The much hyped debate between the twin Island Nation of Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica con­tin­ue to be a hot top­ic on social media. Jamaicans are alleg­ing foul, they say they are being tar­get­ed and treat­ed as crim­i­nals when they attempt to enter Trinidad and Tobago. Recently a group of Jamaican vis­i­tors were returned home by T&T Immigration offi­cials. That inci­dent sparked howls of con­dem­na­tion from Jamaicans at home and abroad. 

Calls range from a boy­cott of all goods from T&T to out­right war. The prob­lem for Jamaica is that this sup­posed harass­ment of Jamaicans is not con­fined to T&T , but is alleged to be hap­pen­ing to Jamaicans trav­el­ling to oth­er Caribbean Islands. Those who fol­low the news may recall the Shanique Myrie case in Barbados. The alle­ga­tions have been strong enough to prompt T&T’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to send a del­e­ga­tion, head­ed by her for­eign min­is­ter Winston Dookeran, to hold diplo­mat­ic talks with his Jamaican coun­ter­part A J Nicholson.

Dookeran then promised to allow for free trav­el into that coun­try but his fel­low par­lia­men­tar­i­an and Trinidadian secu­ri­ty min­is­ter, Gary Griffith, shot down his promise and vowed to keep out ‘undesirables’.Griffith said immi­gra­tion mat­ters fell under his min­istry and only he could make such pro­nounce­ments. He said Trinidad was not shop­ping mall.  http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​B​r​o​a​d​c​a​s​t​e​r​-​J​o​h​n​n​y​-​D​a​l​e​y​-​h​a​r​r​a​s​s​e​d​-​b​y​-​T​-​T​-​I​m​m​i​g​r​a​t​i​o​n​-​a​n​d​-​C​u​s​t​o​m​s​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​r​s​_​1​5​7​5​3​932.

Clearly that state­ment did noth­ing to smooth ruf­fled feath­ers in Kingston, yet it under­lined what is a much deep­er issue than most Jamaicans will hon­est­ly admit to. Since the start of this year anoth­er Jamaican has com­plained of being harassed by Trinidadian immi­gra­tion offi­cials. Broadcaster and come­di­an Christopher ‘Johnny’ Daley claimed to have been mis­treat­ed by air­port offi­cials. Daley claim he and his wife were sin­gled out for inter­ro­ga­tion and treat­ed as sus­pects the minute offi­cials real­ized they were Jamaicans. Daley post­ed details of his alleged ordeal on his Face/​Book page. In his post the Jamaican had this to say. “She seemed quite dis­ap­point­ed and annoyed that she found noth­ing alarm­ing in our lug­gage and then she did the most ridicu­lous thing I’ve ever expe­ri­enced. She asked if I was wear­ing two trousers (remem­ber I live in the trop­ics ) to which my response was an obvi­ous no. Without hes­i­ta­tion she instruct­ed me to go to a room with the two thug-look­ing men (police).The Trinidad air­port per­son­nel seem to per­son­al­ly enjoy drag­ging us through the mud of their sys­tem. http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​B​r​o​a​d​c​a​s​t​e​r​-​J​o​h​n​n​y​-​D​a​l​e​y​-​h​a​r​r​a​s​s​e​d​-​b​y​-​T​-​T​-​I​m​m​i​g​r​a​t​i​o​n​-​a​n​d​-​C​u​s​t​o​m​s​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​r​s​_​1​5​7​5​3​932

Whether every­thing this char­ac­ter Johnny Daley said he and his wife endured is true or not , we see that he has scant regard for law-enforce­ment. That is evi­dent in his choice of words, it’s a Jamaican char­ac­ter­is­tic which is often­times export­ed to oth­er shores to their utter detri­ment. Law enforce­ment does not take kind­ly to be dis­re­spect­ed. The Jamaican went at length detail­ing his ver­sion of what tran­spired. The Article was fol­lowed with a long list of knee-jerk respons­es call­ing again for a ban on Trinidadian products .

Every time there is a flare-up, we hear the same calls. Yet Jamaica’s mar­kets are flood­ed with prod­ucts from the twin Island Republic. If Jamaicans are so gung-ho about boy­cotting Trinidadian goods all they have to do is stop buy­ing them. What’s left on shelves would rot and there would be no more con­tain­ers being off-loaded from Trinidad. 

