Evil persists when good men remain silent, an old saying that resonates significantly with much of what we see happening in Jamaica today and in other larger, more powerful nations.
The rise of Donald Trump in America and the dystopian scenario his ascension poses to the 246-year-old democratic project highlights the need for vigilance and pushback against wrong.
The United States is a developed society, so I fundamentally believe they possess the ability to sort through their problems— or not. Jamaica is a different story. The small Island Nation of under three million people at best claims to be independent.
Yet, six decades after its supposed independence and yearly celebrations of such, the nation is still subservient to Britain, its old colonizer.
I have a few choice adjectives that I would like to use to characterize the level of stupidity that goes into the idea of a non-independent independence. Still, I am mindful that some readers find sharp language distasteful. This sense of propriety may be traced to the fact that we still cling to the frock tails of the Brits who are fabled to be proper — Yup- proper while properly maintaining human beings as chattel property.
Oh, let me stop.
The faux sense of propriety of which I speak may very well be an integral part of the cultural dynamics at play in Jamaica today.
How, you ask?
Since our faux independence, Jamaica has progressed/regressed, depending on your point of view, with a vast chasm between those who considered themselves educated and everyone else.
How education is quantified today may also explain the divide between those deemed to have it and those who don’t; it may also explain some social behaviors.
Part of the propriety emanating from the educated class was an unexplained need to be aloof and detached from the realities of what was happening on Spanish Town Road and Grass Yard as they meandered on their well-manicured lawns in Cherry Gardens, Norbrook Jack’s Hill, and Beverly Hills.
Because they rubbed shoulders with foreign dignitaries who live in their communities and have a certain level of police protection, these pretenders got to exist in a bubble from which they spout all kinds of soft-on-crime bullshit that the foreign neighbors know is BS, but they remain silent.
They know it’s BS because regardless of where they are from, they know that their governments do not allow criminals to dictate to them.
Regardless, we have been forced to follow these so-called well-educated Jackasses for 60 years and now look where we are. Let us be clear: the situation we find ourselves in as a nation with violent crime may [not] be laid at the feet of the Brits, the Americans or anyone else but ourselves.
We did that!!!
As a nation, we succumbed to the dictates of the fake people who live uptown; their ideas became policy, and even when those policies were demonstrably failing, we doubled down rather than change course. Lets us be really clear-eyed about what I am saying here, the Jamaican people are extremely resourceful. We make something out of nothing.
Whatever we put our hands to, we make it work.
The sad reality, however, is that we have been governed by frauds and fakes. Our Policies have been created by people with their heads in the sky rather than on the road.
Consequently, the average Jamaican, the real Jamaicans, have taken flight to other shores, and those who remain would largely rather leave if they had the chance.
Yet we have a new generation of fakes and frauds who dare to suggest that Jamaicans who leave the country to seek better lives for themselves and their families are cowards.
That level of ignorance is not only unworthy of a response; it is reminiscent that they’re the useless sediments and trash that remains at the bottom of the pond after the water has been drained.
Recent data compiled by the website GlobalEcomomy.com places Jamaica second out of 177 countries on the 2022 edition of the human flight and brain drain index, which speaks to the dilemma in which Jamaica finds itself. As I indicated earlier, given a chance, most Jamaicas would leave.….
It speaks to what this writer continues to argue that we must stop painting the rotten walls and papering over the holes instead of fixing them.
The middle class has been hollowed out of our country, leaving the fakes and frauds at the top who sees themselves as the new Bucky-massa and everyone else at the bottom scrambling for crumbs.
In the hollowed-out middle now sits the informal economy driven by hustlers and thieves, a burgeoning economy in which murder for hire, extortion, lotto-scamming, and all kinds of criminality thrives.
For all intents ad purposes, our beautiful country is now becoming a dystopian nightmare where the idea of Jamaica no problem is an empty slogan.
We can continue to delude ourselves into thinking nu weh nu betta dan yaad, or we can humble ourselves, look at the data and begin the arduous task of course correction.
We have this sense of faux patriotism, which comes from the rich telling us we are unpatriotic if we leave. Of course, they need an underclass, a Lumpenproletariat over whom to rule.
Sooner or later, however, like the Rabbit in the boiling cauldron, the Lumpen will realize that it is the meat in the stew.
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.