THE EDITOR, Sir:
MR. DENNIS Morrison, economist writing in the Observer newspaper of April 1, 2001 presents clear and simple facts and figures on our economy over the past 50 years and I have to pay tribute to the clarity of his presentations.
His facts and figures show that over the past 50 years there have been two periods of really strong growth; based on bauxite, tourism, manufacturing together with ancillary developments. Starting in the 1950s and continuing through to the 1960s with investment inflows as high as 28.7 in 1957 and production growth at 14.1 per cent in 1956. The 1960s saw a continuation of this pattern to the late 1960s when this began to slow because there were no new development initiatives.
In my opinion since the mid-1960s and starting with our Independence we retreated from the world of an economy based on simple but clear development plans and we entered the heady world of personality leaders and the cult of the maximum leader; of state control and state vision; and our decline in all areas followed that. A decline in integrity of values and in depth of vision, a pattern coinciding with our Independence and a similar pattern evidenced throughout the new Commonwealth.
So as of today, let us not try to lay blame on segments or sectors of country; they are children of a society that went along with it; inclusive of self. We saw no evil, heard no evil and spoke no evil and yet under this facade of superficial development the decay was eating out the soul of a country; so that as C.L.R. James points out in his classic Beyond a Boundary when even our cricket begins to be infected by this lack of integrity of values you can see that we are scraping the barrel of decay.
However, let us not continue to mourn, the causes and time-frame are now known to all of us; what is needed now, as Mr. Morrison points out, are new development ideas, new development sectors and new development goals. These can only come from all sectors of our society; that is from all people both here and worldwide; but the curse of I-manism that buried the new Commonwealth must be buried along with it.
Time has stood still for us and for most of the new Common-wealth and we face the exact problem of then which is to create a new vision, new development and a new people; the question is... are we going to repeat the history of the past.
We have danced throughout the past 30 years on borrowed clothes and, like Cinderella, time has caught up with us because we forgot the hands of time and the hand of God. Our prince charming is now our spiritual foundation; our love; our people and our skills and resources; waiting to fit it unto a new Jamaica.
I am, etc.,
PETER SOARES
psoares@tangentja.com
