GEORGETOWN, Guyana -- The Caribbean Economic Performance Report 2009, compiled by the Caribbean Centre for Money and Finance, recently projected the member states to end this year with mixed fortunes, as some will see growth while others will be in deficit.
The report says many Caribbean economies remain in recession, awaiting the recovery of the United States and other Industrial economies, which supply the region’s tourists, remittance and foreign direct investment, and which absorb Caribbean exports.
It adds that advance tourism bookings are reported to be dismal, and natural gas prices remain low, even though oil prices have recovered substantially.
Foreign exchange inflows continue to decline compared to 2008, economies remain depressed and unemployment is on the increase, in spite of efforts by governments and private firms to minimize the loss of jobs.” the report noted.
However, it added that balance of payments pressures have abated in Jamaica, the country most severely affected by outflows, and the exchange rate there has stabilized.
“Foreign exchange levels remain acceptable throughout the region, aided by a small increase in the global allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF)," the report outlined.
Five member countries of the OECS have accessed modest amounts of IMF financing, and the Jamaican authorities remain in discussion with the Fund for financing under a Standby Arrangement.
“Aruba, Belize, Guyana, Haiti and the Netherlands Antilles all recorded higher levels of foreign exchange reserves, comparing the latest month with a year earlier, with increases ranging from 10 to 30 percent,” the report states.
The 27 page document also noted that the average growth rate for the region is expected to be 1.6 percent this year, with Belize, Dominica, Guyana, Haiti and Suriname expected to record positive but slow growth in 2009.
It noted too that Guyana, despite a decline in growth of real output during the first quarter of 2009, which was due primarily to losses in the sugar sector, rebounded due to mixed output in the manufacturing and services sectors and the rice industry.
In the first quarter of 2009, the report says, Guyana’s inflation rate dropped sharply to 1.95 per cent compared to the 7.45 per cent it recorded for the same period in 2008. This was due to the fall in international oil and commodity prices as well as falling domestic prices of food items.
Caribbean economies cannot expect to emerge from recession before the US does. Advance tourism bookings are reported to be dismal, and natural gas prices remain low, even though oil prices have recovered substantially. Most tourism economies and the energy and mineral industries depend mainly on the US market.
The prospects for agriculture and those tourism economies that are less dependent on the US are not much better, because the economies of Canada, the UK and the rest of Europe all depend heavily on exports to the US to help fuel the recovery of economic output.
The policy responses of Caribbean governments are beginning to take effect as they marketing and promotional activity, and measures for some degree of amelioration of the adverse social impact of the economic contraction. So far the impact on government budgets and debt service has been mild, but much of the additional expenditure is yet to come on stream.
The economic recession has depressed fiscal revenues everywhere, and the impact has been especially severe because of the region’s increasing dependence on the Value Added Tax (VAT), which is especially sensitive to a fall in spending.
Even though governments’ efforts to contain the adverse impact of the crisis have resulted in only modest increases in spending, it says, the extent of revenue loss meant that the overall fiscal position deteriorated badly everywhere.
The unfinanced fiscal gap was the main motivation for OECS countries to seek financing from the IMF and other international financing agencies.
December 30, 2009
caribbeannetnews
An International Caribbean Online Log about the news and opinions in the Americas and World. This Caribbean Blog of global reach and appeal is maintained by Bahamian Blogger - Dennis Dames with all readers and subscribers in mind.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Facing a new wave of social and economic bedlam under the IMF - Jamaica's dilemma
By Fritz-Earle McLymont:
My heart goes out to the families of the 117,000 civil servants who are planned casualties of the Jamaica government’s transformation program. I pity the official upon whom the responsibility for implementing this disaster has been thrust.
Following the resignation of the head of the Central Bank and the Commissioner of Police, I saw the red flag of the IMF. I just concluded reading Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine that chronicles the effects of economic “shock therapy” and the consequences to the local economies. From Bolivia, to Chile to Argentina to Russia, the stories are the same: the citizens suffer. Klein attributes much of the disaster to the attempt to carry out Friedmanite economic policies, with the support or complicity of the IMF. But the results have been the same: disaster and terror for large segments of the population whose leaders seek sustenance at the IMF trough.
The IMF issued its first full-fledged “structural adjustment” program in 1983. For the next two decades, every country that came to the fund for a major loan was informed that it needed to revamp its economy from top to bottom. According to Shock Doctrine, David Budhoo, an IMF senior economist who designed structural adjustment programs in Latin America and Africa throughout the eighties, admitted later that “everything we did from 1983 onward was based on our new sense of mission to have the south privatized or die; towards this end we ignominiously created economic bedlam in Latin America and Africa in 1983-88.” I have yet to see real long-term social and economic progress in any of these IMF-adjusted countries.
Somewhere between 1979 and 1981, I was spared personal disaster while managing a government enterprise in Jamaica. I persuaded the workers and union to accept minimum increases in wages for two years to enable the company to increase its assets and consequently its income. The plan worked and when the time came to give the big wage increase from earnings that did accumulate, I was told that IMF guidelines prohibited me from giving the promised increase. Given the social and political tensions in Jamaica at the time, I had no intention of facing more than 150 Jamaican workers to tell them that the deal was off. No one from the IMF was willing to do so either. Fortunately, I learned that the IMF instruction was not a law of the Jamaican government, but a directive from Washington. I found a creative way to get around the IMF policy and my workers got their increase, leaving me safe to walk the streets of Montego Bay.
A few countries, such as Malaysia, have rejected IMF medicine and survived. In the 1990s, when the IMF offered to help the “Asian tigers” withstand a financial assault on their fast-growing economies, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad declined the offer, saying that, with relatively small debt, he did not have to “destroy the economy in order that it should become better.” The IMF official in charge of the talks at the time said, “You can’t force a country to ask you for help. It has to ask. But when it is out of money, it hasn’t got many places to turn.” Malaysia proved him wrong. A predominantly Muslim country whose people had been instructed to save for the pilgrimage to Mecca, it turned to local banks that were flush with pilgrimage cash.
