Daniel ThwaitesTHE RECENT Gleaner poll indicating that the JLP has a marginal lead in the polls is interesting for a number of reasons. After a very tough year for the governing PNP, both parties are neck and neck. It means that the JLP, though improving, has yet to generate much excitement, while the PNP appear off-balance. The PNP has a real problem with convincing people that they have the managerial skills to run the country. The myth of Seaga as a superior manager guru, now completely exploded by the hard facts, is nevertheless lingering in the body-politic.
Still, more interesting than the party standings are the numbers indicating who is detaching themselves from the political process. It indicates that a higher number of women than men are disaffected. It doesn't say why, but it perhaps has to do with the aggressive rhetoric and sometimes behaviour that is a part of our political life.
Additionally, young people have yet to be excited by any political party, as is evidenced by the larger numbers of them that are detached from the political process. This means that the G2K Labourites, most of whom qualify as young only in the sense of maybe not yet being grandparents, have their work cut out for them. Similarly for the PNP, that is operating with an ageing and increasingly exhausted slate of candidates.
Most alarming of all is that whereas only 29 per cent of upper and upper middle class people feel detached from the political process, the lower middle class and low-income group are detached by 44 and 48 per cent respectively. In other words, the wealthier are more involved less detached than the less wealthy. In other words, those with less economic power are abandoning the political process more rapidly, thereby giving it over to those with more economic power. In those circumstances, the PNP base of support will reveal stress and that will be reflected in the overall figures indicating a statistical dead-heat.
Democratic government has within it the possibility of politically empowering those who are economically disempowered, and that is its everlasting charm. But the numbers in The Gleaner poll indicate a sinister reality, very much the case in many other countries, where the poor either disenfranchise themselves through negligence, or are disenfranchised through ignorance.
In Jamaica there is a rich history of high political sophistication and involvement spread throughout all classes in the country. It was encouraged in the 1970s and cultured deliberately as people were encouraged to take the reins of governance for themselves. Nowadays, a programme of civic education should be routine, both in schools and in the mass media. Instead, people are fed a diet of mind-numbing cynicism about 'politics' that the wealthy and their spokesmen champion but do not really believe. For they know that politics cannot be repudiated, but rather, has to be practised for specific objectives.
Mind you, there is a lot of history to the belief that there is something called 'politics' that is bad. St. Augustine championed the idea that this corrupted world ought to be endured while one waited for the Heavenly City of God. Politics in that scheme is a mere diversion from the more important things. There is much of this thinking abroad in Jamaica. Aristotle, more lucid on this matter as on most others, thought differently. Having a political life is part of what it is to have a human life. We are political animals, and politics is a positive, necessary feature of our relationships with each other.
Disengagement is a luxury and a self-indulgence that this young country cannot afford. And certainly it is dangerous when the majority cedes political input over to others. The wealthy and better educated are smart enough to always complain about the political process, and even to discourage participation in it, but never foolish enough to actually cease participation or to give it over to others. No class of Jamaicans should retreat from the political process and thereby rob it of their voices, or of the challenge of meeting their legitimate demands.
A word of thanks
I would like to thank a number of people for bringing the true spirit of these holidays to a family in Westmoreland. The circumstances were, I am certain, not atypical. Through a mixture of bad luck and some irresponsibility, a boy had become lost to those who could care for him, and ended up in the hands of the State. There he received good care, but his family wanted him back. Audrey Budhi, Mr. Winston Bowen, and Mr. Green were all instrumental in restoring this young fellow to his family. There has been an appreciable and noticeable difference in the working of the Children Services Division of the Ministry of Health since the wise decision to put Ambassador Marjorie Taylor in charge of it. Thanks for exhibiting the true spirit of Christmas.
Daniel Thwaites is involved in teaching and writing.
