Letter to the Gleaner | Published: Monday | October 5, 2009
The Editor, Sir:
Jamaica's intellectuals at home and abroad have turned their backs on the country's violence. They are lecturing in universities, some hosting radio and television programmes - debating eloquently into a bottomless pit of nonsense - while the security forces struggle to stop this brutal attack on the nation. This country has a population of only 2.8 million, with almost 2,000 murders every year - one of the highest in the world - a scourge that will continue, unless the intellectuals rescue the minds of our youths.
Indeed, we have seen intellectuals unite on many occasions - splitting the atom to defeat the axis of evil of World War II, followed by 50 years of struggle against the expansion of communism - toppling it in the mid-1980s. Recently, they rallied against the Government's idea of bauxite mining in the treasured Cockpit Country - Jamaica's delicate ecosystem, rich in biodiversity with countless wild-life and endemic species, where 60 per cent of the country's fresh water flows. The same passion and zeal used to gather international storm against the Government's mining of the Cockpit Country must be re-routed to creating crimeless minds.
Chest-thumping nationalism
In his essay - 'New Treason of the Intellectuals', Pierre Trudeau argued against chest-thumping nationalism at all costs and proud self-government at the expense of good government, without advancing the people's living conditions: We have expanded a great deal of time and energy proclaiming the rights due our nationality, invoking our divine mission, trumpeting our virtues, bewailing our misfortunes, denouncing our enemies, and avowing our independence; and for all that not one of our workmen is the more skilled, nor a civil servant the more efficient, a financier the richer, a doctor more advanced, a bishop the more learned, nor a single politician the less ignorant.
Jamaica obtained its Independence from England in 1962, the same year Trudeau published his essay on the status of Quebec, still trumpeting political etiquette over economic discipline which would reverse the violence and, to this perilous mistake, our intellectuals sit silently.
Crime is a growth industry Jamaica can do without, so there can be no greater duty than its intellectuals reversing this trend. But if they see the country as a classroom of misbehaving students and, gazing anxiously at the clock, wait patiently to dismiss the class without teaching, then the awful breaches in the nation's social levees - families, law and order, schools and churches - are explainable but inexcusable. The intellectual's ambition is of the people's.
Indeed, it is time for them to lead, finding causes of aggressive behaviour towards one another. Priority should be given to male students entering post-secondary education, until gender equilibrium in education is achieved. Establish self-motivation courses with full academic accreditation into the education curriculum.
Qualitative and quantitative emphasis
Create anti-crime textbooks with projects focusing on family development with qualitative and quantitative emphasis on the economy - with and without violence. The first year of college should be subsidised - a benevolent act to inspire pride and patriotism in our youths. There should be a national correspondence course on parenting with a tax credit on completion. Deportees who committed serious crimes in other countries should not enter the public space before successfully completing psychological evaluation, certifying them fit to join the general population.
If Jamaica's intellectuals have confined their courage to eloquent speeches, leaving only the security forces as a cushion between disorder and peace, the road to true independence will continue to be long, winding and rocky.
I am, etc.,
JEFF WRIGHT
jeff.wright@bell.ca
Ontario, Canada
Monday, October 5, 2009
'Golding opportunities'
Golding and Simpson after the Pre-Election Debate in 2007 - both have a responsibility to help us emerge from this crisis.
Jean Lowrie-Chin | Observer Column | Monday, October 05, 2009
If every crisis is an opportunity, then opportunities abound for Prime Minister Golding and his administration. Leader of the Opposition Portia Simpson Miller, in describing Jamaica as being "between a rock and a hard place" has also summed up the position in which the prime minister finds himself.
So what would you do if you were faced with ever-mounting debt and debtors who would no longer humour your spendthrift ways? First, we have to convince the public that we have no choice, as "He who pays the piper calls the tune". This tune can probably be summed up as a medley of Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff and Peter Tosh: "Talking Blues", "Many Rivers to Cross" and "Glass House".
We heard Education Minister Andrew Holness "talking blues" when he told us that in spite of the fact that his ministry has been encouraging CSEC students by paying exam fees for certain key subjects, over 10 per cent of those who registered for the exam did not show up for the tests. That was $4.5 million down the drain. In his Observer column last Thursday, Mark Wignall quoted the PM's address to parliament regarding the size of the civil service: "the Civil Service Establishment Order shows that there are 41,353 posts in the Central Government. But the total number of persons employed by government in all its ministries, agencies and companies and statutory bodies who have to be paid every week or fortnight or month is 117,000".
Click on title for full column
COMMENTS (4)
jam 2
10/5/2009 2:01 AM
Balanced article Ms. Jean and really sums up the task facing Mr. Prime Minister.........his problem is not with saying the right things it is actually finding the courage to do it, pity he doesnt know how many persons he would win over if he could just find the will to do the unpopular thing...........after all if the PNP were in Government they couldnt escape it either.
usetolivethere
10/5/2009 6:18 AM
The tighting of the belt is one part of the equation but the other part is a change in our psyche;work attitdue.I remember as a civil servant worker in Jamaica that all it takes was just a light drizzle of rain drops that it would take for me showin up late for work or not showing up at all.I you be at work at 8 AM,showed up at ten,took two hours of lunch,then never return to my post after that; I went home.Does that sound familiar?Vacations in the public sector can be accumulated to two years or more!!Public sector workers who had "green cards" took advantage of this by seeking "under the table" jobs in the US.It has been a long held view that because public sector workers are paid starvation wages,they are given free reign to do what they please without the prospect of being fired.This is a dilemma that any goverment in power faces because of the inability to pay proper wages we are left with a lacklustered and indisciplined civil service.
Oliver Hunter
10/5/2009 7:15 AM
The J.O.S. had ceased to exist at least a decade before Peter Phillips took office.
And as for "bringing order" to the commuter system -
I take it that Ms. Chin is not a commuter.
If she was,she wouldnt say such nonsense.
Wes MoLan
10/5/2009 7:20 AM
Both parties have made significant contributions to our development, both positive and negative. It is pointless though to argue which is better.
The "Opportunity" presenting itself now is for Bruce and Portia to sign a pact to stop the nonsense, and, together, rescue our nation from the darkness that surrounds us.
Friday, October 2, 2009
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