Can we instill in Jamaicans a similar behavioral change of sacrificing a little today for a long-term benefit? In the 1990s I witnessed the fever pitch in long, patient lines as Jamaicans sought quick money from the Partner scams. This same patience, faith and commitment must now shift Jamaica into productive energy if our country is to survive. For the global challenge in this century will be productivity not money.
Jamaicans often compare Jamaica with economically successful Singapore, both former colonies. Jamaica is a victim of its own choices. At about the same time that Singapore’s leaders chose to invest heavily in the development of their productive capacity, Jamaica rejected the direction of industrial development, advocated by Jamaican industrialists such as Robert Lightbourne, and opted for quick money, either borrowed or donated. Tourism, bauxite and agriculture were expected to be significant contributors to growth, but they have performed feebly in spite of considerable investment of the borrowed or donated funds. Today’s generation is paying for those choices in the form of debt burden. From 1980 to 1986, Jamaica's total debt doubled, making the island one of the most indebted countries in the world on a per capita basis. Jamaica's debt peaked in the mid-1980s at US$3.5 billion. With IMF and World Bank conditionalities in force, Jamaica experienced a 30 percent leap in unemployment, a 30 percent fall in public investment and a fall of 48 percent in real incomes between 1983 and 1985. By 1984 the World Bank proclaimed Jamaica one of its success stories because its trade balance had shifted into surplus. But it was a 'success' in which 29 percent of children under three years old were malnourished, 43 percent of mothers were anemic, and polio deaths had appeared for the first time in 30 years. Between 1996 and 2003, Jamaica’s public debt rose by 71 percentage points of GDP – a growth considered a reflection of changing circumstances at home and conditions abroad.
Today, with a public debt in the range of US$15 billion, Jamaica’s Ministry of Finance is preparing the country for another IMF hit. Moody’s, the rating service, has downgraded Jamaica’s rating for internal and external bonds. Alessandra Alecci, its vice president/senior analyst, explained why: “The negative outlook reflects uncertainty associated with the potential consequences of protracted delays in reaching a final agreement with the IMF. Such a situation would lead to a loss of confidence that could negatively affect the exchange rate and exert upward pressures on domestic interest rates. If these conditions were to materialize, they could create a situation in which the government's liquidity would be stretched and investors would face higher losses as the decision to restructure debt would be made under duress.”
I do not expect the financial news out of Jamaica to improve any time soon. However, if change is actually taking place globally, paying serious attention to infrastructure improvement and production by Jamaicans may be the good news for the future. The words of a Morgan Stanley executive on the Asian crisis of the 1990s are worth heeding: “What we need now in Asia is more bad news. Bad news is needed to keep stimulating the adjustment process.”
Let’s respectfully accept the words of such foreign experts as opinions not prescriptions.
There is some consolation in the fact that most of Jamaica’s debt is held by local institutions, which should be more open than foreign lenders to seeking long-term solutions that ease the pain. The short-term situation is bad. Estimates are that over 55 percent of the central government’s revenue goes to service debts that stand at 16 percent of GDP for the current fiscal year. Over the past ten years Jamaica’s public debt to GDP ratio remained above 100 percent. Jamaicans must accept the challenge to produce for its domestic needs. Growth and productivity must come from within, as proven by Singapore’s success.
In a recent interview, Prime Minister Golding acknowledged the positive impact of Rastafari on the Jamaican society over the past 50 years. Much can be learned from the Rastafari experience, a uniquely Jamaican development -- from recycling rubber tyres for shoes and building shelter from scrap to providing a multibillion-dollar cultural product (Reggae) to the global music and entertainment industry. The Ital lifestyle (Google Ital) pioneered in Jamaica is now part of a global alternative lifestyle representing a multibillion-dollar industry. These are testimonies to Jamaica’s ability to produce from within.
While some have been seeking external solutions to our financial and economic problems, our homegrown professionals have been producing world class athletes and performing artists with a fraction of the investment that other countries incur. The health, wellness and sports industries are multibillion-dollar sectors not yet fully exploited.
I hope the next group of esteemed Jamaicans pondering solutions to the island’s productivity challenge will look to Usain Bolt and Mutabaruka, two of the island’s most recognized talents now lecturing to a global audience, as further examples of homegrown successes in their respective industries in and outside the island. They follow such international Jamaican icons as Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey. How far removed these performers seem from the “crisis,” where “a situation in which the government's liquidity would be stretched and investors would face higher losses as the decision to restructure debt would be made under duress.”
I have been known to offer advice when not asked and I shall do it again. Jamaica’s Prime Minister should take the Jamaican creditors for a few days’ retreat in the Cockpit country of Trelawny, a major producer of yam. Start the day with an early morning jog with Bolt, one hour per day with a producing yam farmer, and evenings in a reasoning session on “success” with Mutabaruka.
Somewhere I learned that success is not where you are but the obstacles you had to overcome to get where you are. I remain optimistic about Jamaica’s future success. We have a long history of overcoming obstacles. Our political leaders must look at this history for answers.
Fritz-Earle S. McLymont, a Jamaican, is Managing Partner of McLymont, Kunda & Co. an international trade and development strategist firm, and Managing Director of NMBC Global, a not for profit organization involved in international development. He can be contacted at Fmclymont1@nmbc.org
December 28, 2009
caribdaily
My heart goes out to the families of the 117,000 civil servants who are planned casualties of the Jamaica government’s transformation program. I pity the official upon whom the responsibility for implementing this disaster has been thrust.
Following the resignation of the head of the Central Bank and the Commissioner of Police, I saw the red flag of the IMF. I just concluded reading Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine that chronicles the effects of economic “shock therapy” and the consequences to the local economies. From Bolivia, to Chile to Argentina to Russia, the stories are the same: the citizens suffer. Klein attributes much of the disaster to the attempt to carry out Friedmanite economic policies, with the support or complicity of the IMF. But the results have been the same: disaster and terror for large segments of the population whose leaders seek sustenance at the IMF trough.
