The Gaza-Gully discord has hit the nation's prisons, but a Jamaica-born British official has already started to institute measures to defuse tension and slant those involved into having a more positive mindset.
Mikey Thompson who is here on a 15-month secondment from Cricket for Change, a British organisation that seeks to rehabilitate convicts through sport, mainly cricket, believes that the Gaza-Gully dispute has deep implications that could hurt Jamaica and he is not going to sit idly by and allow that to happen. "The Gaza-Gully thing is in the prisons, but we have been having discussions about it," said Thompson, who as part of his tour of duty has visited the St Catherine Adult Correctional Centre, the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre and the Rio Cobre juvenile facility on his trips, so far. "When I first heard about this thing, I was shocked. I proceeded to tell the first 20 boys at Rio Cobre of my experience in the Gaza Strip, that it was not a place to be glorified. When I think of the Gaza, I think of terrorism; you hardly see anything move on that strip, not even a dog. It seems that they have accepted the message," Thompson said of the dispute with the strong dancehall foundation. "I wonder if the persons who use the word Gaza know what they are about?" Thompson asked during an interview with the Observer. "Gaza is such a dangerous place and a dangerous word to use. Every two minutes someone gets killed in the Gaza. I have visited Gaza and while playing cricket there with colleagues, we were told that we had to leave immediately because of the fighting. Every time you hear a plane you have to look up, because you never know if a bomb will be released. I want to use cricket to take the youth away from words such as Gaza. The word Gully is not bad, because it is a field position in cricket, but gaza is a no-no," said Thompson, a certified cricket coach. Thompson, 46, originally from Vere in South East Clarendon, has been in Jamaica since last month on a three-month stint which has been extended due largely to a grant of 50,000 pounds from the British Government which is working through the Courtney Walsh Foundation to help rehabilitate young offenders. The Courtney Walsh Foundation, which will be launched in Kingston on November 20, has among a range of plans the rehabilitation of convicts. For Thompson, artistes must be held accountable for polluting the atmosphere with outlandish lyrics that could incite others to seek a violent route to settle differences. "Most of our deejays have to realise that they are role models, and kids tend to hang on to the bad lyrics that they sometimes come out with. "Maybe if our deejays knew about Gaza and what happens there, they would not use that word. "This Gaza-Gully thing will filter back into the UK soon, places like Hackney and Brixton, if it is not addressed. We have to make a decision of asking the deejays to clean up their acts. "Right now, the only thing that can stop the Gaza-Gully thing from spreading is cricket. If, for example, I go into schools like KC or Camperdown and there is a dispute, if I use football, which is a contact sport, to break that down, that may not be good. If I used cricket, there would be little physical contact and we would have a good game. "I would like to find some kind of entertainment to clash with the Gaza-Gully thing and engage the minds of kids to move away from it," Thompson said.
source: source: observer
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