The next 50 years of Jamaica Independence

The next 50 years of Independence


By Michael Burke

SO Jamaica's 50th anniversary celebrations are now behind us.  We now journey as a nation towards the 100th anniversary milestone via the 60th, 70th, 75th, 80th and 90th anniversary milestones.  The joy and happiness at our 50th anniversary celebrations were great.  Of course, the naysayers were there but such people exist in every country.

I would have liked to have had even more historical reflections.  It is my hope that at future anniversaries there should be more such reflections.  I would like to commend the planners of the Jubilee Village and those of the Grand Gala, which were really as next to perfect as possible where only the directors would see the mistakes, if any.

But had I been in the planning committee of the Jubilee Village, I would have suggested an imposing sign that stated that 90 per cent of the displays were showing things that did not exist at the time of political Independence in 1962.

It is also a pity that we have not been able to shake some of the indiscipline that we have inherited.  As the crowds filtered out of the stadium after such a wonderful Grand Gala on Independence Day, some technician or other decided that after all the recorded festival music developed since 1962, it was time to play lewd music.  They could not even endure 24 hours without slackness!

It should be noted that the joy and happiness is due to the fact that most people like a party, even if they do not exactly understand what is being celebrated or even believe that there should be a celebration.  As I mentioned last week, I hope that the older ones will get over their unwarranted shame so that they can truly educate the youth into an appreciation of what life was like in Jamaica in 1962.

But perhaps at the 75th or 100th anniversary, fewer of us will be alive to feel ashamed and the history can be looked at in a more dispassionate manner.  Students of history will dig more into the material that exists and will be able to draw their own conclusions. I probably will not live to see the 100th anniversary of Independence (unless I live to at least 108).

But it is still my hope that by then Jamaica will be a republic based on co-operatives that spring from a nation of family units that we are yet to have.  And I hope it happens before our 60th anniversary in 10 years' time. After all, we have been talking about this for decades.

Two things I have suggested before, and I suggest again. First, there should be an emancipendence meal similar to the Jewish Agape meal at their annual Passover celebration.  Second, churches should have an Octave of Emancipendence or eight days of reflective prayer on Emancipation and Independence, as I have been privately doing for the last three years.

The octave that I developed runs the eight days from July 31 to August 7.  It is my hope that others will join me next year. I hope that the octave will become a tradition by the time we reach our 60th anniversary in 10 years' time.

I have also suggested in the past that Jamaica should have an international negotiations conference as part of Independence celebrations.  I envisioned having a major conference and staging it somewhere like the various conference centres, auditoriums and conference halls at hotels. We would also go through the negotiations from the days of self-government (half-Independence) to after political Independence when we did several negotiations.  This should be not only about borrowing but also about trade.

It seems that if this is to take place it will have to be organised by a few people with vision. Indeed, if I could have done it by myself it would have been done already.  I would include all former ambassadors and politicians involved in such negotiations. It would also include those who represented agricultural organisations on negotiation teams in the days when agricultural trade was the economic mainstay of Jamaica.  While we should plan for a day when we stop borrowing, negotiation is a skill that we can make money from by teaching it to others.

I also hope that educational programmes will be in place to stop mental slavery. It takes many forms; one is the belittling of the self, especially the black skin of the majority of Jamaicans.  It also takes the form of belittling all things Jamaican, although that is not so much a problem as our athletes currently win gold medals. But it also takes the form of erroneously believing that we would be better off as a Bristish colony and that our gains would have come anyway. We need as a nation to unlearn that.

We need to invite nationalistic Caymanians here to express their anger when hearing Jamaicans say that Cayman's economic success is due to their colonial status.  The Cayman Islands have had self-government (half-Independence) for more than two decades.  Some Caymanians say that the only thing Britain does for them is to pay the governor's salary.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com

August 09, 2012

Jamaica Observer

The challenges of an independent Jamaica

RAULSTON NEMBHARD




WE are just two years shy of celebrating our 50th year of political independence from Britain. When the Union Jack was lowered on August 6, 1962 and the Jamaican flag raised in its place, there was a surge of pride that we could now become the builders of our own destiny. We stepped out boldly, if not brashly, filled with a sense of optimism as to what we could build.