The IMF issued its first full-fledged “structural adjustment” program in 1983. For the next two decades, every country that came to the fund for a major loan was informed that it needed to revamp its economy from top to bottom. According to Shock Doctrine, David Budhoo, an IMF senior economist who designed structural adjustment programs in Latin America and Africa throughout the eighties, admitted later that “everything we did from 1983 onward was based on our new sense of mission to have the south privatized or die; towards this end we ignominiously created economic bedlam in Latin America and Africa in 1983-88.” I have yet to see real long-term social and economic progress in any of these IMF-adjusted countries.
Somewhere between 1979 and 1981, I was spared personal disaster while managing a government enterprise in Jamaica. I persuaded the workers and union to accept minimum increases in wages for two years to enable the company to increase its assets and consequently its income. The plan worked and when the time came to give the big wage increase from earnings that did accumulate, I was told that IMF guidelines prohibited me from giving the promised increase. Given the social and political tensions in Jamaica at the time, I had no intention of facing more than 150 Jamaican workers to tell them that the deal was off. No one from the IMF was willing to do so either. Fortunately, I learned that the IMF instruction was not a law of the Jamaican government, but a directive from Washington. I found a creative way to get around the IMF policy and my workers got their increase, leaving me safe to walk the streets of Montego Bay.
A few countries, such as Malaysia, have rejected IMF medicine and survived. In the 1990s, when the IMF offered to help the “Asian tigers” withstand a financial assault on their fast-growing economies, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad declined the offer, saying that, with relatively small debt, he did not have to “destroy the economy in order that it should become better.” The IMF official in charge of the talks at the time said, “You can’t force a country to ask you for help. It has to ask. But when it is out of money, it hasn’t got many places to turn.” Malaysia proved him wrong. A predominantly Muslim country whose people had been instructed to save for the pilgrimage to Mecca, it turned to local banks that were flush with pilgrimage cash.
Can we instill in Jamaicans a similar behavioral change of sacrificing a little today for a long-term benefit? In the 1990s I witnessed the fever pitch in long, patient lines as Jamaicans sought quick money from the Partner scams. This same patience, faith and commitment must now shift Jamaica into productive energy if our country is to survive. For the global challenge in this century will be productivity not money.
Jamaicans often compare Jamaica with economically successful Singapore, both former colonies. Jamaica is a victim of its own choices. At about the same time that Singapore’s leaders chose to invest heavily in the development of their productive capacity, Jamaica rejected the direction of industrial development, advocated by Jamaican industrialists such as Robert Lightbourne, and opted for quick money, either borrowed or donated. Tourism, bauxite and agriculture were expected to be significant contributors to growth, but they have performed feebly in spite of considerable investment of the borrowed or donated funds. Today’s generation is paying for those choices in the form of debt burden. From 1980 to 1986, Jamaica's total debt doubled, making the island one of the most indebted countries in the world on a per capita basis. Jamaica's debt peaked in the mid-1980s at US$3.5 billion. With IMF and World Bank conditionalities in force, Jamaica experienced a 30 percent leap in unemployment, a 30 percent fall in public investment and a fall of 48 percent in real incomes between 1983 and 1985. By 1984 the World Bank proclaimed Jamaica one of its success stories because its trade balance had shifted into surplus. But it was a 'success' in which 29 percent of children under three years old were malnourished, 43 percent of mothers were anemic, and polio deaths had appeared for the first time in 30 years. Between 1996 and 2003, Jamaica’s public debt rose by 71 percentage points of GDP – a growth considered a reflection of changing circumstances at home and conditions abroad.
Today, with a public debt in the range of US$15 billion, Jamaica’s Ministry of Finance is preparing the country for another IMF hit. Moody’s, the rating service, has downgraded Jamaica’s rating for internal and external bonds. Alessandra Alecci, its vice president/senior analyst, explained why: “The negative outlook reflects uncertainty associated with the potential consequences of protracted delays in reaching a final agreement with the IMF. Such a situation would lead to a loss of confidence that could negatively affect the exchange rate and exert upward pressures on domestic interest rates. If these conditions were to materialize, they could create a situation in which the government's liquidity would be stretched and investors would face higher losses as the decision to restructure debt would be made under duress.”
I do not expect the financial news out of Jamaica to improve any time soon. However, if change is actually taking place globally, paying serious attention to infrastructure improvement and production by Jamaicans may be the good news for the future. The words of a Morgan Stanley executive on the Asian crisis of the 1990s are worth heeding: “What we need now in Asia is more bad news. Bad news is needed to keep stimulating the adjustment process.”
Let’s respectfully accept the words of such foreign experts as opinions not prescriptions.
There is some consolation in the fact that most of Jamaica’s debt is held by local institutions, which should be more open than foreign lenders to seeking long-term solutions that ease the pain. The short-term situation is bad. Estimates are that over 55 percent of the central government’s revenue goes to service debts that stand at 16 percent of GDP for the current fiscal year. Over the past ten years Jamaica’s public debt to GDP ratio remained above 100 percent. Jamaicans must accept the challenge to produce for its domestic needs. Growth and productivity must come from within, as proven by Singapore’s success.
In a recent interview, Prime Minister Golding acknowledged the positive impact of Rastafari on the Jamaican society over the past 50 years. Much can be learned from the Rastafari experience, a uniquely Jamaican development -- from recycling rubber tyres for shoes and building shelter from scrap to providing a multibillion-dollar cultural product (Reggae) to the global music and entertainment industry. The Ital lifestyle (Google Ital) pioneered in Jamaica is now part of a global alternative lifestyle representing a multibillion-dollar industry. These are testimonies to Jamaica’s ability to produce from within.
