I have come to believe that we are a people who like to protest - for the wrong things. Yes, we like to bear placards calling for justice, calling for roads and whatnot but I yearn for the day when we stop protesting and start demanding things that make sense.

Earlier this week, five females from a single family were savagely raped by a demented, perverted set of animals. It was a heinous crime by any standard. Those rapes have also come at the peak of a period where it seems as if there is a double murder every day. Incredulously, many people in Jamaica are asking what is going on as if this is all new to us. Well, let me fill you in on a little secret: pushing your head in the sand doesn't make things disappear.

The trouble is we don't seem to be able to be better or know better. People are calling on Jamaicans to wear black and to march against the violence but to what end. Marches are a dime a dozen and wearing black as a sign of showing your outrage only means something if the person showing the outrage plans to do something beyond wearing black.

Criminals are not idiots - well, not for the most part - but they don't care what you want to march about or care what colour your want to wear. The men who raped those women recently are probably preening knowing that all of Jamaica is talking about them and that their story is leading every newscast and on every front page. They also realise that they have struck a nerve and Jamaican women are cowering in fear. That is exactly what these rapists want, so if we think our little marches and shows of protest are going to do anything, think again.

Vigilante justice

Vigilante justice doesn't work either. We are only doing to ourselves what the criminals do. The man who crowds set upon and killed in Trelawny last week because he was related to a man they suspected of killing two little boys after sexually molesting them is just another knee-jerk and brainless reaction to the situation. Okay, I know Jamaica is a homophobic nation but here is a little piece of information that I think will go a long way into how we treat homosexuals. Not all gays are paedophiles!!! I repeat. Not all gays are paedophiles. In fact, in this country the number of men who prey on little girls barely into puberty suggests that there are far more heterosexual paedophiles than there are gay men.

So killing a man because you believe his stepson to be gay is just daft.

What we need to do is start telling what we know. This 'informer fi dead' thing is played out. It's time has come and gone. It's time for common sense to become common. The reason why criminality is so rife in Jamaica today has more to do with the fact that criminals know that people who know of their crimes are not going to say anything whether because of this 'informer' culture or because they don't trust the legal system. Justice delayed is justice denied and people don't feel like our legal system acts quickly enough or is fair.

If criminals knew that they would be caught quickly, tried and convicted, they would be more reluctant to do the things they do. That is where we come in. It all starts when we tell what we know and from there it gets easier because the authorities have information they can act on.

So skip the marches and the empty shows of protest. Start doing something about what is happening around us before it comes to your doorstep because then it will certainly be too late, especially when you know that the person who kills you will walk away free knowing that no one is going to lift a finger against him.

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