WE HAVE recently been celebrating Emancipation. Certainly the abolishment of slavery was something greatly to be celebrated. As we all know, however, when the slaves were "freed" by political action no economic provisions were made to turn that "freedom" into a reality. In addition the terms of trade were stacked against them. In consequence the main result of political freedom was a century and a half of poverty; a poverty which has never been alleviated.

And then came another dose of politically contrived freedom. In the 1940s and 1950s our leaders were so intoxicated by the idea of becoming a free and independent nation that we again, like the former slaves, accepted a political freedom without any economic provisions to make that freedom a reality. In consequence ever since 1962 our poverty has continued and the terms of trade have continued to be stacked against us.

Thereafter, after a brief and disastrous love affair with a rhetorical socialism, we switched to something which we called private enterprise. In no time we found ourselves enmeshed in another ideology called Globalisation and Free Trade. It all sounded very promising, but the practical effects have been to give large international corporations, growing larger and larger daily, the capacity to manipulate world trade in their favour. This has undoubtedly increased the wealth of some developed economies, especially that of the USA.

But once again we have become enmeshed in a system which is stacked against Third World countries, and once again Jamaica, in particular, is finding itself in swirling currents without a suitable lifebelt. A few Third World countries, some of them in the Caribbean, have been able to survive and prosper by the application of intelligence, farsightedness and thrift. But, as usual, Jamaican short-sightedness and the love of words without content have contrived to make us the sorry victims of the brave new world of Globalisation and Free Trade.

So in the midst of our celebration of Emancipation and Independence (without economic reality) we are finding ourselves progressively impoverished.

We are told that our salvation depends upon our ability to compete. Fair enough, up to a point. But how can we compete when our Government by short-sightedness and neglect puts our capacity to do so beyond our reach. Worse than that we have adopted a gross materialism which guarantees a progressive sinking into debt. Debt combined with self-foolery are the two provisions which we are currently making for our unfortunate descendants.

A LITTLE STORY

A small boy asks his Dad, "What is politics?" Dad says, "Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I'm the breadwinner of the family, so let's call me Capitalism. Your Mom, she's the administrator of the money, so we'll call her the Government. We're here to take care of your needs, so we'll call you the people. The Nanny, we'll consider her the Working Class. And your baby brother, we'll call him the Future. Now, think about that and see if that makes sense".

So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said. Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper.

So the little boy goes to his parents' room and finds his mother sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the Nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the Nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed.

The next morning, the little boy says to his father, "Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now".

The father says, "Good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about".

The little boy replies, "Well, while Capitalism is screwing the Working Class, the Govern-ment is sound asleep, the people are being ignored and the Future is in Deep Poop".