No simple answers

I found the March articles by Andrew Faiz and Michael Coren provocative.
Let me share my perspective on the violence and social problems among black Jamaicans in Toronto. This is a complex and deep-rooted issue; there is no quick simple solution. We Jamaicans, who know our country closely, feel it deeply. While there in February, I heard the prayer of an elderly Christian, pleading with God for an end to violence and asking why it is taking so long.
Even as a child in Jamaica more than 60 years ago, I could sense the threat of trouble to come, given the social disparities in wealth, education, family and cultural patterns and standards of morality. Michael Coren writes of the breakdown of morality in North America, beginning with the hippie culture of the 1960s. That is a mere 40 years ago. In Jamaica, the forces that distorted our social history began 500 years ago and we are still struggling to define ourselves as a people with common standards of behaviour and a common identity.
What do you know of the history of the Caribbean? Consider the efforts to make amends to the aboriginals of Canada, consider the peace and reconciliation process in South Africa, and then consider that no such redress has been offered to Caribbean blacks, whose forebears were transported from their homes and social systems in West Africa, to become slaves in the Caribbean. They were stripped of their language and culture by deliberate separation of tribespeople, denied the dignity of family life and even after emancipation they were given the poorest land to eke out an existence. In the collective heart of black Jamaica there is a residue of deep anger and shame. And there is God's grace. I thank God for the missionaries who came to minister to the freed slaves and who built churches, schools and hospitals. The church flourishes in many forms in Jamaica today.
Here in Canada, as host country to immigrants, you have inherited many of our finest people, and some of the worst. I am thankful for every gesture of goodwill, such as Andrew Faiz's call to share the environment. I welcome every effort made for immigrants, including the social programs despised by Michael Coren; since what doesn't work for one person may help another, and while you may not cure the problem, you might at least contain the damage.
In working towards a remedy, I urge you to seek out the strong, active Jamaicans in the community; work with them, pray with them, listen to them and empower them as together you devise strategies to fit specific situations and the people in them. And expect to wait for results. I respect Michael Coren's call to individuals to will and choose the good, but that ability also has to be nurtured and developed, and that takes time. Bear with us.