Dear Editor,
Discussions and media reports on the Vybz Kartel murder trial and his subsequent conviction, and that of his three associates, have once again demonstrated the multiple support that criminality has in Jamaica. But, in the midst of bewilderment, hope comes from unusual quarters.
Just hours before Kartel and his friends were found guilty of the slaying of "Lizard", I stopped at a tavern in Kendal, Manchester, where I had a sip. In my company were three beautiful bartender ladies. Their beauty was not just in features, but also in their thought process.
West Indies and England were engaged in a T20 cricket match, the ladies were enjoying the game, while my delight was coming from old hits being played from a small music system. Television Jamaica broke coverage of the match to inform that Supreme Court judge Justice Lennox Campbell had turned over the Kartel case to the jury.
An argument (very civil) ensued, with persons predicting what they thought the verdict would be. There was one Kartel sympathiser, a male person. The view was expressed that a section of the Jamaican society wanted to see the DJ behind bars because they disapprove of his music.
"Vybz Kartel is the best thing for dancehall, wi nuh si nug DJ fi entertain an just vibes up the place like Kartel in a long while. But, murder is murder. The evidence show seh him know wha happen. If him guilty, him fi face di same penalty weh mi wouda face if mi murder people," stated one of the bartenders.
I pause to state that most regular bartenders do that type of work because they have not benefited from the formal education system as a university professors might have.
Later that evening, while listening to post-verdict talk on Nationwide Radio, a professor from the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, described the day as "sad", because the jurors had found an idol guilty of murder.
For the scores of people who gathered near the Supreme Court calling for the freedom of "World Boss" and by the views expressed by the professor, the evidence presented in court was of no significant to them. The more important thing was that the DJ is too important to be put away.
All civilsed people must show revulsion to crime and to those who are guilty of crime, anything else, and we will forever be victims. I would more freely expose my son to the Kendal bartender than a university professor who disregards evidence presented in a court of law and finds other spurious arguments to support a man guilty of murder.
Garfield Angus
Mandeville, Manchester
garigus@yahoo.co.uk
Bartender vs professor
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Discussions and media reports on the Vybz Kartel murder trial and his subsequent conviction, and that of his three associates, have once again demonstrated the multiple support that criminality has in Jamaica. But, in the midst of bewilderment, hope comes from unusual quarters.
Just hours before Kartel and his friends were found guilty of the slaying of "Lizard", I stopped at a tavern in Kendal, Manchester, where I had a sip. In my company were three beautiful bartender ladies. Their beauty was not just in features, but also in their thought process.
West Indies and England were engaged in a T20 cricket match, the ladies were enjoying the game, while my delight was coming from old hits being played from a small music system. Television Jamaica broke coverage of the match to inform that Supreme Court judge Justice Lennox Campbell had turned over the Kartel case to the jury.
An argument (very civil) ensued, with persons predicting what they thought the verdict would be. There was one Kartel sympathiser, a male person. The view was expressed that a section of the Jamaican society wanted to see the DJ behind bars because they disapprove of his music.
"Vybz Kartel is the best thing for dancehall, wi nuh si nug DJ fi entertain an just vibes up the place like Kartel in a long while. But, murder is murder. The evidence show seh him know wha happen. If him guilty, him fi face di same penalty weh mi wouda face if mi murder people," stated one of the bartenders.
I pause to state that most regular bartenders do that type of work because they have not benefited from the formal education system as a university professors might have.
Later that evening, while listening to post-verdict talk on Nationwide Radio, a professor from the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, described the day as "sad", because the jurors had found an idol guilty of murder.
For the scores of people who gathered near the Supreme Court calling for the freedom of "World Boss" and by the views expressed by the professor, the evidence presented in court was of no significant to them. The more important thing was that the DJ is too important to be put away.
All civilsed people must show revulsion to crime and to those who are guilty of crime, anything else, and we will forever be victims. I would more freely expose my son to the Kendal bartender than a university professor who disregards evidence presented in a court of law and finds other spurious arguments to support a man guilty of murder.
Garfield Angus
Mandeville, Manchester
garigus@yahoo.co.uk
Bartender vs professor
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