So it seem these calls are noth­ing more than attempts to blow off steam, while they con­tin­ue to con­sume prod­ucts from T&T. What Jamaicans will not face up to is the depths to which we have sunk, or acknowl­edge it is their behav­ior which pre­cip­i­tates the kind of atti­tudes being direct­ed against our peo­ple in gen­er­al. I am not par­tic­u­lar­ly care­ful about what any­one say about what I write about this issue. I am sure there will be many who have a host of neg­a­tives to say about me and of course Trinidad, oth­er nations and any­one who do not get on the howl­ing train.

In fact they will con­tin­ue to ignore Jamaica’s con­tri­bu­tion to this sense of being sin­gled out for neg­a­tive treat­ment. It is the same way they pre­tend that the mur­der­ing degen­er­ate demons who each have mul­ti­ple mur­ders to their dubi­ous cred­it, are some­how being set upon by the wicked police. Every low life who meets his mak­er was a choir-boy who was on his way to being a Doctor. Never mind that the streets knows him by an alias sig­ni­fy­ing his depraved indif­fer­ence to human life.

At what time will Jamaicans stop blam­ing oth­ers for their own doings. At what stage will they rec­og­nize that peo­ple are turned off by the dis­re­spect­ful, loud,crass,ignorant, arro­gant behav­ior they dis­play , even if they are guilty of the same vices? Trinidad and Tobago is rival­ing Jamaica in homi­cides, whether we believe they are hyp­ocrites, or that they pre­tend they are bet­ter than us is imma­te­r­i­al. They have a right to pre­vent who they don’t want in their coun­try from enter­ing. News to Jamaicans who have their panties in a bunch, “do not trav­el to Trinidad and Tobago”. Yes there are Caricom Regulations which dic­tates how Caricom mem­bers should be treat­ed when they trav­el to mem­ber states. What Jamaicans are not rec­og­niz­ing is that each mem­ber state’s Constitution trumps Caricom treaties. The rhetoric of T&T’s National Security Minister Gary Griffith is a sharp reminder of that fact.

Jamaicans may con­tin­ue to grand­stand and pon­tif­i­cate, arro­gant­ly blovi­at­ing about boy­cotts or we can start to change our atti­tudes. We can address our crime sit­u­a­tion and the way we are seen respond­ing to crim­i­nal­i­ty. We can rec­og­nize that oth­er coun­tries val­ue the rule of law, despite their crime stats. And most of all they sup­port their law-enforce­ment offi­cials. Most Jamaicans believe they are above laws. They go out of their way to be dis­re­spect­ful to law enforce­ment offi­cers at home. If they do not want to be searched and spo­ken to, stay home. Some deserve to be tak­en down a peg or two, if it takes oth­er coun­tries to do it then so be it.

Yesterday I addressed the method the People’s National Party uses to win National elec­tions . The par­ty does so through promis­es and effec­tive­ly using it’s time in office to dole out scarce resources to its sup­port­ers. They stack boards and Government run-busi­ness­es with par­ty faith­ful, and per­haps most crit­i­cal­ly, putting ded­i­cat­ed func­tionar­ies into crit­i­cal areas of civ­il soci­ety where they car­ry out the par­ty’s pro­pa­gan­da campaign.

Andrew Holness

Interestingly though the oppo­si­tion Jamaica Labor Party has spent con­sid­er­able stretch­es of time in obliv­ion, it seem the par­ty still has not grasped the basic rea­son they are get­ting beat time and again. Love them or hate them, the PNP is mas­ter­ful at pro­pa­gan­da. They under­stand the psy­chol­o­gy of the Jamaican elec­torate. Their strat­e­gy, though not one which does much to bring the coun­try to first world sta­tus, is effec­tive in win­ning elec­tions. Tell the peo­ple you love them, keep them poor , then dan­gle some cash in front of them and they will do any­thing for you. Cynical, insult­ing, ret­ro­grade, regres­sive, but effec­tive. The PNP did not get this good at it over one elec­tion cycle. This start­ed the minute the ink was dry on the so-called Independence procla­ma­tion back in 1962. Brick by Brick, Norman Manley, Michael Manley, Percival Patterson and now Simpson Miller, they stuck to the script.

