Like the French footballer, his name was Zidane. As his young mother turned the pages of his kindergarten book, she showed how he had been learning to write. This scene should have been one of a doting parent, except her voice was trembling, her hands were shaking, tears streaming down her face as she clutched her chest and cried out in anguish, "Dem shoot mi baby inna im heart!" Fatefully, little Zidane had been caught in a cross fire on his way home from a football match.
This was one of many murder stories I was tasked to write as a Reporter. Stories. That's what they were. Overtime, one would develop a propensity to simply write them and move on to the next assignment. Some would be just doing a job and others would be worthy of emotion. This was one of them.
I wasn't at this murder scene but the video tape with the interviews from an out of town correspondent had been left on my desk in the RJR/TVJ newsroom. It was the most difficult story I had ever written. As I wrote, I cried with that mother. That night at home in bed, I replayed images of her clutching her chest and turning the pages of that notebook as if she had felt the bullet herself. More than 15 years later, it remains etched in my mind.
Ironically, this former Reporter hardly watches the evening news these days, as I no longer have the stomach for multiple murder stories. I mostly get information from newspapers where I am able to exert control over how much I absorb by scanning the headlines and choosing which stories or how much of a particular story I read. It works...at least most of the times.
Today, I logged on to a newspaper website to catch up on the news of the day. A quick glance under 'Lead Stories' revealed 3 murder stories with similar headlines including words like "body found". I didn't click any because the opening lines told me enough. Enough!
I would never suggest that the media houses cease telling these stories. They are important. We ought to know what's happening around us, however gruesome it may be.
But I've had enough of the crime in Jamaica. I mostly ignore it, except on days like these. Recently, I pondered that I don't feel as though I liven in a crime-plagued country and I wondered when I became immune to it. I don't feel afraid. I should be afraid. Am I?
I am terrified of bikes, so my ears perk up when I hear them in traffic and I check to see if my windows and doors are secured. I keep my car windows closed when driving (except on the highway). I close the lock on the car doors even before I switch on the engine. I live in a gated community but my house is entirely grilled. I refuse to exercise in the community park after dark. I have a wild imagination so I envision an intruder coming over the perimetre fence. My neighbour had a good laugh about that. Is that what fear looks like? Perhaps I am afraid after all.
I often juxtapose my love for Jamaica with an abusive relationship between man and woman. The abuser is a beautiful personality most of the times, but there's no telling when he will get ugly. Still the ugliness is not enough to make me leave. Maybe the crime situation will change one day. It has to! With all the mass shootings and war overseas, Jamaica certainly isn't the worst. But what's our excuse? How do we explain our numbers?
Soon, I will be in love again and I will have forgotten those headlines about the bodies. My bruised ethnocentric ego healed, I will go back to being a proud Jamaican believing that it is the coolest nationality in the world and I get to live where people pay an arm and a leg to vacation. Sun, sand, sea, rivers, mountains, food, music, dance, art, sports, patois (patwa), anancy stories, best national anthem, a country that is a brand in all her black, gold and green glory, and most of all - the warmth of the ordinary Jamaican.
Heck, I live in paradise! Shots fired...I should be afraid.
I am Suzette Campbell
Note: Originally published on March 1, 2023
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