While some have been seeking external solutions to our financial and economic problems, our homegrown professionals have been producing world class athletes and performing artists with a fraction of the investment that other countries incur. The health, wellness and sports industries are multibillion-dollar sectors not yet fully exploited.
I hope the next group of esteemed Jamaicans pondering solutions to the island’s productivity challenge will look to Usain Bolt and Mutabaruka, two of the island’s most recognized talents now lecturing to a global audience, as further examples of homegrown successes in their respective industries in and outside the island. They follow such international Jamaican icons as Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey. How far removed these performers seem from the “crisis,” where “a situation in which the government's liquidity would be stretched and investors would face higher losses as the decision to restructure debt would be made under duress.”
I have been known to offer advice when not asked and I shall do it again. Jamaica’s Prime Minister should take the Jamaican creditors for a few days’ retreat in the Cockpit country of Trelawny, a major producer of yam. Start the day with an early morning jog with Bolt, one hour per day with a producing yam farmer, and evenings in a reasoning session on “success” with Mutabaruka.
Somewhere I learned that success is not where you are but the obstacles you had to overcome to get where you are. I remain optimistic about Jamaica’s future success. We have a long history of overcoming obstacles. Our political leaders must look at this history for answers.
Fritz-Earle S. McLymont, a Jamaican, is Managing Partner of McLymont, Kunda & Co. an international trade and development strategist firm, and Managing Director of NMBC Global, a not for profit organization involved in international development. He can be contacted at Fmclymont1@nmbc.org
December 28, 2009
caribdaily
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Mama make the Johnnie Cake, Christmas coming!
By Mutryce A Williams:
“Morning, morning and how are you this morning? Morning, morning this is Christmas morning! Mama make the Johnnie Cake, Christmas coming! Mama, make the Johnnie Cake, Christmas coming! Christmas coming and New Year’s morning,” he jolted forward and bellowed at the top of his lungs. Bewildered to say the least, I asked, “Are you okay?” We were sitting in his ‘drawing room’ discussing the predictions of the McDonald’s Farmer’s Almanac. The outburst seemed to come from out of thin air and, trust me, it didn’t help any that it was mid May and Christmas was months and months away. He said, “Pusa dear, draw the curtain for me. Open up de big trunk and hand me the things you see in it one by one.”
He burst into song once again. This time he had the pair of shack-shacks in hand. Shaking them fiercely, tapping his foot, voice as strong as ever he continued, “Mama make the Johnnie Cake, Christmas coming. Mama make the Johnnie Cake, Christmas coming!” He passed the shack-shacks to me and said, “You got the beat right! Now pass me the banjo. One, two, three let we go. Mama make the Johnnie Cake, Christmas coming! Sing louder man. Sing. Sing a tell you, sing!” Fully immersed in the Christmas spirit, I was now strumming away at the banjo totally transformed I tell you, as if I had gone to the school of that St Paul’s banjo maestro they called Lil Tom. At that moment Papa and I had what I call an alternating string bang. We switched from shack-shack, to banjo, baha, to the big drum, guitar, to cow bell, triangle, to mouth organ and indulged in the sweet ‘feeleeleet’ of the fife. Out of breath, I plopped down on the chair, ‘Well, that was fun!’
When I thought that the excitement was all finished still humming he said, “Child, take the back way and go over the road by you Aunty Mae. Tell she a say hurry up come up here for the pork before I sell it off or give it way and tell she don’t forget to send up me black cake, cassava bread and two bottle a sorrel. I know you mother in there making hers, but is Christmas you see and you could never have too much black cake, sorrel, cassava bread and rum…and rum…and ruuummmm…ha, ha, ha is Christmas girl and me belly ain’t got no end. I going eat and eat and eat till me belly burst…aaaah. Wait, who that there out there out there over the doving pot helping she with the Johnny cake, roast pork and turning the cassava bread? Oh is she! I hope she don’t think she going go with more than wha she bring you know. Every year she do it. Who is that there calling me? I say who is that there calling me? Oh is you, Uncle Joe. Tell he I tuning the banjo and when I done I going meet he down the road and we going go round the village serenading.”
Smile on my face but with a heavy heart I knew that he thought that I was my mother. His brain has been going ‘addle’ as we like to call it, senile or now they have a word for it. It is called Alzheimer’s. Instead of trying to will him back to the present, I held his hands and allowed him to take me back there. He looked in the direction of the kitchen and shouted to my grandmother, “Woman you ain’t done cook yet? How the roast pork and Johnny Cake coming? Maude I know that woman does come say a help but no let she go with more than what she bring I tell you, mind you hear, mind.”
He looked at me and seeing me as me now but still thinking it was Christmas, he said, “Girl where you going to this Carnival thing,” He continued, “Don’t get me wrong you know is a good thing it have its place but that there itself ain’t Christmas. Yes, Christmas is for Christ and all that but it is a time of real merriment, family, sports and when I tell you sports I mean Clowns, Mummies, David and Goliath and lord them Japanese girls with they umbrella and short, short skirt. Girl you ain’t want see plenty, plenty sports, I mean Actor, Neagre Business, Indian and Cowboy, Masquerade, Bull and Them Thing. You member if I did tell you about the time I used to play Bull. Well, well, well them there was some sweet, sweet days, is so I catch she in there you know but no tell she I say so cause she would set up she face like ten rat trap and stop talk to me and I can’t deal with this this time of year here, man… any other time but not Christmas time I tell you… cause this is food, more food and belly burst down time.”
He continued, “Christmas is the time when me and boys go round serenading. Maude and she church people them do go caroling. Is the time that Maude love to fuss, paint, clean and put up she lovely, lovely curtain them. Wait there who that coming there. I sure is one she sisters them from Englandt. She don’t even tell me that they a come home. One by one they show up and the thing is you know for a whole six weeks me have to sleep a ground. We have to give up we good warm bed and be hospicable… that woman there just want turn the place into a hotel you see… in she mind I guess that is what Christmas is all about. Oh, John, me boy is you that.”
