Bad luck, they say in Jamaica, is worse than obeah. Bruce Golding has been hit with a series of 'guzzum' events, with last weekend's marring of his party conference being only the latest.

Everywhere Golding has turned, 'macka jook him'. He took over the reins of power just when the US sub-prime crisis was in full bloom; then he was hit with the surge in food and other commodity prices, including oil which shot up to US$146 a barrel. And just when he was trying to find his voice amid the cacophony of charges and boos from critics who reminded him of his 'jobs, jobs, jobs' and crime reduction promises, he has been faced with the US financial tsunami.

Can't win

Prime Minister Bruce Golding speaks at the JLP 65th annual party conference, held at the National Arena on Sunday, November 16. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer

Poor man, he can't win. While other politicians would have opportunistically clutched on to the most dire global economic crisis since the Great Depression to explain why they can't deliver, he is being attacked everywhere for the very opposite - that he and his ministers have been too unrealistically optimistic and Pollyannaish in addressing the global meltdown.

While Third World leaders have routinely used global economic conditions as an excuse for lack of performance and failed promises, Golding and his team have been saying, "Yes, we can weather this storm; yes, we can still achieve some significant things" - a message which might resonate in another context but not when used by Golding.

With a country, especially its women and children, paralysed by fear due to rising and seemingly uncontrollable levels of vicious crimes, with no solution in sight, people are losing hope. Even Mr Golding's strong backers in the media have fallen out of love with him, with Wilmot 'Motty' Perkins and Mark Wignall becoming more shrill in their criticisms. On Thursday, Wignall was blistering in his column titled, 'How long before Golding gets the message?'

Grievous error?

In this article he asks bluntly, "In light of the unravelling of the myth of Golding circa September 2007, we are now forced to ask, 'Did we make a most grievous error when we elected his party?' … Looking back at it all, it seems that at every important political crossroads of his life, he has pussyfooted and vacillated." Wignall ends his attack piece by asking, "Is there someone inside the JLP who can urge Golding to get up and lead or hang his head and leave? Can we declare our prime minister not up to the job and look to fresh elections?"

Little publicity

And just when the prime minister had prepared a full reply to his critics, concentrating on the two biggest concerns - crime and the economy - a few hoodlums killed all of that on Sunday afternoon at the 65th annual conference of the Jamaica Labour Party. He has received little publicity for his lengthy and, in my view, substantial presentation. The killing at the conference captured the headlines and dominated discussions and editorials, with relatively few people knowing what he really said at the conference. Poor man; bad luck worse than obeah.

It is a pity that the media have not given much attention to the speech, for it confronted the issues forthrightly and unequivocally. Before I go there, let me say that one positive which has already come from the tragic and embarrassing event at the National Arena is that both parties have been jolted by the reality that its lumpen, criminal elements - hitherto seemingly inextricably tied to the womb of the body politic - are prepared to shame them publicly. For too long unsavoury, lumpen and plainly criminal elements have been nurtured by the political parties which have used them to their corrupt ends.

Heavy price

The political parties must be embarrassed into loosening the links. The parties are now drafting some common codes as to how to rein in their thuggish elements at their conferences and meetings, lest we in polite society get even more disgusted with them. The JLP and the Government have paid a heavy price for what was a very thoughtful presentation that was lost to the country.

Despite the constant criticisms that the 'Government is not doing anything about crime', Mr Golding showed concretely what the Government has been doing and intends to do. It was an impressive list of things, but the thugs did not allow him to make his case to the nation and the media have not taken the time to engage the prime minister on the matters raised.

The Gleaner did, commendably, carry a front-page story, 'Bruce talks tough', and usefully outlined in bullet points some of the anti-crime measures mentioned by Golding. Columnists and commentators must at least interact with these points in critiquing his anti-crime strategies.

The question I ask is the one I put to Cliff Hughes on his show on Monday evening: What could the Government be doing right now, which it is not doing, to stem crime tonight? Cliff said disband the police force and start afresh! As I reminded him - and bright people are allowed a few preposterous statements - this is not practicable in the short term. We can't disband the police force tonight.

