Lesson In Roger Clarke’s Passing

There is no vic­to­ry in death, it would be repro­bate of me to use the death of some­one to Score polit­i­cal points. However, I believe it is per­fect­ly prop­er to use some­one’s death to Underscore a crit­i­cal failure.

For rea­sons above my pay-grade, Jamaicans have elect­ed to give the People’s National Party the Lion’s share of han­dling their affairs since 1962 when the Nation gained independence.

Over the last 40 years the Jamaica Labor Party has held office only 12 years of those four decades. The PNP has most­ly formed the Government, With one con­tin­u­ous stretch of ¹⁸¹⁄₂ years.

Starting with Michael Manley’s pseu­do Democratic Socialism in 1972 Jamaica, has been bat­tered and bruised by every met­ric, with only a dozen years of respite in between the tumul­tuous bouts of People’s National Party incom­pe­tence and graft.

PNP lead­er­ship has brought the once pearl of the Caribbean total and com­pre­hen­sive ruina­tion . Starting 1972’s to present. Massive brain-drain. Capital flight. Runaway infla­tion A dec­i­mat­ed busi­ness sec­tor. Poverty untold. Worthless cur­ren­cy. Astronomically high crime rate. Broken down and or nonex­is­tent infra­struc­ture. Moral decay. Sell-off, of our National trea­sures. Decadence. Immorality and a total over­all decay. Some Jamaicans still trum­pet our Nation’s supe­ri­or­i­ty in the Caribbean, I do not share in that fantasy.

Roger Clarke spent most of his adult life in pol­i­tics as part of the PNP. Clarke recent­ly passed away of an appar­ent heart attack, suf­fered at a Florida Airport. Clarke, 74, had been at the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Florida since mid-July where he had under­gone surgery for a back prob­lem and was return­ing to Jamaica when he died at the airport.

Roger Clarke was a Minister of Government . A mem­ber of the Governing People’s National Party, which has dom­i­nat­ed the Political land­scape over the last 4 decades. Yet when Clarke need­ed back surgery for what is char­ac­ter­ized as a pinched nerve, he head­ed to Florida.

If this does not awak­en the sen­si­tiv­i­ties of Jamaicans, what will ? If an esteemed mem­ber of the Political Oligarchy can­not source elec­tive surgery in his own coun­try, what does it say about the lead­er­ship of his par­ty? We pray for the fam­i­ly of Roger Clarke at this time of bereave­ment. We are all Jamaicans, we should find no solace in the demise of oth­ers. Death is in the cards for all of us. In the end we are nei­ther PNP nor JLP we are people.

Let’s hope Jamaicans will see this as a rea­son to demand a greater degree of account­abil­i­ty from those whom they entrust to admin­is­ter to their affairs. We can­not con­tin­ue to low­er the bar to accom­mo­date and ratio­nal­ize away the sys­tem­at­ic and con­tin­ued fail­ures and incom­pe­tence of our lead­ers. It is all up to us to decide the lead­er­ship we get.