He shouted to Granny, “Hey Maude, bring me shoes there let me shine them now and don’t forget to patch the li’l hole in me jacket and starch my shirt. I have to look like a sharp boy going to church this Christmas Sunday.” He took down his tie off the ledge and showed it to John, he said, “You see this tie here is me first son George send this for me from inna America. He say is how they make them now. Tell me something John, you have anything go so? Tell me something there, you people them in a away just member you a Christmas time? Peep out there in the kitchen you see something is whole three barrel we family send from overseas. If you want a tin of sardine or two don’t ‘fraid to ask. You know we is giving people. We ain’t going eat down the whole thing we self and know you in want and ain’t give you any.” John just smiled.
Granny shook her head, sat down beside him and rubbed his hands. He was zoning in and out. He looked in my direction and shouted, “Hey wait there, Pusa you done praptice you recitation? I hope so you know ‘cause you have to say it good in Church this Sunday at the Christmas concert. Say it hard and clear you know. Make me proud. You know as soon as you done is me first going stand up and clap the hardest and say hey that is mine there… mine… You know wha’, stand up and say it now let me hear you. Stand up straight and watch the people in they face no bend you head.” At this point there were tears in Granny’s eyes. She shook her head and said, “Boy, this Alzheimer’s thing, well, well, well.”
Alzheimers is a horrible disease. It was eating away at him however it allowed me to see Christmas through his eyes. I envied the Christmases that he had. The look on his face said it all. One can tell that it was his favourite time of year. It wasn’t about Santa. It wasn’t about decking the halls with holly. It wasn’t commercial. It wasn’t about Carnival. It wasn’t about how much money you had or how many gifts you got. It seemed like a time of merriment and joy that he shared with his family and friends. It was a time of butchering pigs and sharing what you had in your cupboard or barrel. It was a time of roast pork and Johnny Cake, black cake, sorrel, cassava, lovely curtains, sports/folklore, serenading, caroling, string band and church going. It’s now Christmas. What does this Christmas mean to you? How would you compare your Christmas now to the ones you had then? Were they better? What’s missing and if anything how do you intend to fix it? Do you have that Christmas spirit? Are you in a zone of merriment strumming your banjo, shaking your shack-shack and singing, “Mama make the Johnny Cake, Christmas coming!”
December 23, 2009
caribbeannetnews
“Morning, morning and how are you this morning? Morning, morning this is Christmas morning! Mama make the Johnnie Cake, Christmas coming! Mama, make the Johnnie Cake, Christmas coming! Christmas coming and New Year’s morning,” he jolted forward and bellowed at the top of his lungs. Bewildered to say the least, I asked, “Are you okay?” We were sitting in his ‘drawing room’ discussing the predictions of the McDonald’s Farmer’s Almanac. The outburst seemed to come from out of thin air and, trust me, it didn’t help any that it was mid May and Christmas was months and months away. He said, “Pusa dear, draw the curtain for me. Open up de big trunk and hand me the things you see in it one by one.”
He burst into song once again. This time he had the pair of shack-shacks in hand. Shaking them fiercely, tapping his foot, voice as strong as ever he continued, “Mama make the Johnnie Cake, Christmas coming. Mama make the Johnnie Cake, Christmas coming!” He passed the shack-shacks to me and said, “You got the beat right! Now pass me the banjo. One, two, three let we go. Mama make the Johnnie Cake, Christmas coming! Sing louder man. Sing. Sing a tell you, sing!” Fully immersed in the Christmas spirit, I was now strumming away at the banjo totally transformed I tell you, as if I had gone to the school of that St Paul’s banjo maestro they called Lil Tom. At that moment Papa and I had what I call an alternating string bang. We switched from shack-shack, to banjo, baha, to the big drum, guitar, to cow bell, triangle, to mouth organ and indulged in the sweet ‘feeleeleet’ of the fife. Out of breath, I plopped down on the chair, ‘Well, that was fun!’ When I thought that the excitement was all finished still humming he said, “Child, take the back way and go over the road by you Aunty Mae. Tell she a say hurry up come up here for the pork before I sell it off or give it way and tell she don’t forget to send up me black cake, cassava bread and two bottle a sorrel. I know you mother in there making hers, but is Christmas you see and you could never have too much black cake, sorrel, cassava bread and rum…and rum…and ruuummmm…ha, ha, ha is Christmas girl and me belly ain’t got no end. I going eat and eat and eat till me belly burst…aaaah. Wait, who that there out there out there over the doving pot helping she with the Johnny cake, roast pork and turning the cassava bread? Oh is she! I hope she don’t think she going go with more than wha she bring you know. Every year she do it. Who is that there calling me? I say who is that there calling me? Oh is you, Uncle Joe. Tell he I tuning the banjo and when I done I going meet he down the road and we going go round the village serenading.”
Smile on my face but with a heavy heart I knew that he thought that I was my mother. His brain has been going ‘addle’ as we like to call it, senile or now they have a word for it. It is called Alzheimer’s. Instead of trying to will him back to the present, I held his hands and allowed him to take me back there. He looked in the direction of the kitchen and shouted to my grandmother, “Woman you ain’t done cook yet? How the roast pork and Johnny Cake coming? Maude I know that woman does come say a help but no let she go with more than what she bring I tell you, mind you hear, mind.”
He looked at me and seeing me as me now but still thinking it was Christmas, he said, “Girl where you going to this Carnival thing,” He continued, “Don’t get me wrong you know is a good thing it have its place but that there itself ain’t Christmas. Yes, Christmas is for Christ and all that but it is a time of real merriment, family, sports and when I tell you sports I mean Clowns, Mummies, David and Goliath and lord them Japanese girls with they umbrella and short, short skirt. Girl you ain’t want see plenty, plenty sports, I mean Actor, Neagre Business, Indian and Cowboy, Masquerade, Bull and Them Thing. You member if I did tell you about the time I used to play Bull. Well, well, well them there was some sweet, sweet days, is so I catch she in there you know but no tell she I say so cause she would set up she face like ten rat trap and stop talk to me and I can’t deal with this this time of year here, man… any other time but not Christmas time I tell you… cause this is food, more food and belly burst down time.”