This leads us to the mil­lion dol­lar ques­tion then , “How can the JLP remain so pas­sive in oppo­si­tion, know­ing it can­not match the entrenched infra­struc­ture of the PNP”? Or does it even know? This is the per­fect time for Holness and the Labor Party to start to seri­ous­ly chip away at the chinks in the armor of the PNP. The chink in that armor is not the per­cep­tion that Portia is not the bright­est bulb in the room. She has effec­tive­ly shown that is not a neg­a­tive. In fact, her abil­i­ty to relate to the man on the street on his lev­el, is a tremen­dous asset to her and the rul­ing PNP. As I point­ed out yes­ter­day , Bruce Golding for­mer Prime Minister under­stood how to fight the PNP using the media and the lead­ers own words against her.

You all remem­ber this tirade.“Don’t draw my tongue! And don’t trou­ble this girl! Because I don’t fraid a no man, no gyal, nowhere!”

Head swing­ing from side to side arm flail­ing. Yet Golding’s cam­paign was able to mas­ter­ful­ly har­vest that tirade using it in its own Ad. with a female voice at the end say­ing “But Sista P yu nu ready fi de prime min­is­ter ting”.

Masterful work expos­ing her to the world at her worst and at the same time show­ing the aver­age per­son it was not cool. Nevertheless, well placed polit­i­cal hacks like Carolyn Cooper UWI lec­tur­er valiant­ly attempt­ed to make that crass vira­go out­burst a good thing… It was laugh­able. In her Article titled Drawing sis­ter P’s tongue. http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​g​l​e​a​n​e​r​/​2​0​1​1​1​2​2​5​/​c​l​e​i​s​u​r​e​/​c​l​e​i​s​u​r​e​3​.​h​tml

Portia Simpson Miller

The weak­ness lies in her not speak­ing to the media, the gaffes she makes when she does speak, the dete­ri­o­rat­ing eco­nom­ic con­di­tions, the high crime rate cor­rup­tion and the oth­er prob­lems fac­ing the coun­try. The JLP must now embark on a sus­tained media cam­paign which ampli­fies these prob­lems. It must keep ham­mer­ing away at every­thing dai­ly, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly offer­ing palat­able alter­na­tives to the PNP poli­cies. If Holness and the JLP does not adopt an aggres­sive elec­tion­eer­ing strat­e­gy from now, it should resign itself to being in oppo­si­tion again when the next elec­tions are over.

The Jamaica Labor Party has been in polit­i­cal obliv­ion for decades, first under Seaga until he got the mes­sage that hav­ing a cohe­sive eco­nom­ic plan for Jamaica was not going to win him anoth­er go at the Tiller and he gave up. Seaga was no finan­cial wiz­ard, nei­ther was he a Saint by a long shot as it relates to gar­ri­son pol­i­tics. For Jamaicans opposed to the insid­i­ous cor­ro­sive nature of People’s National Party Politics, Seaga was a tol­er­a­ble counter-bal­ance. The gen­er­al elec­tions of 1980 saw Edward Seaga swept to pow­er on a 51 to 9 seat advan­tage over Michael Manley. Many believed Manley actu­al­ly lost his seat but was allowed to keep it by virtue of Seaga’s largess. Whether true or not, Manley was a vocif­er­ous oppo­si­tion leader, agi­tat­ing against every­thing. Seaga called snap elec­tions in 1983 , just 3 years after win­ning the largest man­date ever in Jamaica’s his­to­ry. Manley and the People’s National Party did not con­test the elec­tions. Manley knew the PNP would have lost that elec­tion, he also knew he was out of ideas. Manley chose instead to label the new­ly elect­ed JLP Administration ille­git­i­mate, (Bogus Government) in com­mon Jamaica vernacular.

