Ian Boyne/ColumnistThe Jamaican political class has no comprehensive, over-arching vision of how to take Jamaica out of its current socio-cultural crisis. Indeed, that class does not seem to fully grasp just what is the nature of that crisis, and its allergy to ideology makes it difficult to provide inspiring leadership to galvanise the energy of the masses.
The two main political parties are in a popularity contest to win our approval for the Best Economic Manager crown, when economics is not our most fundamental challenge. It is not poverty and unemployment per se which account for our high rate of violence, endemic corruption and growing social disorder. Contrary to Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) propaganda, it is not just the provision of jobs, expanded educational opportunities and political reform which will solve our deep social problems. And if the People's National Party (PNP) believes that all it has to do is to balance the budget, keep interest rates low and the NIR high, and generally does a good job of macroeconomic management to solve our social problems, then it is
living in a fool's paradise.
The political leadership overall 'PNP and JLP' needs to do some fundamental rethinking on its approach to the country's social crisis. The political leadership needs to have a grasp of the nature of the real crisis, which the society faces, which goes way beyond economics and politics. I can do no better than to do what I have done for the last seven years when I have addressed this issue which is to go back to Don Robotham's stellar Grace Kennedy Foundation lecture of 1998, titled 'Vision and Voluntarism'.
"There is no rationale behind the term 'Jamaican' which expresses any sense of common purpose. That is our fundamental problem." It is not the failure to grow the economy. It is not the failure to build factories or to improve the educational system. The bigger issue, Robotham told us in that incisive GraceKennedy Foundation lecture is that "many of us act out of conflicting visions of the Jamaica that suit our short term purposes. There is no common vision which strongly unites a wide cross-section of the people of what it means to be Jamaican. Therefore, there is almost no sense of what our mutual obligations are."
Professor Robotham clearly and insightfully saw what our most fundamental challenge was and is in Jamaica: "The fundamental issue, therefore, is how do we strengthen the moral bonds of the Jamaican society. How do we give real meaning to this concept 'Jamaica'" We have to try to address this most forbidding challenge: How can we recover and display a sense of regard for one another and an interest in the well-being of our fellow citizens? In the name of what ideals and focusing on what goals can this be done? Economistic goals are not enough to bring about this strengthening of the moral bonds and sense of civic duty among Jamaicans.
An economistic approach is likely to worsen the dog-eat-dog, rat-race rugged individualism and hedonism, which have inundated Jamaica and which is at the heart of our high crime and corruption rate. Today, the highest value for many Jamaicans is money and what it can purchase.
The political class needs to understand that its first order of business is to try to build a certain type of Jamaican; a Jamaican motivated by values and virtues, and not by expedience and convenience.
MYOPIC
Sometimes I find it comical to hear politicians "appealing to patriotism, and pleading with people not to put their selfish interests ahead of their country's interests. But why not if morality is not central?"
The church in Jamaica has been an abysmal failure, for its leaders have been spectacularly myopic, intellectually befuddled and politically ineffective. The church is more known for its opposition to casino gambling, horseracing on Sunday and Carnival than it is for making a rational and pragmatic case for moral visioning. It has failed to intellectually challenge the political class, which has now become virtually hostage to the private sector. What a stunningly refreshing thing it was to hear one of the leading private sector persons, Donovan Perkins (whom I have always regarded as one of the brightest) blow the whistle on the Government last week and advise them to run a small deficit next year in the interest of national security and social stability.
The church and the trade union movement should be ashamed, for they should be making that call, as heretical as it is in the theology of the Washington Consensus. There are hard choices in the real world, of course, for running a deficit has serious implications in this globalised world where rating agencies have such a significant effect on a country's ability to raise capital in the international markets, and when the IMF frowns on such deviation from orthodoxy.
But let's face some other facts. If we take an economistic approach to problem-solving, we are in a serious bind. Do you think we can have a balanced budget, reduce social expenditures and create the numbers of jobs and social interventions needed in the inner-cities to reduce crime? If the mantra is true, that only by expanding employment and educational opportunities in the inner-cities can crime be contained, and this will take billions what is our hope of solving crime, in the context of fiscal conservatism and following the IMF-World Bank, neo-liberal system?
