The Editor, Sir:

Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of Jamaican history could have predicted the current crisis in our country. Prior to Independence, a quality education was the preserve of an elite class. The majority of Jamaican children drifted in a wasteland of inferior schools and stagnant education. The Mighty Sparrow ably described this in his song Dan Is The Man in The Van.

ECONOMY based on AGRICULTURE

Our economy was based primarily on agriculture - sugar cane and bananas. All the primary productive land was firmly in the inherited grasp of a privileged class. Small farmers survived on subsistence farms barely eking out a living while the majority of the labour force sweltered in the cane and banana fields. A few others were able to wrangle plum government jobs.

Capital accumulation, the privy of our colonial masters and their vassals, was beyond the reach of the working man. As our population increased and agriculture declined, we experienced a mass exodus from the country to the cities. There were never enough jobs to absorb these refugees. The political class took advantage of this dislocation and by the '60s we saw the rise of the garrison system with its inhuman rot.

Marginalised

Whenever a people are marginalised by inadequate education, low-wage dead-end jobs and are provided no exit from overcrowded, squalid conditions, they will retaliate. When fences and concrete barriers prevent them from enjoying the beauty of their land and beaches, they will protest. When they are led by governments without vision, they lose hope. Why then are we surprised that we now grapple with a dysfunctional society, engulfed by despair, sewage and crime?

I am, etc.,

R. OSCAR LOFTERS

Lofters1@aol.com

1a Benson Terrace

Kingston 8

Via Go-Jamaica