If We Had The Discipline We Could Be First World In Short Order; Alas, We Don’t.…

I often won­der how long it would take for Jamaica to become a first-world coun­try if we had the dis­ci­pline to become one?
How long would it be for the young work­force to be employed through pri­vate-sec­tor hir­ing, which would expo­nen­tial­ly broad­en the tax base, mak­ing it pos­si­ble for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers to be paid a liv­able wage?
How long would it be for real pros­per­i­ty to take shape (real pros­per­i­ty, not a cam­paign slo­gan), in a coun­try 4411 in total square miles, with under three mil­lion cit­i­zens, a coun­try in which pol­i­tics is not an oppor­tu­ni­ty to get rich, but an oppor­tu­ni­ty to be of ser­vice to the nation, out of love for our nation?
Idealistic? No, it is the way to build a coun­try and fast. But, unfor­tu­nate­ly, despite the façade and the oblig­a­tory protes­ta­tions of patri­o­tism, “nu weh nu bet­ta dan yaad,” we all know that most of our peo­ple would head for oth­er shores giv­en a chance.

Of course, most Jamaicans love Jamaica; what’s not to love about our beau­ti­ful coun­try? There is hard­ly any­thing not to like about Jamaica; the sun shines bright, the wind blows, and the land is fertile.
Jamaica has all of the com­po­nents to be self-suf­fi­cient, giv­en the right kind of gov­er­nance. But as Jamaicans, we have nev­er been ones to be both­ered with rules and discipline.
There is no rea­son we should be spend­ing scarce for­eign exchange on for­eign oil when we have the sun shin­ing year-round and the wind blow­ing gen­tly to sup­ply us with the ener­gy we need. Our oil con­sump­tion should only be for back­up pur­pos­es. Our farm pro­duce is sec­ond to none in qual­i­ty and safe­ty, yet we shell out tens of mil­lions to import unsafe American food prod­ucts that we can grow our­selves. Our young peo­ple are sec­ond to none in smarts and inno­va­tion, but our inabil­i­ty to har­ness their tal­ents expos­es them to lives of crime and caus­es them to look for green­er pastures.
We yearn for the pros­per­i­ty of oth­er nations, yet we lack the dis­ci­pline and the vision to do what they did to acquire the wealth and sta­bil­i­ty they possess.

To hell, with good soci­etal order, we try to force water uphill with­out a water pump. We will show you that the short­est dis­tance between two poles is [not] a straight line.
So we go our own way to demon­strate that we are a unique peo­ple who can bring pros­per­i­ty by chas­ing away investors, expand­ing pub­lic sec­tor hir­ing, instead of encour­ag­ing pri­vate sec­tor investment.
By (a) rad­i­cal­ly improv­ing our infra­struc­ture (b) putting a bootheel on vio­lent crime, © elim­i­nat­ing graft and cor­rup­tion in the pub­lic sector,& (d) mov­ing away from the idea of the wel­fare state that came into being dur­ing the 70s we could rad­i­cal­ly change our fortunes.
Instead of deal­ing deci­sive­ly with crime, the great­est threat to the nation’s sur­vival and growth, we pla­cate vio­lent crim­i­nals in a way that not only encour­ages them to con­tin­ue on the path they are on but cre­ates a per­ma­nent incu­ba­tor that breeds and nur­ture vio­lent young crim­i­nals to con­tin­ue lives of crime.

Instead of suf­fo­cat­ing the crime mon­ster, our lead­ers thought it bet­ter to allow a whole cot­tage indus­try to spring up in sup­port of the mur­der cul­ture. Bands, funer­al par­lors every­where, large cel­e­bra­tions at wakes, push­carts sell­ing from a pin to an anchor at death yards.
The macabre nature of busi­ness­es spring­ing up around the slaugh­ter of our fel­low coun­try­men and women should be lost on no one. It is self-per­pet­u­at­ing because we now have to con­tend with the dis­tinct real­i­ty of mur­ders for hire and mur­der just to feed the beast.
It real­ly is not too com­pli­cat­ed, but both polit­i­cal par­ties ben­e­fit from pover­ty and divi­sion. Both polit­i­cal par­ties ben­e­fit from the lack of polit­i­cal account­abil­i­ty. Both par­ties con­tin­ue to be seen as nec­es­sary to the sur­vival of those who can not help them­selves finan­cial­ly, which ben­e­fits them both.
As long as the peo­ple are will­ing to dress in par­ty col­ors and sup­port politi­cians who have no idea how to change their lives, our coun­try will con­tin­ue to be mired in pover­ty and vio­lent crimes…
Regardless of the bull­shit nar­ra­tive they recite to you.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.