He continued, “Christmas is the time when me and boys go round serenading. Maude and she church people them do go caroling. Is the time that Maude love to fuss, paint, clean and put up she lovely, lovely curtain them. Wait there who that coming there. I sure is one she sisters them from Englandt. She don’t even tell me that they a come home. One by one they show up and the thing is you know for a whole six weeks me have to sleep a ground. We have to give up we good warm bed and be hospicable… that woman there just want turn the place into a hotel you see… in she mind I guess that is what Christmas is all about. Oh, John, me boy is you that.”
He shouted to Granny, “Hey Maude, bring me shoes there let me shine them now and don’t forget to patch the li’l hole in me jacket and starch my shirt. I have to look like a sharp boy going to church this Christmas Sunday.” He took down his tie off the ledge and showed it to John, he said, “You see this tie here is me first son George send this for me from inna America. He say is how they make them now. Tell me something John, you have anything go so? Tell me something there, you people them in a away just member you a Christmas time? Peep out there in the kitchen you see something is whole three barrel we family send from overseas. If you want a tin of sardine or two don’t ‘fraid to ask. You know we is giving people. We ain’t going eat down the whole thing we self and know you in want and ain’t give you any.” John just smiled.
Granny shook her head, sat down beside him and rubbed his hands. He was zoning in and out. He looked in my direction and shouted, “Hey wait there, Pusa you done praptice you recitation? I hope so you know ‘cause you have to say it good in Church this Sunday at the Christmas concert. Say it hard and clear you know. Make me proud. You know as soon as you done is me first going stand up and clap the hardest and say hey that is mine there… mine… You know wha’, stand up and say it now let me hear you. Stand up straight and watch the people in they face no bend you head.” At this point there were tears in Granny’s eyes. She shook her head and said, “Boy, this Alzheimer’s thing, well, well, well.”
Alzheimers is a horrible disease. It was eating away at him however it allowed me to see Christmas through his eyes. I envied the Christmases that he had. The look on his face said it all. One can tell that it was his favourite time of year. It wasn’t about Santa. It wasn’t about decking the halls with holly. It wasn’t commercial. It wasn’t about Carnival. It wasn’t about how much money you had or how many gifts you got. It seemed like a time of merriment and joy that he shared with his family and friends. It was a time of butchering pigs and sharing what you had in your cupboard or barrel. It was a time of roast pork and Johnny Cake, black cake, sorrel, cassava, lovely curtains, sports/folklore, serenading, caroling, string band and church going. It’s now Christmas. What does this Christmas mean to you? How would you compare your Christmas now to the ones you had then? Were they better? What’s missing and if anything how do you intend to fix it? Do you have that Christmas spirit? Are you in a zone of merriment strumming your banjo, shaking your shack-shack and singing, “Mama make the Johnny Cake, Christmas coming!”
December 23, 2009
caribbeannetnews
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Happy Festivus!
By Anthony L Hall:
Even long before William Shakespeare patented this literary device, jesters had been used in plays and other forms of entertainment to highlight the folly in prevailing thoughts and customs of the day.
Therefore, it seems entirely fitting that it took jesters on the comedy show Seinfeld to highlight the blithe spirit with which we have made Christmas a celebration more of crass commercialism than of the birth of Christ. For it was on this show that most Christians worldwide were first introduced to the celebration of “Festivus for the rest of us.”
Festivus, which is celebrated on December 23, began in 1965 as a family ritual in the home of writer Dan O’Keefe. And, interestingly enough, it was his son Daniel, a writer for Seinfeld, who wove the entire history and meaning of Festivus into the December 18, 1997 episode of the show.
I saw this episode; and I can attest to the fact that the uproarious laughter all references to Festivus elicited was surpassed only by the cunning messages about the real meaning of Christmas that I felt compelled to ponder long after the end of this episode.
Ironically, Festivus is a wholly secular attempt to remind us that Jesus is the reason for the season. Accordingly, it encourages us to utterly shun not only the indulgent ritual of shopping but all of the other hedonistic activities Christians engage in this time of year.
The O’Keefes reportedly do this by engaging in the antic practices of having an “Airing of Grievances” meal, at which each person tells other family members all the ways they disappointed him or her over the past year. This meal is then followed by a “Feats of Strength” performance, during which family members must wrestle and pin the head of household to the floor to bring the celebration of Festivus to a close...
Of course, since there’s no religious dogma associated with this holiday, you do not have to follow the O’Keefe’s fashion when celebrating this holiday. Instead, you can choose whatever non-commercial activities you wish to engage in to celebrate Festivus. For example, I think the most spiritual way of doing this would be to take a family walk on the beach and commune with nature.
In any event, I urge you to think – “What would Jesus do?” – before joining the madding crowd of those rushing out in a last-minute dash to spend money in a patently perverse effort to celebrate His birth.
Happy Festivus ... and Merry Christmas!
December 23, 2009
caribbeannetnews
Even long before William Shakespeare patented this literary device, jesters had been used in plays and other forms of entertainment to highlight the folly in prevailing thoughts and customs of the day.
Therefore, it seems entirely fitting that it took jesters on the comedy show Seinfeld to highlight the blithe spirit with which we have made Christmas a celebration more of crass commercialism than of the birth of Christ. For it was on this show that most Christians worldwide were first introduced to the celebration of “Festivus for the rest of us.”