Michael Manley 

Michael Manley and the PNP was unan­i­mous­ly returned to pow­er in 1989 to con­tin­ue the wreck­ing job it start­ed in 1972 . Today Revisionist his­to­ri­ans are busy san­i­tiz­ing Michael Manley’s record of accom­plish­ment , vir­tu­al­ly can­on­iz­ing and mak­ing him a Saint or the sec­ond com­ing of Jesus Christ for Jamaica’s poor and dis­pos­sessed. Ask the peo­ple who were in the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union about Michael Manley’s gang­ster tac­tics to con­trol bar­gain­ing rights for the National Workers Union a PNP affil­i­ate. Ask People like Pearnel Charles and vir­tu­al­ly all the JLP polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion, which was locked up at the Army Barracks Up Park Camp under trumped-up alle­ga­tions of sedi­tious activ­i­ties by Michael Manley. Look at the ram­pant pro­lif­er­a­tion of zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions (gar­risons) which sprang up under Michael Manley and his side-kick Anthony Spaulding. Of course the pro­lif­er­a­tion of the Garrisons looked great to the casu­al onlook­er, what’s not to like , poor peo­ple are being housed, right? Only prob­lem was that those hous­es which were stacked with par­ty sup­port­ers were being paid for by the coun­try’s mid­dle class. Teachers, doc­tors, firemen,Police offi­cers , nurs­es bore the brunt of the tax­a­tion to pay for those hous­ing units occu­pied by par­ty supporters.

Percival James Patterson

Today Michael Manley is some­thing of a folk-hero, of course the nation’s econ­o­my is in the toi­let because of his Socialist Policies put in place in the 70’s and con­tin­ued by Percival Patterson and Portia Simpson Miller. There are report­ed­ly 11 PNP Garrisons to every 1 JLP gar­ri­son. I am not sure about that fig­ure as the only JLP Garrison of Tivoli Gardens was dis­man­tled in 2010. Somehow the trio of Manley Patterson and Miller nev­er quite under­stood that when Government pro­vides a safe envi­ron­ment free from bureau­crat­ic red-tape, cor­rup­tion, crony­ism, and nepo­tism, and pay-offs the entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it of the peo­ple soars. Instead they reduced our coun­try to a nation of beg­gars. Many of whom believe Government holds the keys to their sal­va­tion. Despite this trag­ic mal­a­dy the Manley name is plas­tered all over Jamaica, streets, build­ings , air­port, muse­ums and yes the cur­ren­cy, bears the not so sub­tle indoc­tri­na­tion cour­tesy of the PNP.

Portia Lucretia Simpson Miller

Neither Michael Manley , Percival Patterson , nor Portia Simpson Miller won elec­tions because they had bet­ter ideas on how to grow Jamaica’s econ­o­my. They did not win because they had a plan to low­er tax­es, improve edu­ca­tion, low­er crime and cor­rup­tion, elim­i­nat­ing gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion and bureau­cra­cy, and embark­ing on mas­sive infra­struc­tur­al devel­op­ment. They read the elec­torate well, they real­ized that toss­ing a few dol­lars at the right time to the right group of peo­ple will have them hold­ing state pow­er. This strat­e­gy has worked per­fect­ly . Over the last 4 decades they have held elect­ed office for 28 years. The vast major­i­ty of the vot­ing pub­lic are quite con­tent to be thrown a cou­ple of crash pro­gram bucks, and be allowed to break the laws to sup­ple­ment those bor­rowed dol­lars. A trag­ic indict­ment on our nation , but one which suits the rul­ing People’s National Party. So don’t ask the Prime Minister about growth poli­cies and her Administration’s plan to reduce pover­ty, much less elim­i­nat­ing the wan­ton killings which are forc­ing peo­ple to flee. They don’t want to be both­ered with Governing, win­ning elec­tions is what they know how to do and they do it well. That is the rea­son Portia feels she don’t have to be both­ered with answer­ing to any­one, least of all the peas­ants who are going to vote for her and her par­ty regardless.

Andrew Holness 

When Andrew Holness was hand­ed the JLP , I offered my unso­licit­ed advice on what he need­ed to do if he was to be suc­cess­ful.https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​y​w​p​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​2​196. Holness called the elec­tions and hand­ed the reins of Government to Miller and the PNP. Whether it was a good or bad deci­sion to call elec­tions at that time may nev­er be known, but it gave Holness a chance to rebuild and make the Party a focused par­ty. I thought it would have been the right thing to do to solid­i­fy or shore up his sup­port, which would put him in a bet­ter posi­tion to take on the PNP. He did not embark on rebuild­ing or re-brand­ing which forced a chal­lenge from Audley Shaw. Many argued it was bad for Shaw to chal­lenge. I thought it was a good idea, both for the lead­er­ship of Holness and for the par­ty to be seen as demo­c­ra­t­ic going for­ward. I also thought that if Holness solid­i­fied the par­ty around his ideas a chal­lenge would have been avert­ed . https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​y​w​p​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​5​615.

