Dear Editor,
As Christmas approaches and the year comes to an end, I think of how we will spend the festive season. And there will be no departing from tradition; eat, drink and be merry; promises and resolutions will be a many, then we roll into the New Year as usual with all the ills and afflictions of the old in close pursuit.
But in reflecting on what has been taking place and we being a people who “love” democracy, I wondered aloud how well our cherished democracy has positively served us, and further wondered whether for the sake of society, of returning it back to its sanity, there should be a point at which democracy should be placed on hold. Examining the almost total breakdown and damage that is continuing to consume our society, I seriously opined that this land is in need of a “dictator”! Well, not really. But what I am getting at is that a strong/firm hand is needed to arrest this sordidness and restore some semblance of real law/order, morality, wholesomeness and general stability.
Everywhere, the world over, the popular cry is democracy and freedom, “man was born free”, “a free agent”, “No to dictatorship”, and these things I endorse. But it seems to me this freedom, given its wide and unchecked latitude, is often times taken to a level of misuse and abuse, to destroy other fellow human beings, to destroy the very foundation on which the freedom and democracy stand.
We seem to be indulging in a process of self destruction. In every day and via the media we are assailed with the madness and sickness that go on. We experience the most horrible, preposterous and pathetic happenings. I see no exaggeration in saying that we seem lost, perched on a precipice of ruin. In rapid ascension we are consumed by the “most dangerous diseases”; racism, wanton and gruesome crime/murder unprecedented in our history, an almost corrupt police force, and nearly in every government institution corruption; unemployment, school dropouts, juvenile delinquency/teenage gun crime, HIV/AIDS, child abuse, drug abuse, domestic violence, immorality, human rights violation, suicide, divorce, wage exploitation, road carnage, prison incarceration, naked poverty and premature deaths.
And not to mention in the light of all this an inept trade union movement and opposition an uncaring, upper class and judiciary. Yet we crave democracy/freedom while we allow by our actions or inactions the decadence and fallout.
Yours faithfully,
Frank Fyffe