If it is just economic oppor-tunities which will pull our young girls from keeping older men who are giving them AIDS at an alarming rate, what hope do you have? If people are motivated purely by money, then how many millions of dollars will the Government have to spend in ads to convince poor people to turn in to Kingfish, the dons who send their children to school, buy medicines for the old people and who 'let off' money on the youth in the inner-cities?
When people don't have any ideology whether religious or political what will prevent them from bowing to the dons and shielding criminals? What will keep the policeman from taking $1 million to aid the don with his drugs or to take bribes to let off corrupt importers? Mike Surridge would have fewer problems if there were more moral people 'foolish' enough to put values and principles ahead of financial gain.
CORRUPTION
Audley Shaw has made a name out of screaming about corruption, but corruption continues in all spheres and will continue under any government, if the predominant value in Jamaica remains materialism and hedonism. I quote again from the Don Robotham Bible, the 1998 Grace, Kennedy Foundation lecture, which should be required reading for everyone seeking to succeed the old political guard: "Every man and woman for himself and herself seems to be the slogan which is expressed in all departments of Jamaican life, from how we behave on the roads, in the minibus, at sports events at the workplace and, of course, in our politics "to how we behave in families and among friends."
The lack of an ideology or a philosophical centre is so profoundly disabling that it is seriously jeopardising our chance of sustainable economic growth. Jamaica would be far more successful economically, if, in fact, our politicians were not so afraid of ideology. We all marvel at the economic juggernaut that is called China, but this was not built on just economics. It has been built on ideology; not the ideology of communism, but something far deeper and more pervasive, the ideology of Confucianism which stresses devotion to the group over individual interest.
IMPORTANT VALUES
Indeed, in an essay in the Dec-ember 2004 issue of the scholar journal Political Studies titled, 'The Chinese Diaspora as a Virtual Nation: Interactive Roles Between Economic and Social Capital', Gordon C.K. Cheung shows that it is the ideology of Confucianism which provides a significant explanation of the fact that the Chinese diaspora has done so well in Southeast Asia. "Confucianism provides a common cultural trait among Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia. Those values, such as working hard, respect for learning, harmony
and family values, are some of
the core values embedded in Confucianism."
We would do well with some of these values in Jamaica. But, our dancehall music promotes and extols promiscuity, irresponsible fatherhood, excessive consumerism which hold our people back, yet it is applauded by our dancehall scholars.
Tony Weiss has an excellent article analysing Jamaica's fundamental challenges in the spring 2005 issue of the scholarly Marxist journal, Capital and Class. In a surgical analysis Weiss says Jamaica's "culture of migration has a dangerous flipside that threatens to create new forms of dependence, not only on the money and the barrels full of consumer goods being sent back, but at the level of ideas and aspirations."
Weiss mourns the fact that aside from foreign penetration through Hollywood and video games, "the indigenous pop culture of the Jamaican youth has lost much of its progressive social message. Reggae has been replaced by dancehall which often celebrates greed, consumerism, guns gangs, homophobia and the objectification of women, a sad degeneration from reggae stars and radical poets like Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Burning Spear and Culture." But only local dancehall scholars can't see that.
Weiss deplores "the rise of an aggressive individualism and of implosive, often violent social behaviours and the impact of foreign-centred cultural aspirations", as well as, 'apathy and avoidance'.
Apart from the abundance of sociological and psychological evidence that economic prosperity such as exists in the developed countries does not in itself
produce happiness and well-being (see the 68-page special on 'The Science of Happiness' in the January 17, 2005 issue of Time magazine), the fact is that Jamaica will never be able to have enough money to throw at our social problems. So we have to create a moral revolution and from that build the economic revolution. The politicians have the cart before the horse, and are failing to give the ideological direction and vision that the country needs to climb out of its social and moral decay.
Ian Boyne is a veteran
journalist. You can send
your comments to
ianboyne1@gleanerjm.com
or infocus@gleanerjm.com