Holness sur­vived the chal­lenge from Audley Shaw but not get­ting his hands and feet dirty will not return the JLP to Jamaica House. Simply put, the Jamaican vot­ers are not going to elect the JLP to gov­ern­ment sim­ply because the PNP screwed up and con­tin­ue to screw up. It took mas­sive out-maneu­ver­ing for Bruce Golding to eak out a win, despite 18 ¹⁄₂ years of colos­sal foul-ups by the PNP . Andrew Holness and the JLP would be well advised to roll up their sleeves now and seri­ous­ly get to work. The Jamaican elec­torate will not sim­ply hand them the keys to Jamaica House, They will have to take it.

Supreme ven­tures recent­ly announced the clos­ing of their gam­ing facil­i­ty the Acropolis on the Hip-Strip in Montego Bay. According to report­ing in the Jamaican Media, Supreme Ventures said it would reduce its lev­el of spon­sor­ship and dona­tions in 2014.
President and CEO of the Supreme Ventures Group, Brian George, says the cur­rent eco­nom­ic chal­lenges and the sig­nif­i­cant increase in lot­tery-gam­ing tax­es have had an adverse effect on the Company’s profits.

However, before the ink was dry on the sto­ry ‚President of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce Nathan Robb dove head-first into the fray, stat­ing that Supreme Ventures should not blame high­er tax­es on the deci­sion it took to close the facil­i­ty. Robb argues “Supreme Ventures could have been more cre­ative in its mar­ket­ing of the prop­er­ty giv­en its prime loca­tion on Gloucester Avenue oth­er­wise known as the Hip Strip”. 

Nathan Robb

This is the first time that I can recall where a cham­ber of com­merce head or any­one in the pri­vate sec­tor has open­ly gone against one of their own, and with­out any evi­dence sup­port­ing the counter-claim of poor mar­ket­ing cre­ativ­i­ty. In fact Supreme Ventures has marked­ly stat­ed that they made the deci­sion to close the facil­i­ty, as it is the only part of their busi­ness con­glom­er­ate which is los­ing mon­ey. Smart com­pa­nies do that all the time, irre­spec­tive of loca­tion, some­times it is nec­es­sary to shed dead weight. Why would Supreme Ventures con­tin­ue to keep an enti­ty which is a drag on its oper­a­tions? That would be tan­ta­mount to keep­ing a gan­grene-infect­ed limb to the detri­ment of the whole body. What this has shown how­ev­er is how deeply and entrenched the PNP has plant­ed it’s oper­a­tives and func­tionar­ies, into every crevasse and cor­ner of nation­al life and kept them there. So much so that it is almost impos­si­ble to get an objec­tive per­spec­tive from any­one in the pub­lic or pri­vate sec­tor or any oth­er part of nation­al life, includ­ing the Clergy, that is untaint­ed by orange influ­ence. Many com­pa­nies are clos­ing because of exor­bi­tant oper­a­tional costs. These costs includes, but are not con­fined to bur­den­some tax­a­tion. It is incon­ceiv­able that one appoint­ed to look out for the inter­est of busi­ness­es such as Supreme Ventures could be so polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed that he reneged on the pri­ma­cy of that function.

Those look­ing for a turn-around of the Jamaican econ­o­my or a decrease in mur­ders and oth­er crimes may con­tin­ue spit­ting in the wind, just cov­er you faces.

There has been bur­geon­ing con­ster­na­tion in cer­tain quar­ters of Jamaica and the Diaspora about what is seen as the fre­quen­cy of the Prime Minister’s over­seas trav­els. I am not sure about the laws which gov­ern trans­paren­cy of Government actions, least of all the actions of the coun­try’s chief exec­u­tive. I would not be sur­prised if there real­ly is no way to tell, if the way they han­dle the Contractor General’s requests and oth­er queries on Governmental irreg­u­lar­i­ties are any­thing to go by. Notwithstanding the Government has released a fig­ure of J$50 mil­lion, sug­gest­ing that that num­ber rep­re­sents the cost of the Prime Minister’s trav­els. Now let me say I have seen no infor­ma­tion which refutes these num­bers but cal­cu­lat­ing the $50 mil­lion Jamaican Dollars at the rate of J$105 TO US $1, it amounts to just over US476’000 .