Festivus, which is celebrated on December 23, began in 1965 as a family ritual in the home of writer Dan O’Keefe. And, interestingly enough, it was his son Daniel, a writer for Seinfeld, who wove the entire history and meaning of Festivus into the December 18, 1997 episode of the show. I saw this episode; and I can attest to the fact that the uproarious laughter all references to Festivus elicited was surpassed only by the cunning messages about the real meaning of Christmas that I felt compelled to ponder long after the end of this episode.
Ironically, Festivus is a wholly secular attempt to remind us that Jesus is the reason for the season. Accordingly, it encourages us to utterly shun not only the indulgent ritual of shopping but all of the other hedonistic activities Christians engage in this time of year.
The O’Keefes reportedly do this by engaging in the antic practices of having an “Airing of Grievances” meal, at which each person tells other family members all the ways they disappointed him or her over the past year. This meal is then followed by a “Feats of Strength” performance, during which family members must wrestle and pin the head of household to the floor to bring the celebration of Festivus to a close...
Of course, since there’s no religious dogma associated with this holiday, you do not have to follow the O’Keefe’s fashion when celebrating this holiday. Instead, you can choose whatever non-commercial activities you wish to engage in to celebrate Festivus. For example, I think the most spiritual way of doing this would be to take a family walk on the beach and commune with nature.
In any event, I urge you to think – “What would Jesus do?” – before joining the madding crowd of those rushing out in a last-minute dash to spend money in a patently perverse effort to celebrate His birth.
Happy Festivus ... and Merry Christmas!
December 23, 2009
caribbeannetnews
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Say a prayer for Jamaica this Christmas
One of the ways in which the global recession is beginning to impact disposable incomes of people in the Caribbean is the fact that governments throughout the region have sought, or will seek, to raise taxes. With three days to go before the last Christmas of the first decade of the 21st century, it may have been a little unusual to see parliamentarians in Port-of-Spain debating legislation as fundamental as the major reform to the country’s system of property taxation. One of the points about the proposed property tax is that it seeks to provide the Government with a substantial new revenue plank at a time when the country’s revenue base has been challenged by the sharp decline in earnings from the country’s energy sector. The fact is that the Government forecasts that it will earn $37.9 billion in revenue from all sources in the fiscal year October 2008 to September 2009. This is a 39 per cent decline in tax revenue from the year before.
Based on an assumption of an oil price of US$55 per barrel and a natural gas price of US$2.75 per million cubic feet, the Government predicts that total revenue for the current fiscal year will amount to $36.6 billion. But while the decision by the Government to proceed with the new property tax has led to a great deal of heat, T&T nationals should consider the situation in which our neighbours to the north find themselves. In Jamaica, the Minister of Finance last week tabled in their Parliament the third set of revenue-raising measures for their fiscal year which ends in April. The Jamaican economy has been devastated by the sharp decline in its three main sources of foreign earnings: taxes on its alumina and bauxite resources, revenue collected from tourists who visit the island, and money sent to Jamaicans by friends and family members living in the US, Canada and the UK.
Jamaica has also been impacted by years of living beyond its means—by spending significantly more than it collects—with budgets over the years being balanced only because the country has been able to borrow from international and local banks at ever-increasing interest rates. But with three credit rating agencies downgrading Jamaica’s foreign debt to levels that indicate that there is an expectation that the country will not be able to service its debts, there are few commercial banks that would be brave enough to lend Jamaica money—even if banks the world over did not face liquidity concerns. As a result of global downturn and its own lack of fiscal prudence over the last three decades, the country has been forced back into the arms of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—with which Jamaica has had a fractious relationship.
In preparation for the new stand-by agreement with the IMF, the Jamaican Government has been placed in the invidious position of having to announce a punitive package of new and increased taxes a little more than a week before that country celebrates Christmas. Among the measures that were announced in the Jamaican Parliament to be implemented on January 1 were an increase in the general consumption tax (GCT) from 16.5 per cent to 17.5 per cent and an expansion in the tax base of the GCT to include many food items such as fresh fruit and vegetables, ground provisions, sugar, salt, flour and cooking oil. Jamaica’s Minister of Finance also announced increases in the taxes on electricity and gasoline. Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who made an unannounced visit to Port-of-Spain last Wednesday as the country seeks to divest its national air carrier, made it clear in a statement on Sunday that he has no choice but to raise taxes.
“I urge the Jamaican people to understand that our choices are extremely limited and there is no easy way out. Our current revenues cannot meet our required expenditures and we cannot continue to borrow our way into an even worse crisis,” said Mr Golding. While we say a prayer for our brothers and sisters in Jamaica, we also need to learn from them the dangers of living beyond our means.
22 Dec 2009
caribdaily
Based on an assumption of an oil price of US$55 per barrel and a natural gas price of US$2.75 per million cubic feet, the Government predicts that total revenue for the current fiscal year will amount to $36.6 billion. But while the decision by the Government to proceed with the new property tax has led to a great deal of heat, T&T nationals should consider the situation in which our neighbours to the north find themselves. In Jamaica, the Minister of Finance last week tabled in their Parliament the third set of revenue-raising measures for their fiscal year which ends in April. The Jamaican economy has been devastated by the sharp decline in its three main sources of foreign earnings: taxes on its alumina and bauxite resources, revenue collected from tourists who visit the island, and money sent to Jamaicans by friends and family members living in the US, Canada and the UK.
Jamaica has also been impacted by years of living beyond its means—by spending significantly more than it collects—with budgets over the years being balanced only because the country has been able to borrow from international and local banks at ever-increasing interest rates. But with three credit rating agencies downgrading Jamaica’s foreign debt to levels that indicate that there is an expectation that the country will not be able to service its debts, there are few commercial banks that would be brave enough to lend Jamaica money—even if banks the world over did not face liquidity concerns. As a result of global downturn and its own lack of fiscal prudence over the last three decades, the country has been forced back into the arms of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—with which Jamaica has had a fractious relationship.
