A couple of incidents occurred within the past two weeks that makes me wonder where we are heading as a nation. It makes me wonder if I made the right decision to return home and made me less unforgiving towards those who live abroad with no intention of ever returning home.

The latest of these incidents occurred in Papine this week. A dreadlocked man attacked a cab driver, stabbing at him and then viciously chopping him with a machete. Thankfully, the cab driver did not die and managed to drive himself to hospital even as he bled profusely from chop wounds to his head and upper body.

irate rastafarian

The whole thing was captured on camera, so at least the police have an idea of who he is and if they do their work, that irate Rastafarian should be in custody sometime soon. But what disturbs me was that no one, not one single person, tried to restrain the man or tried to help the cab driver, that at one point lay prone after falling to the ground.

It reminded me of a similar incident that I read about in a letter to the editor in another newspaper recently. A woman wrote that she and her husband, who is from Canada, were shopping in the Montego Bay market when they were attacked by some knife-wielding thieves. The woman said she screamed and shouted yet no one came to their aid.

Have we become so fearful now that we think twice, no three, no, four times or more before we decide to help someone desperately in need? What about being our brothers' keepers? Have we forgotten how to be that way?

How stupid can the people in the market be - those that stood by and did nothing. Do they not understand that in time they will become the victims? In fact, in many ways they already are.

Inexplicably, Montego Bay remains the tourist capital of Jamaica and what these market vendors fail to realise is that if there is no tourism, there will eventually be no market. Do they think this man is not going to tell his Canadian relatives and American friends about his experience?

fantasy land

When enough of these things happen, then the tourists stop coming and Montego Bay becomes tombstone, despite whatever fantasy land the Tourism Minister Ed Bartlett is living in. I tell you the truth, if it were up to me, nobody would shop at that market anymore.

People can justify it all they want - they fear for their lives, it's not their business, etc, etc; The bottom line is they stood around and did nothing. There is a saying that evil can only thrive when good men do nothing and that is what is happening in Jamaica today. Too many of us are standing by and letting criminals have their way with us.

We only seem to have fight when our foes are faceless or when we know they will not fight back or when the foe goes by the name 'police' or 'government'. When they are the people who live in our communities and walk the streets with us, we get cold feet.

Marcus Garvey, Paul Bogle, and George William Gordon, men who fought and paid in blood so that we all could enjoy this wonderful country we call Jamaica, would be ashamed if they were living today. They wouldn't necessarily be ashamed that the crime has become such a monster but that we all have stood by and allowed it to happen.

'Marcus Garvey, Paul Bogle, and George William Gordon, men who fought and paid in blood so that we all could enjoy this wonderful country we call Jamaica, would be ashamed if they were living today.'