I find it incred­u­lous that all her trav­els criss­cross­ing the globe from Africa to Asia, to Europe with del­e­ga­tions only amount­ed to US$476’000 . No one is mak­ing the argu­ment that the Nation’s chief exec­u­tive should not trav­el out­side the coun­try. The nature of the job demands that the Prime Minister trav­el abroad. What peo­ple are con­cerned about are whether the trips are absolute­ly ben­e­fi­cial to the coun­try in these eco­nom­ic crunch times, and the dis­re­spect­ful silence of the Prime Minister , who refus­es to answer ques­tions from the Jamaican press on these and oth­er issues. As is to be expect­ed there are no short­age of well-placed polit­i­cal hacks who are quick to explain that the num­bers are not astro­nom­i­cal and that the PM must trav­el to seek eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties for the coun­try. That is the rea­son we must be rather wary of the fig­ures they make avail­able. It is rather too con­ve­nient and mod­est, jux­ta­pose that with the cho­rus of sup­port for Portia’s trav­els and it begs seri­ous scrutiny.

The real con­cern ema­nat­ing from this issue, at least for me, is that they fun­da­men­tal­ly believe it is good eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy to bor­row mon­ey from the Chinese and every­one else who will reward their grov­el­ling, then spend it on flights of fan­cy, [pun intend­ed] sup­pos­ed­ly seek­ing invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. People keep ask­ing about a “growth plan” for the coun­try which I sup­pose would make the immense aus­ter­i­ty on the peo­ple.….. say worth­while. Unfortunately if you take a look at social­ist doc­trine there is noth­ing in there which speaks to eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty. Now these Clowns who run the Govt, aren’t real Socialists, they are wag­gonists. With that said, we know they nev­er had any plan for gov­er­nance when they were returned to pow­er only four years after los­ing office after an unprece­dent­ed 18 ¹⁄₂ years in pow­er. Socialism is about wealth re-dis­tri­b­u­tion, gen­er­al­ly to their cronies and friends. It has noth­ing to do with eco­nom­ic empow­er­ment of the mass­es. Travelling abroad in the hope of per­suad­ing com­pa­nies to invest in Jamaica will pro­duce naught, when the com­pa­nies already there are rapid­ly clos­ing. Crime, Corruption, Extortion, High ener­gy costs, high-tax­es, Government bureau­cra­cy, and a host of oth­er busi­ness-bust­ing vices are deal­ing a death-blow to the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic life. Companies look for the most busi­ness-friend­ly places to oper­ate. Jamaica long ceased being a busi­ness-friend­ly place. The vary­ing enti­ties which extort busi­ness­es, Government, Unions, un-elect­ed crim­i­nals, are more than enough to fright­en poten­tial investors. People who run suc­cess­ful busi­ness­es are gen­er­al­ly smart peo­ple. The same can­not be said for many politicians.

It’s the end of anoth­er cal­en­dar year, time to make new year’s res­o­lu­tions or re-com­mit to the ones we made a year ago but nev­er quite stuck to. As I thought about the things I want to do in the new year I real­ized they all coin­cid­ed with improv­ing my lit­tle home-land. I must admit that even though I have giv­en it much thought I have no idea how I will effect change that will have mean­ing­ful impact on enough lives.

Those of us who are blessed to live over­seas can­not afford not to think about those back home, irre­spec­tive of our per­son­al cir­cum­stance. We avail our­selves to the real­i­ty that life is get­ting almost unbear­able for the major­i­ty of ordi­nary Jamaicans. I look back today on the coun­try I grew up in with deep dark melan­choly. I remem­ber a time not that long ago, when our coun­try was con­sid­ered the pearl of the Caribbean. Other Caribbean natives feigned being Jamaicans to those who could not deci­pher the dif­fer­ence in our accents. People from the oth­er Islands want­ed to come to Jamaica to live. We were the cen­ter of learn­ing, our Schools and Students sec­ond to none. Our Athletes the pride of the region. We were renowned for the Arts , cul­ture, yes the birth-place of Reggae, we were con­sid­ered a Godly Nation. We respect­ed each oth­er, every fam­i­ly helped to raise the oth­er’s kids.

