By RUPERT MISSICK Jr
WHEN we arrived at the Grant’s Town offices of Justice of the Peace and community advocate Rodney Moncur, there were about a half dozen armed police officers at the door.
Considering Mr Moncur’s recent legal issues, we did not really know what to make of the scene. We soon discovered that inside, a young man was being cuffed after turning himself over the police in Mr Moncur’s presence.
“I get the sense that he had information to give the police but he wanted to give it to them in front of me,” Mr Moncur said when asked about what was unfolding.
As a part of the McCabe Project, we took a walkabout with Mr Moncur through the Grants Town area passing along Fowler, Peter and Brougham Streets to talk to residents about why they felt their community was besieged by criminal activity, about their personal needs and the needs of their neighbourhood.
We will further explore these issues tomorrow in a piece about the Bain and Grants Town Constituency but what was clear was that if you have something negative to say about Mr Moncur, it’s probably because you don’t need him.
Throughout our travels, people hailed Mr Moncur, coming off the stoops and walls and out of their homes – unprovoked and unprompted – to ask for help and advice on various issues.
Their concerns were diverse, ranging from a woman looking for redress for her car that was damaged by police gunfire during a shoot-out almost a year ago, to a woman who had not received her promised pay from a part-time job from a company contracted by a major corporation.
So, if you think that Mr Moncur is a gadfly that should be ignored, it’s because you are not a young lady from Grants Town who needs help putting together a resume.
It’s because you are not a young man who has information to give the police but is too afraid to go directly to a police station to give it.
You are not a single mother who lives in deplorable conditions in a government housing complex who can’t get anyone to look at the incessant leak that has eaten through a good portion of her walls.
It’s because you are not a man with a new child who is being prevented from making a living for his young family by an antagonistic civil servant.
All these people in Grants Town who we met during our walkthrough had the same story. They have found that the people and the party who fell over themselves to offer assistance to get them to register to vote are not as eager to provide help for the real and desperate situations that affect their lives today.
In one case, a man was helped personally by the leader and chairman of the PLP to have a discrepancy with the Parliamentary Resignation Department cleared up, but when he returned to Gambier House hoping to get some form of assistance that would help him continue to sell products he manufactured to tourists, he found that he could not be seen, won’t be heard and could not be squeezed into the schedule of the people he elected to represent him.
Standing outside his home as he recounted this situation, his voice cracking with hurt and frustration, it was impossible to overlook the glaring irony of the ‘Vote for Bernard Nottage’ poster plugging the broken pane of his apartment window.
The sad thing is that while each of these cases would have made a worthy news story on any day of the week, none of these people wanted to go public with their complaints, none of them wanted to attract the public’s attention to their suffering, to the injustices being done to them, because they – and they admit this freely – are too afraid. They are too afraid to loose the very little they have.
There is a Rodney Moncur in every community, a person who the community turns to get help when they have exhausted all of their limited avenues.Who offers their time, talent and sometimes treasure for free, informally and because they find it impossible to look away when faced with the need just outside their front door.
In Bain Town, for instance, this role is played by Rev CB Moss, whose activities and impact on the community we will cover tomorrow.
The situations we found in Bain and Grants Town are stark examples of the need, which Mr Moncur spoke of, for the formalisation of the work of community advocates into some kind of local government structure that decentralises the resources and power of the government and empowers persons to fight for the rights of those in their community.
“One of the things we are discovering is that the poor man has no advocate, they have no defender. There is no advocate, that is one of the things seriously missing in these communities. You need a poor man defender. Actually it should be sponsored by the state, persons who can maintain their independence and ensure justice for the poor man,” Mr Moncur said.
The men and women in these communities do not turn to people like Mr Moncur or Rev Moss because they haven’t approached their representatives or gone to their constituency offices or spent eight hours (literally) waiting to be seen by people in a government department – its because they have done all this, and these men represent their last chance for some kind of justice.
The issues these people face are not “next week” problems or “make an appointment” concerns, but if the desperation and frustration of the people in these communities manifests itself in criminal activity, activity that the central government seeks to police, perhaps some form of local government could help alleviate these issues before it gets to this point.
Comments
proudloudandfnm 10 years, 7 months ago
Rodney helping someone with a resume'?!?!? Negro lady worked as receptionist for white firm in Nassau. Same negro lady also worked for a negro man in Nassau.....
My suggestion. If you really do need help with a resume. Don't go to the negro justice of the peace. Look for someone with some skills and brains....
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