FROM A perch of more than a century and a half we have offered a sketch in outline and headlines of where we have come these past 40 years.
Yesterday's compilation was not history as scholars would have it. It merely recalled some highlights of the news and events that made this nation. We would hope that it supports the notion that there is little point in hankering after Britain or Africa as Mother Country, and that so many other nationalities and races have made the mix by tutelage and cultural influence on what is uniquely Jamaican.
That, we submit, is what we should be celebrating as we think about the historical continuum between Emancipation and Independence, and the four decades since then.
We accept the dictum that the past is foundation; that we should know where we have come from to determine where we should go. But there must come a point, and it must have already have passed, when we cease to blame the legacy of slavery for the frailties of family, for example, which have spawned so many social problems.
It might be easier for the great majority who had no taste of colonial Jamaica to accept what Independence means. The record of achievement in so many spheres is well documented. And it sparks the wonder that this small island nation could have attained world standards in so many instances out of proportion to its size.
The balance sheet internally will be skewed in line with political preference in this election season. But it is fair to say that the atrocities of factional violence do not obscure the fact that the nation has weathered such crises as a one-party Parliament and still kept the polity intact.
Even as we approach another general election there are positive signs that the administrative machinery will ensure the sanctity of the ballot as the decisive factor.
At this stage of our history it might be useful to recall a little homily offered in early Independence by the late great Theodore Sealy, then Editor of this newspaper. He likened Independence to the opening of a gate to a barnyard. The chickens inside approached the opening with some apprehension at first, unsure of what to do. Then suddenly with loud cackling they surged forward in all directions.
This generation of grown hens should see their own chickens home to roost.