Authority fig­ures like Teachers and Clergy-men were held in high regard, Cops trav­eled with­out guns. Seldom would any­one harm the elder­ly or the very young. Then some­thing changed in the ear­ly 70’s, we nev­er recov­ered. Our Country did a com­plete 180 degree turn , it was­n’t grad­ual it was dra­mat­ic. All of a sud­den it was­n’t cool to earn what you need­ed, you were enti­tled to it. Those who had mate­r­i­al wealth were instant pari­ahs, made scape­goats, pawns in the quest for State Power. When they protest­ed they were told to board one of the 5 flights leav­ing dai­ly for Miami. They were made per­sona-non-gra­ta in their own Country. What affront, what arro­gance? The entire mid­dle and pro­duc­tive class took flight out of fear for their lives, many were killed.

Our Country descend­ed into eco­nom­ic chaos, the moral com­pass for­ev­er changed. It is darn near impos­si­ble attain­ing eco­nom­ic growth or devel­op­ment when you chase away the entire pro­duc­tive sec­tor and replace it with Government crony­ism. The decay con­tin­ued with most of the com­pa­nies we knew as lit­tle kids in the 60’s which sur­vived through the 70’s even­tu­al­ly giv­ing up. Many dis­ap­peared because of Union/​political strong-arm­ing. Others forced to move away to green­er pas­tures or sim­ply closed for good by the astro­nom­i­cal cost of doing busi­ness. Bullying by Trade Unions, extor­tion, high ener­gy and secu­ri­ty costs sapped the life-blood of many and con­tin­ue to do so to even the most stub­born, the most patriotic.

Today we won­der where went wrong? Really ? Where did we go wrong? How can we ask when many of us were there, some of us very young but there nonethe­less. Today Jamaicans are shunned by our neigh­bors near and far. Our peo­ple made to feel like sec­ond-class cit­i­zens. Many forced into silence so as not to be iden­ti­fied by our accent, our once proud accent. Even as the tini­est nations reg­is­ter growth and rel­a­tive pros­per­i­ty for their cit­i­zens, Jamaicans cow­er in absolute fear at the next round of tax­a­tion , cur­ren­cy deval­u­a­tion , price increas­es, and oth­er austerities.

Our Nation’s future is uncer­tain. Uncertain because we con­tin­ue to do the same things, yet expect­ing dif­fer­ent results. When will our peo­ple dis­card the old philoso­phies of hand­outs and bel­ly full pol­i­tics and say no more? Will they rec­og­nize there is some­thing greater than them­selves? Love of coun­try, love for their chil­dren and most of all love of God? Will they ever stop to think, “we’ve catered to our most base instincts of instant self grat­i­fi­ca­tion , it has­n’t worked so well, let us try anoth­er approach”?

That is my fer­vent hope.

Here are a cou­ple of sim­ple facts: 1) If much more than 50% of the coun­try’s Gross domes­tic prod­uct (GDP) is used to ser­vice inter­est pay­ments on the nation’s immense debt, then there will and must be rev­enue short­falls .2) Under the same sce­nario, the Government looks for addi­tion­al rev­enues through the only source it absolute­ly should NOT, more tax­a­tion. 3) .

Vale Royal res­i­dence of the Jamaican Prime Minister.

Why? Taxation may ini­tial­ly increase rev­enues col­lect­ed, but will invari­ably lead to a drop-off in eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty, as it inevitably will. Taxation con­stricts eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty which results in less rev­enue col­lect­ed. In the case of Jamaica this presents a mam­moth cri­sis as the nation is caught in a vicious cyclonic wave as a result of the par­tic­u­lars I just laid out. The nation will first have to come to grips with the real­i­ty that tax­a­tion and spend­ing is not the way to grow an econ­o­my. It must be through low crime, invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, edu­ca­tion, elim­i­nat­ing cor­rup­tion and bureau­crat­ic imped­i­ments. I am not sure this Administration is capa­ble of fig­ur­ing this out. Part of any hope for eco­nom­ic sal­va­tion for Jamaica must be first to low­er crime , then ditch the (IMF). Ditching the IMF is imper­a­tive if Jamaica is to start on a path of eco­nom­ic growth, it must shed that par­a­sitic agency.