Peter Espeut
EXCUSE ME if I am not excited about the coming leadership change in the present ruling party, or the possible change in the governing party at the next general election. Change means, well, change, and I don't foresee a lot of it.
The big news of the day - and of the last many years - is crime, particularly murder, and how to reduce it. You tell me which candidate looks more likely to have a solution to this problem? Is it the front-runner, the leader of the biggest and most powerful PNP garrison in the country?
Can it be any one of the triumvirate which made sure to sit in the front row of the 'Orange Funeral' for one of the biggest dons in the country at the time? It doesn't seem to matter, somehow, which one wins; they are all peas from the same pod. Whichever one wins, a garrison MP wins, and the garrison model remains intact, and will probably be strengthened. If there is any change, it will probably be for the worse.
Why aren't the delegates being offered a non-garrison choice? Even just to be different, couldn't one of the candidates say: "I am the non-garrison choice. If I become Prime Minister I will clean up Jamaica of illegal guns. If I become Prime Minister I will clean up the party from its association with garrisons and gunmen. I will so change our party that no gunmen will be comfortable inside here. I will so change our party that no extortionists will be comfortable inside here. This is my plan to clean up crime and crookery in this country. Vote for me and I promise you a clean party and a clean country."
SYSTEM WILL NOT CHANGE
Of course, this sort of talk is not a part of the campaign. Political garrisons are a constant and the system will not change no matter who becomes the next party president. The present president did not put a stop to it; it will form an indelible part of his legacy.
And whoever wins the PNP race will face the ultimate showdown with the new leader of the first and biggest Jamaican garrison of them all! We will have our own little O.K. Corral, to see who is the greatest. The convergence is fascinating - the sameness between the two parties, such that it may not really matter to decent citizens who wins.
It matters to the political hacks, though, because it's really a question of to which cadre of political devotees the scarce benefits and political spoils will go - of who gets what, when and how. These, of course, are not my words but those of incumbent politicians describing their world, the world they have helped to create.
CITIZENS POWERLESS
Let's face it: next year, and for the next many years, Jamaica is going to have a Prime Minister who rules over a garrison constituency. This is clearly the direction in which the country is going, and decent citizens are powerless to stop it.
Few will disagree that our dysfunctional education system is the major social problem of our relatively new nation, creating so many social misfits and unemployables, persons unable to reason clearly, and stunting entrepreneurship.
Even now, 40+ years after Independence, we still struggle to persuade rural parents to send their children to school on Fridays; still struggle to achieve 60 per cent literacy at grade six; and still have not provided decent high school places for more than 15 per cent of our children.
Which candidate, which party is even committed to do what Barbados and Singapore did 40 years ago? Could the governments and political parties in Barbados and Singapore be accused of holding their people in the most utter contempt by keeping them largely poor and illiterate?
Of course, there is a close linkage in Jamaica between poor education and the process of achieving political power. At times like this, it is clearest that sound moral formation and rational thinking are obstacles to the advancement of political agendas.
I wish it were not so, but as the saying goes, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. So you will understand why I find no joy or excitement about the prospect of changes in political leadership on both sides: new maybe, but hardly different; or is it different, but hardly new?
Peter Espeut is a sociologist, and is executive director of an environment and development non-governmental organisation.
