-know-where and or board members authorised the removal of Mr Bolt’s money based upon recent developments. If that is the case and those ‘bigwigs’ know that Ms Panton ought to consider it advisable that she may want to add extra security to her daily routine.”

CHINESE WHOLESALES

For years now it has been known that the community of Chinese wholesale stores operating near to political garrisons and dense pockets where the working class poor live must pay extortion fees.

Even if they don’t want to admit it, that is smart. The Chinese know that as much as their integration into the language and lives of the depressed is full, they will always be seen as outsiders.

In large measure, the Chinese are much more efficient at “mopping up the excess liquidity” of the poor in the garrisons than a few black-run stores trying to mimic the Chinese business approach.

“Nuh matter how small di Chinese store, when chicken come, is by di truckload. Dem band wid each odder. We nah do dat. Das why dem get ahead,” said a Jamaican store operator in Maverly one day last week.

EARTHQUAKE AWARENESS

The times are stressful, and increasingly, the outcomes are unknown or not encouraging.

Recent devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria and the massive ‘pancaking’ of high-rises and loss of lives are horror stories come alive.

Question: If tectonic plates just south of Port Royal and significantly deep were to shift to the point of damaging structures in Kingston, would that automatically spawn a Tsunami?

How far inland moving up towards the Liguanea plains would the water flow? How safe would Duhaney Park be or Washington Gardens or Seaview?

It pains me to ask, but I believe that ODPEM ought to give some general guidelines as to what Jamaicans living on our coastal communities could expect. And maybe to give them a heads-up.

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