Renowned British physicist Stephen Hawking recently said he believes mankind won't last another thousand years. Hawking one of the most respected minds in today's world has been suggesting this for years while mandating that mankind needs to look towards the stars if it is to survive.

"Sooner or later, disasters such as an asteroid collision or a nuclear war could wipe us all out," he said back 2006. "But once we spread out into space and establish independent colonies, our future should be safe."

I believe he is right on both counts, but our destruction won't necessarily come from a major disaster like a nuclear war, even though that is very likely. No, I believe ours, here in Jamaica, will come at our hands.

Earlier this week, Minister of Youth and Culture Lisa Hanna in her contribution to the 2015 Sectoral Debate alluded to another reason mankind could eventually become extinct like so many other species that we have made disappear from the face of the earth.

collective minds

Here in Jamaica, like elsewhere in the world, we have turned on our kids. We have turned on our future. I fear for the safety of our children, especially my two boys, because as Ms Hanna suggests, we have lost our soul, and with it, our collective minds. Acts of violence against our children cannot be condoned.

"The incidents of murder, physical and sexual abuse that we have seen are symptomatic of a society that has lost its soul," she said.

How, for example, can we rationalise abducting a six-year-old child? What is even more alarming is how relatively silent we continue to be. Where is the Church? Where are all the child welfare groups? Most importantly, where are the parents?

Ms Hanna said something in her presentation that resonated deeply with me. In reference to recent tragedies in which young children were the victims, she said: "We are not a country at war or have the kinds of conflicts we see in some other places. But we have a problem; how does a mother know her child is being abused and says nothing? How does a mother have an 11-year-old girl pregnant in her house and not know?

clinical psychologists

How does a community say they suspected a child was being abused only after the same child has been murdered? And when the time comes to make a statement to the police for a conviction, they say and do nothing? How does someone deliberately set fire to a house knowing that three children are inside? Our clinical psychologists tell me that this is a result of the generational breakdown of the family - structure-single parenting, multiple partners, a family history of mental health, incarceration and adverse childhood experiences, to name a few."

What kind of people are we? Have we gone mad? We should be working to protect our kids. We should be ensuring our future by making sure that our children have the best opportunities to become worthwhile contributors to the continued development of our nation and its people.

That, however, is not the case with us. We have clearly gone off the rails.

Government is not there to protect our kids. That is our job. As communities, we need to come together, work together to ensure that the predators among us are kept at bay. Our children are our future, and if we don't come together now to stem the tide, we might not have much of one.

Stephen Hawking believes we could all disappear in a thousand years or so, but we don't have to worry much about his predictions. At the rate at which we are going now in Jamaica, we will be long gone before then.

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