Kevin O'Brien Chang, also a guest on Cliff's show, called his attention to the fact that the Government has committed itself to police reform and that this is a part of its anti-crime strategy. Yes, the police force has many corrupt elements, and in very high places, too. This is undeniable, and Cliff knows this fully well. But we have to be realistic and not fanciful in proposing 'solutions'.

Real world

You can't disband the police force tonight. The post-Saddam Iraqi leaders disbanded the Iraqi security forces because they were Baathists supportive of Hussein and the Sunni Muslims. You saw the chaos that took place after that. The Americans came to realise that it was foolhardy to get rid of all the corrupt elements at one time and still maintain order. We have to live in the real world.

The measures which would really make a difference in fighting crime tonight are the very measures which Cliff Hughes, Emily Crooks, Motty Perkins, John Maxwell and Ronnie Thwaites are vociferously opposed to - bills that Golding has laid before Parliament and about which the Opposition is pussyfooting.

I reminded Cliff that almost every evening he is plaintively bawling about the crime rate and what Government is doing, and when the Government proposes strong measures which can make a difference he and the human rights lobby raise howls. They can't eat their cake and have it. Stop calling on Government to deal with crime and when practical, concrete steps are to be made they are stalled in Parliament and attacked by the most influential voices in media.

At least for critic Mark Wignall - the most street-smart and street-aware of all the influentials in the media - he knows tough measures are needed to deal with the dog-heart, hard-of-hearing criminals and terrorists in Jamaica.

Talking tough

Human rights legalists have a powerful influence in the Jamaican media and Golding is very sensitive to these voices. But I think he is realising more and more that he cannot be held captive by these idealists, for he has a country to run. When he was in Opposition he was very much in bed with them, and wasn't his security minister, Trevor MacMillan, a card-carrying member of Jamaicans for Justice? Well, he has now entered the real world and is talking as tough as hell - much to the chagrin of Carolyn Gomes, Richard Small and the others.

I find that the human rights lobbyists in and out of the media are usually very eloquent and cogent when they are describing the ills and shortcomings with present approaches to crime fighting, but incredibly naive, unconvincing and trite in proposing alternatives. Most don't get any better than Cliff's 'disband the police force and start over' proposal. A lot of them focus on social interventions. As I have written repeatedly in these columns - even before the global financial meltdown which has focused everyone's mind on the external environment - there are some objective factors which make this option very limited.

Make up your minds. You can't be saying, on the one hand, that the Government is not facing the magnitude of the global economic crisis, which means resources will be fewer, yet you believe that calling for increased social expenditures is realistic as a short-term solution to our crime problem.

Yes, we know the connection between poverty, unemployment, inequality, and marginalisation and high evils of crime. Yes, Motty, nothing is wrong genetically with poor people which make them more prone to committing homicides than people in Norbrook and Cherry Gardens. Social conditions breed criminality. This is a scientifically proven, empirical fact.

No resources

But it is also a fact that Jamaica does not have the resources to fix our social problems this weekend and, in the meantime, some criminals are abducting, raping and murdering our women, children and youth all over the country, driving fear into an entire population, while human rights purists debate the inviolability of habeas corpus. While raising all kinds of spurious arguments about, "It's because people like you who are uptown are not likely to be locked up for 60 days why you can support such suppression of human rights."

I have not written one line about the capital punishment debate because that debate is largely a waste of time, for we are not catching the criminals in the first place, so it's useless to debate what to do with them. We need to get certain people off the streets tonight as fewer witnesses to their criminality are foolish enough to go to court to testify against them.

The Government is tackling many of the critical short-term issues in dealing with crime. Golding reiterated them on Sunday. (Though it must tackle de-garrisonisation now!)

My challenge to the human rights lobbyists is: What can we do tonight to stop the murderers? Stop talking long term. Some bills in Parliament could take them off the streets right away. You top that.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.