We did not place any limits on our innate capacities to build a great nation; the future beckoned and we were willing - if naively - to place Jamaica on the map and to make of her a nation with which the world would reckon. We were going to forge ahead, no matter the obstacles. If we stumbled, it was not because we had lost that initial vision but that we were confronted with the predilections of the newly independent in seeking to take responsibility for our own lives and destinies.

Despite the initial optimism we felt as a nation, an honest reflection on where we have come over the past 48 years must leave us deeply concerned about our status as a free society and to wonder where all this independence has gone. A further question may be, if we are truly independent, whose independence has it been? That of the vast majority of our people who continue to bear a disproportionate part of the burden for building this society (the have-nots), or that of the few (the haves) who have sought to govern and exploit them in their own thirst for power — political, economic and intellectual power?

We have come to realise, and sometimes shockingly so, that building a strong, independent nation is not predicated on wishful thinking, or on the capricious behaviour of those we have elected over the years to conduct our business. We are far from being a politically mature nation. We have failed to understand the consensus that should exist between the governed and their governors and that which should redound to good governance. We have simply ignored the time-honoured declaration of Thomas Jefferson to which we have to return constantly to remind ourselves of the basic foundation of good government -- governments which function with the consent of the governed. In that Declaration of American Independence, Jefferson made it known in a flash of brilliance which, as it turned out, was a characteristic of his, that governments exist to secure and promote the rights of people and that prominent among these rights is the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

A nation that has slaughtered close to 2,000 of its people yearly for almost the last decade can hardly be described as a nation that respects the right to life. And I am talking here not only about citizens killing citizens, but extra-judicial killings by agents of the state. As to liberty, how truly free are we to live our lives in the wholesome fashion that Jefferson envisaged? There can be no liberty where there is no justice. Human freedom is constrained by injustice, especially when it is directed to the citizen from the state. When this happens, the citizen is shackled by the predation of the state and this predation is not just limited to the excesses of the state's agents, but by predatory tax laws that prevent him from keeping and using most of what he earns. In summary, we are still not functioning as a just society; we still judge people by how they look and the kind of community in which they reside. The very black among us get a different treatment tending toward injustice than the very brown among us. There is one set of laws for downtown and another for uptown. To use a phrase of the late Ralph Brown in describing socialism, what we have as independence when it comes to justice is "mouthwater" independence.

As to the pursuit of happiness after 48 years of existence as a nation, you can hardly ask one Jamaican how he is doing without getting the dismal response, "Nutten nah gwaan" or some other variant on a misery index. This is as true of those who are making it as it is of those who are barely surviving. Never mind where we are placed by the world as the "third happiest nation". We know in Jamaica life is tough and it is only the truly resilient who make it. It is true that no country can guarantee a person's happiness. Happiness is a function of private initiative and drive deeply riveted in the choices we make. If you squander opportunities that come your way, you cannot blame others for your own misery. For example, there is no law that says you must stay in an unhappy relationship; that you must become addicted to alcohol or other mind-altering substances; that the only way forward in life is to plant a plot of ganja or to become involved in some other nefarious activity. Each one of us lies in the bed we make and this is made worse if you owe three months' hire-purchase payment on it!

While I understand this, governments must create the ambience in which a thriving, energetic citizenry can embark enterprisingly on projects that can improve their lives and those of their families. This is where I think successive governments since independence have failed the Jamaican people. It is to the building of this kind of society that we have to bend our energies. We have wasted a lot of time and lost ground over the past 48 years. We are still a young nation and we can do better. The question is, will we?

stead6655@aol.com


www.drraulston.com

August 11, 2010

jamaicaobserver

Bahamas Blog International