To say that the devil finds work for idle hands is a monumental understatement when applied to the people who blocked roads in Montego Bay last week Friday.
You see, if they were blocking the roads because of an injudicious police shooting or if they have bad roads or if they hadn't seen their member of parliament since the elections, or no water in their taps, I would have gone about my business as usual because such behaviour in response to such things in Jamaica today is par for the course. But when the newscaster said that they were blocking the roads because the police shut down a dance the night before, I shook my head in disgust because in my mind we had just sunk to a new low in this country.
You are going to take the time to protest against the police doing their job of shutting down a dance that had gone past the hour that the Noise Abatement Act stipulates and people are upset? Okay, say you have nothing to do and the dance is a way of taking the edge off, what about the people who had something to do on that Friday morning? They are the ones who should be protesting; protesting the lack of sleep they suffered last Thursday night.
Real reason
Can these roadblockers get any more ridiculous? I swear, if I was Superintendent Steve McGregor, the top cop in those parts, I would have rounded up the lot of them and thrown them in a cell, one single cell and not let them out until today. They would get no food and no water. After all since they are so hot to demonstrate, why not give them a real reason to because clearly they had lots of energy to burn.
I mean, if I go to a dance and stay up past three, the next day I would be like a vampire in sunlight, let alone finding the energy to drag debris from wherever and using it to block several streets.
I would certainly hope that the promoters did not have anything to do with it and even if they did, if I was a senior cop in Jamaica, I would never grant them a permit to hold a dance. And I would spread the word. After a while they would not even be able to stage a dance in the middle of Basra in the peak of a gunfight between insurgents and US troops. Well, maybe I would, so long as all the protesters were going to be there.
Criminal levels
Jesus man, when there are so many things going awry in Jamaica today; food and fuel prices are at criminal levels albeit through no fault of the Government and crime is at runaway levels and all these people can think of doing is protesting over a shutdown dance? N ... a please.
You know what? Let's for a second give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe these people were at work. Maybe they are professional protesters. You know, like how in some parts of the world you have people whose job it is to show up at funerals and mourn? These people are on standby for times when people need a good crowd to demonstrate. So, if you plan a demonstration and the crowd kind of looks too sparse, you just call 1-888-BLK-ROAD and they come running to 'beef-up' the crowd.
That must be it because of all the dumb things that they could possibly have done, that demonstration was definitely the worst choice.
It's just a pity the police did not have a big enough cell up there in Montego Bay. It certainly would have been a nice time to find out just how many it could hold.
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