As I sit in my criminal law class I was presented with a situation which forced me to think hard on the Jamaican Psyche. Specifically the saying that we all know called which goes by the phrase - Hear and Deaf, See and Blind. For the unitiated out there, this saying simply means that. Things which you hear you should simply pretend you are deaf even though you clearly heard it, and things which you see, just pretend you are blind and you didn't see it.

This is something which carries across the Jamaican landscape quite regularly because as has been reported for years now, people who witness crimes rarely if ever report it. This is quite simply because of a fear of being called an informer or being sought out by the criminal offender and being harmed. While I can understand the fear of being harmed by a criminal offender, especially with the seemed failure of the Jamaican witness protection program (if any such thing exists). I cannot understand the fear of being called an informer.

An informer is certainly not a bad thing, this person has information, and informs the relevant authorities of the information. I dont see how this can be regarded as bad, maybe as a child if you tell your mother that your sibling stole some candy despite the fact that this affected nobody at all, then being called a taddle-tale (for the foreign readers) can be seen as bad. However if you see a man assault another man on the street with a stone or a knife, then maybe it makes sense to call the police and let them know that hey, this guy did a bad thing.

But what I cannot understand is where this culture came from, I doubt it would be something historical, though I can see how it can be linked to slavery I dont see why it would be something that is so perpetrated in our modern society. Jamaica being the society that we are, should be praising people who inform on criminals instead of berating them and giving them titles.

I put forward the following question to you however reader: If you see a rather large man beating a woman at a bus-stop do you a) Ignore it and act as if nothing happened b) call the relevant authorities to the situation, trying to get as much evidence (photos etc) of the crime or c) try to stop the act

As I just learned by the way... one of those may be against the law, guess which one