Unions Strong-arm Tactics ‚extortion, And Uppity Attitudes Drove Out Businesses :now Jamaicans Talk Boycott.…

We can speak on political issues without being partial or disagreeable, however we all know some people are incapable of doing either. What we cannot change however are historical data which bear out the truth.
Jamaica experienced it’s greatest period of economic growth in the 60’s after Independence under the leadership of Hugh Lawson Shearer. However the pressing and stubborn problem of land distribution among the population remained a significant issue then.
According to http://​coun​trys​tud​ies​.us/​c​a​r​i​b​b​e​a​n​-​i​s​l​a​nds, Chronic unemployment and recession coexisted with high inflation during the 1970s, causing stagflation. Unemployment averaged roughly 25 percent during the 1975 – 85 period, affecting women and urban youth the hardest. The country also faced rapid urbanization as economic opportunities in rural areas deteriorated.

During the 1960’s Jamaica’s man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor was a bee-hive of activ­i­ty, the coun­try lit­er­al­ly had a fac­to­ry which pro­duced lit­er­al­ly every­thing we need­ed as a nation. The entire Twickenham Park area was a ver­i­ta­ble indus­tri­al com­plex not to men­tion the new­port-east and new­port west facil­i­ties which churned out prod­ucts much the same way China does today on a larg­er scale.
Had Jamaica main­tained the mech­a­nisms which ini­ti­at­ed that peri­od of man­u­fac­tur­ing and indus­tri­al growth the con­ver­sa­tion we would be hav­ing today would be envi­ron­men­tal not economical.

Unfortunately despite the gains of the 60’s the peo­ple allowed them­selves to be con­vinced that their lives were hor­ri­ble and they need­ed a change .The pop­u­lar nar­ra­tive was that “bet­ter must come”. The fact of the mat­ter is that at that time Jamaicans expe­ri­enced a far bet­ter stan­dard of liv­ing that their coun­ter­parts in Latin and Central America as well as their Caribbean neigh­bors in Trinidad and Tobago Barbados and the others.
What hap­pened to the peri­od of rel­a­tive pros­per­i­ty of the 60’s and the sense of well-being Jamaicans expe­ri­enced dur­ing the Shearer Years?
Beginning in the mid-1970s, infla­tion was gen­er­al­ly dou­ble-dig­it, caused pri­mar­i­ly by the increase in world oil prices, expan­sion­ary fis­cal poli­cies, and entrenched labor unions. Chronic unem­ploy­ment and reces­sion coex­ist­ed with high infla­tion dur­ing the 1970s, caus­ing stagfla­tion. Unemployment aver­aged rough­ly 25 per­cent dur­ing the 1975 – 85 peri­od, affect­ing women and urban youth the hardest.(country stud­ies us.)

How did a coun­try set on the right course after it’s inde­pen­dence gets so dan­ger­ous­ly off course? The answer to that ques­tion may be sim­pler than we imagine .
POLITICS !!!
Both polit­i­cal par­ties have brought some degree of ruina­tion and squashed the dream of our peo­ple, but there are vary­ing degrees of cul­pa­bil­i­ty and pro­por­tion­al blame to go around.
Well lets here from the peo­ple who actu­al­ly know, let them tell it. Here’s PNP Councillor Vanesha Phillips..

“We have not really been true to the cause because self-worth and pride have been gutted from our people and deliberately so.“Our people today are not recipients of empowerment but instead they have become pawns used in the games by those who wish to create the PNP that they want to exist in,”. “… Instead of empowering them… we use money as a weapon and we have brought our people to their knees just so we can establish our own cause,”

Well there you have it.….…

THE LITTLE ISSUE OF TRADE WARS AND PRODUCT BOYCOTT

Jamaicans have been stew­ing about the treat­ment about our nation­als when they vis­it oth­er Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty Islands (CARICOM). According to CARICOM rules nation­als with­in the com­mu­ni­ty should have free access to oth­er Islands .
At the cen­ter of the dis­qui­et among Jamaicans is what they char­ac­ter­ize as the shod­dy treat­ment they receive when they attempt to tra­verse the Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty as allowed by the CARICOM treaty.

