Tweet
<DIV></DIV><DIV><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>The Rise of Shine - final part</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline>Wignal's World</SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Mark Wignall
Sunday, January 28, 2007
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=330 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description></SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>In a world where the law-abiding go to bed at nights to dream the dream of the innocent, ignorance and evil incubate their offspring in a parallel universe too close for comfort. In time, all will meet.<P class=StoryText align=justify>At the crack of dawn in rural hill country, farmers stir then awaken to cool mountain air and the Grand Designer's earthen soil. In the cramped urban inner-city hovels, poor, caring mothers gently shake their youngsters awake with a 'Get up baby, time fi school'.<P class=StoryText align=justify>As the nation faces another day, hardworking parents in middle-class Jamaica rush out in the mornings to deal with the routine hustle of schooling the children and making another dollar.<P class=StoryText align=justify>As the sun peeps out - tentatively at first - over the hills in Portland and begins its slow but predictable crawl across the mountainous rib of the island until the sea gobbles it up in Negril, the radio stations come alive with reggae music, early morning talk shows and the preaching of the gospel. Jamaica stirs like no other country. Sometimes in the pot, there are ingredients we can well do without. In addition to Bob Marley, sun, sea and sensi, Jamaica is also making its face known to the world as an incubator of violent criminality.<P class=StoryText align=justify>A confirmed criminal<P class=StoryText align=justify>At 17 years of age, Shine had no trouble sleeping. He had been his own man from childhood. At 12 he had been cast into a pit of criminality and his soul had found joy in its brutal clutches. At 16 years old he had committed his first murder, killing two persons during a break-in. What had confirmed him as a killing machine at that age was not so much the fact that he had killed but that the very act of murdering two innocents had given him a deep, carnal thrill. It had presented him with his first real taste of self-confidence.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=300 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description></SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>"When mi look back pon it, all a wi did want mek wi first duppy. Once yu do dat, nuh guy can't gi yu no chat, and once yu go back pon yu ends, di girl dem belong to yu. Nuff a di times a di girl ting encourage it," he said.
"So, are you saying that it was the whole heap a girls that made you kill people so cold and brutal?" I asked.
He lowers his head when I put that to him. "Yu nuh know mi as fool, Missa Wignall.?"<P class=StoryText align=justify>".But you are looking someone to blame," I said. I was getting angry. Even more, I began to seriously question myself about the whole interview. It is one thing to know a killer, to have a young man say he has killed, but once it is driven home by details of date, the persons involved and that final stare or shout before death and the glee derived from it, the whole perspective changes.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"Yu si how di ghetto run. Watch yah, me know sey is me mus tek responsibility, but yu si inna di ghetto, if yu want survive, yu haffi know inside it," said Shine. "Di weak get squash an' di youth who kill get di respeck an' di girls.
<SPAN class=Subheadline>Wignal's World</SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Mark Wignall
Sunday, January 28, 2007
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=330 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description></SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>In a world where the law-abiding go to bed at nights to dream the dream of the innocent, ignorance and evil incubate their offspring in a parallel universe too close for comfort. In time, all will meet.<P class=StoryText align=justify>At the crack of dawn in rural hill country, farmers stir then awaken to cool mountain air and the Grand Designer's earthen soil. In the cramped urban inner-city hovels, poor, caring mothers gently shake their youngsters awake with a 'Get up baby, time fi school'.<P class=StoryText align=justify>As the nation faces another day, hardworking parents in middle-class Jamaica rush out in the mornings to deal with the routine hustle of schooling the children and making another dollar.<P class=StoryText align=justify>As the sun peeps out - tentatively at first - over the hills in Portland and begins its slow but predictable crawl across the mountainous rib of the island until the sea gobbles it up in Negril, the radio stations come alive with reggae music, early morning talk shows and the preaching of the gospel. Jamaica stirs like no other country. Sometimes in the pot, there are ingredients we can well do without. In addition to Bob Marley, sun, sea and sensi, Jamaica is also making its face known to the world as an incubator of violent criminality.<P class=StoryText align=justify>A confirmed criminal<P class=StoryText align=justify>At 17 years of age, Shine had no trouble sleeping. He had been his own man from childhood. At 12 he had been cast into a pit of criminality and his soul had found joy in its brutal clutches. At 16 years old he had committed his first murder, killing two persons during a break-in. What had confirmed him as a killing machine at that age was not so much the fact that he had killed but that the very act of murdering two innocents had given him a deep, carnal thrill. It had presented him with his first real taste of self-confidence.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=300 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description></SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>"When mi look back pon it, all a wi did want mek wi first duppy. Once yu do dat, nuh guy can't gi yu no chat, and once yu go back pon yu ends, di girl dem belong to yu. Nuff a di times a di girl ting encourage it," he said."So, are you saying that it was the whole heap a girls that made you kill people so cold and brutal?" I asked.
He lowers his head when I put that to him. "Yu nuh know mi as fool, Missa Wignall.?"<P class=StoryText align=justify>".But you are looking someone to blame," I said. I was getting angry. Even more, I began to seriously question myself about the whole interview. It is one thing to know a killer, to have a young man say he has killed, but once it is driven home by details of date, the persons involved and that final stare or shout before death and the glee derived from it, the whole perspective changes.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"Yu si how di ghetto run. Watch yah, me know sey is me mus tek responsibility, but yu si inna di ghetto, if yu want survive, yu haffi know inside it," said Shine. "Di weak get squash an' di youth who kill get di respeck an' di girls.
Comment