Delroy ChuckON FRIDAY, August 6, Jamaica celebrates its forty-second anniversary of independence, even while many wonder, quite rightly, what is there to celebrate. Forty-two years ago, the hopes of the nation were so high. Jamaica stood on the safe platform of economic prosperity, raring to take off. For a decade, it appeared the right decision was made to go it alone. Now, 42 years after independence, we seek to rejoin the rest of the Caribbean in an economic union through the CSME.
The birth of a new nation opened unlimited opportunities for the nation to shine and to chart a peaceful and prosperous course. We did not choose the path to prosperity. Instead, we slipped on to a path of which we cannot be proud. In some areas, such as sports and music, Jamaica has done well. But, daily, Jamaica squanders its goodwill and good name, at home and abroad, from the unrelenting scourge of murders, illegal drugs, illiteracy, injustice and deepening poverty. When things go wrong, someone should bear responsibility but no one does. We find others to blame, especially for our persistent poverty.
BLAME
Quite frankly, it is simply futile and foolish to blame, and continue to blame, the slave masters, the white imperialists, capitalism and globalisation, when we could have, and can still, chart our own destiny. Forty-two years after independence, instead of building a nation for all, we continue to promote the primacy of politics. Instead of emphasising the entrepreneurial spirit, the need to create wealth and inspire production and development, we tout and gloat about the distribution of wealth, most of which is borrowed. Jamaica moves precariously on a slippery economic precipice, held in place by our continuing ability to borrow at home and abroad. We have no definitive plans or concrete economic development that can give us some hope that we can work our way out of the present economic mess. Until we get the economics right, it is unlikely we can get anything right.
Since independence, we are plagued with illiteracy, poverty, and criminality, for the simple reason that we have failed to provide adequately for the vast majority of our people to enjoy a better life. No amount of preaching and promotion of values and attitudes, education and skills, law and order, etc. will suffice if people are unable to find the means of subsistence to provide for themselves and their families.
LOW CRIME RATES
Two weeks ago, I wrote that culturally diverse societies such as Singapore, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands have very low crime rates through strong and growing economies. Interestingly, Singapore is at present very perturbed because its murders have moved from 11 to 12 for the first six months of the year, when compared with last year. Imagine Singapore, a city-state of 4 million people, whose population occupy space less than the size of St. James, has less murders per year than we have in a week. Singapore once had a crime problem, especially with the opium and heroin trade but economic opportunities have overtaken and become much more attractive than illegal transactions. So, why have we not got the economics right? The simple answer is that we have not taken economic growth and development seriously.
In the seventies, we blamed imperialism and wasted energy and effort searching for a mysterious New World Economic Order. In the nineties, we searched everywhere for money to borrow instead of seeking investment and attracting entrepreneurs to open factories. Actually, instead of promoting export production, we watched defiantly while factories closed, businesses capsized and the financial sector collapsed, without understanding that the problem was the profligate government spending and poor economic policies that brought the nation to its knees, from which we have yet to rise.
Now, 42 years after, the spin-doctors mislead the country that we are on the right track. Apart from a few successes, education is in a mess. The legal system fails to deliver justice in a timely and adequate manner. Crime and violence have become a clear and present danger to the nation's survival. The social services have fallen apart, as there is simply no money. Hospitals cannot even afford the basic medicine to care for patients. Tourism is doing well and provides the only bright prospect for the future. But, if tourism is to continue to do well, the rest of the country must start to do well, the benefits need to reach across to the farmers, taxi drivers and the ordinary inner city dweller.
CLEAN UP
The truth is that tourism can do many times better if only we clean up our communities and beautify the tourist resorts. If we are to get it right, the government must provide policies to inspire the entrepreneurial spirit and create the economic environment for businesses to take off. However, I am not sanguine that this will happen. A government whose leaders are mentally imprisoned by the tenets of socialism and see the problems of the country as the inequitable sharing of the global wealth are unlikely to encourage its citizens to create wealth and to become prosperous. Yet, if Jamaica is to become prosperous, its people must become prosperous, and only then will we have meaningful achievements to celebrate.
Delroy Chuck is an attorney-at-law and Opposition Member of Parliament. He can be contacted by email at delchuck@hotmail.com.