Member states so accused points to crimes alleged­ly being com­mit­ted in their coun­tries by Jamaicans resid­ing in their coun­try . Additionally they com­plain about Jamaicans over­stay­ing their wel­come when they vis­it and in many cas­es arriv­ing in their coun­tries with­out any means of sup­port­ing them­selves and sub­se­quent­ly becom­ing a bur­den to their host coun­tries. Other Caribbean Islands have also barred Jamaican reg­gae enter­tain­ers from their ter­ri­to­ries for what they char­ac­ter­ize as the vio­lent con­tent of their music lyrics(murder music).
In November 2013, it was esti­mat­ed that 16,958 Jamaicans could be resid­ing ille­gal­ly in Trinidad & Tobago, as accord­ing to the records of the Office of the Chief Immigration Officer, their entry cer­tifi­cates would have since expired. By October 2014, it was esti­mat­ed that the num­ber of Jamaicans resid­ing ille­gal­ly in Trinidad and Tobago had reached a record 19,000.

In recent times the ten­sion between Jamaica and it’s neigh­bors Barbados and in par­tic­u­lar Trinidad and Tobago has been ratch­eted up over what Jamaicans claim are repeat­ed instances of bad treat­ment when they vis­it Trinidad in particular.
Trinidad has stuck to it’s guns claim­ing that Jamaicans are over­stay­ing their wel­come, com­mit­ting crimes and are being a bur­den to their tax-pay­ers. A for­mer Trinidad and Tobago National secu­ri­ty Official said that the CARICOM treaty did not super­sede the con­sti­tu­tion of the twin Island Republic.
For it’s part Jamaica has also act­ed in it’s own best inter­est when it sent Yasin Abu Bakr, Leader of the the Radical Trinidadian Muslim group Jamaat al Muslemeen pack­ing in 2014.

Jamaican Government Exactly Right On Abu Bakr

The treat­ment of Jamaican Nationals though regret­table can­not be divorced from the poor way Jamaicans have allowed pol­i­tics to destroy the Island’s once bur­geon­ing econ­o­my,. Neither is it removed from our behav­ior , our propen­si­ty to engage in crim­i­nal activ­i­ties and our vio­lent nature.
No coun­try is going to adjust their behav­ior to suit Jamaica , a coun­try which was once the leader in the region but is now looked at as a bur­den to it’s neighbors.
Jamaicans can rail all they want about boy­cotts, many of the prod­ucts Jamaicans are now con­sum­ing which are com­ing out of Trinidad were once pro­duced right there in Jamaica.
gang­ster style Union tac­tics which backed delin­quent work­ers, strikes and unrea­son­able demands for more wages and oth­er perks forced man­u­fac­tur­ers to take their busi­ness­es to oth­er less hos­tile Islands.
Trinidad was less hostile .…

I sus­pect that not every alleged inci­dent of mal­treat­ment of Jamaicans in oth­er Caribbean Islands is unfound­ed, in the same way I don’t believe every Jamaican accused of over­stay­ing their wel­come and engag­ing in crim­i­nal activ­i­ties are lies.
Whether we want to accept these real­i­ties is nei­ther here nor there, this is the new nor­mal , at present there are thou­sands of Jamaicans back on the Island who once resided in Canada the US and even England who are back because they ran afoul of their host coun­try’s laws.
More and more coun­tries are using these exact­ing cri­te­rias as a way to cleanse their soci­eties of peo­ple they deem unfit.
No one pre­vents Jamaica from doing the same. Jamaicans can threat­en boy­cott all they want , they can also decide to stop shield­ing crim­i­nals , stop engag­ing in crim­i­nal activ­i­ties and clean­ing up their behavior.

Lets face it Trinidad cer­tain­ly needs the trade it does with Jamaica but so does Jamaica needs what­ev­er lit­tle trade it does with Trinidad and it’s oth­er neigh­bors. We are nev­er going to change atti­tudes because we decide to boy­cott prod­ucts we need. We were once a peo­ple whom all Caribbean peo­ple emu­lat­ed and want­ed to be.
Across the globe we were revered and respect­ed , every Caribbean accent was called Jamaican, and the peo­ple speak­ing them nev­er both­ered to cor­rect the mistake.
They want­ed to be us.
We reck­less­ly squan­dered over four decades of our poten­tial pros­per­i­ty on whim­si­cal flights of fan­cy which has seen us fall from rub­bing shoul­ders with Kings to being reviled shunned and hat­ed by beg­gars and paupers.