In preparation for the new stand-by agreement with the IMF, the Jamaican Government has been placed in the invidious position of having to announce a punitive package of new and increased taxes a little more than a week before that country celebrates Christmas. Among the measures that were announced in the Jamaican Parliament to be implemented on January 1 were an increase in the general consumption tax (GCT) from 16.5 per cent to 17.5 per cent and an expansion in the tax base of the GCT to include many food items such as fresh fruit and vegetables, ground provisions, sugar, salt, flour and cooking oil. Jamaica’s Minister of Finance also announced increases in the taxes on electricity and gasoline. Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who made an unannounced visit to Port-of-Spain last Wednesday as the country seeks to divest its national air carrier, made it clear in a statement on Sunday that he has no choice but to raise taxes.
“I urge the Jamaican people to understand that our choices are extremely limited and there is no easy way out. Our current revenues cannot meet our required expenditures and we cannot continue to borrow our way into an even worse crisis,” said Mr Golding. While we say a prayer for our brothers and sisters in Jamaica, we also need to learn from them the dangers of living beyond our means.
22 Dec 2009
caribdaily
Monday, December 21, 2009
Climate Summit deal 'falls short of what's required to avoid catastrophe'
By ALISON LOWE
Tribune Staff Reporter
alowe@tribunemedia.net:
THE critical two-week long UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen ended on Friday without a legally-binding deal being reached on efforts to curb global carbon emissions and no set future date by which attempts would be made to achieve such an agreement.
Chairman of CARICOM, President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, told The Tribune yesterday that the deal reached between a number of countries at the summit "has some positive elements but falls short of what is required to avoid catastrophic climate change".
The so-called Copenhagen Accord brokered between the US, China, Brazil, South Africa and India involves "significant departures from CARICOM's position" on what the Summit needed to achieve for the benefit of its members and the world in the fight against global climate change, added the President.
Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham was one of three CARICOM leaders including Mr Jagdeo who, along with dozens of world leaders, decided to personally attended the UN Climate Summit last week in the hope of helping to ensure a meaningful outcome would be reached.
While at the Summit, Mr Ingraham made a speech in which he reiterated his warning that the Bahamas "will suffer catastrophic results if emissions are not stabilized and reduced".
"A temperature rise of two degrees Celsius will result in sea level rise of two metres and will submerge 80 per cent of our territory," stated Mr Ingraham.
Yesterday Mr Jagdeo noted that the Accord announced late Friday night by US President Barack Obama "seeks to limit temperature increases to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels (but) the commitments listed (by individual countries on cutting carbon emissions) in its appendices would lead to an increase of over 3 degrees".
CARICOM and the Alliance of Small Island States, of which The Bahamas is a part, had both called for countries to commit at Copenhagen to doing what is necessary to limit temperature increases to 1.5 celsius above pre-industrial levels if its members and other countries are "to stay alive".
Speaking at the close of the Summit, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon called the deal "an essential beginning" but cautioned that serious work lies ahead to turn it into a legally binding treaty.
Nonetheless he praised the fact that "all countries have agreed to work towards a common long-term goal to limit the global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius; many governments have made important commitments to reduce or limit emissions; countries have achieved significant progress on preserving forests; and countries have agreed to provide comprehensive support to the most vulnerable to cope with climate change".
President Obama called the Accord an "important breakthrough that lays the foundation for international action in the years to come" but also admitted that it leaves the world with "much further to go" to get the legally binding agreement that is agreed to be necessary to avert the most devastating potential impacts of climate change.
And besides the question of turning the Accord into an agreement with legal teeth, the criticism remains that while it "recognises" the scientific case for keeping global temperature rises to no more than two degrees celsius in total it does not contain the kind of commitments by countries to reductions in emissions that would achieve that goal.
Meanwhile, it is not yet known whether all 192 countries outside of the small group who ultimately negotiated the Accord will adopt it.
Yesterday Mr Jagdeo, who has been a strong advocate for action on climate change, said that based on what transpired at Copenhagen, he does not think the type of agreement which climate experts say is necessary to save small island and low lying states like The Bahamas and Guyana can now be reached by the end of 2010.
December 21, 2009
tribune242
Tribune Staff Reporter
alowe@tribunemedia.net:
THE critical two-week long UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen ended on Friday without a legally-binding deal being reached on efforts to curb global carbon emissions and no set future date by which attempts would be made to achieve such an agreement.
Chairman of CARICOM, President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, told The Tribune yesterday that the deal reached between a number of countries at the summit "has some positive elements but falls short of what is required to avoid catastrophic climate change".
The so-called Copenhagen Accord brokered between the US, China, Brazil, South Africa and India involves "significant departures from CARICOM's position" on what the Summit needed to achieve for the benefit of its members and the world in the fight against global climate change, added the President.
Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham was one of three CARICOM leaders including Mr Jagdeo who, along with dozens of world leaders, decided to personally attended the UN Climate Summit last week in the hope of helping to ensure a meaningful outcome would be reached.
While at the Summit, Mr Ingraham made a speech in which he reiterated his warning that the Bahamas "will suffer catastrophic results if emissions are not stabilized and reduced".
"A temperature rise of two degrees Celsius will result in sea level rise of two metres and will submerge 80 per cent of our territory," stated Mr Ingraham.
Yesterday Mr Jagdeo noted that the Accord announced late Friday night by US President Barack Obama "seeks to limit temperature increases to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels (but) the commitments listed (by individual countries on cutting carbon emissions) in its appendices would lead to an increase of over 3 degrees".
CARICOM and the Alliance of Small Island States, of which The Bahamas is a part, had both called for countries to commit at Copenhagen to doing what is necessary to limit temperature increases to 1.5 celsius above pre-industrial levels if its members and other countries are "to stay alive".
Speaking at the close of the Summit, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon called the deal "an essential beginning" but cautioned that serious work lies ahead to turn it into a legally binding treaty.
Nonetheless he praised the fact that "all countries have agreed to work towards a common long-term goal to limit the global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius; many governments have made important commitments to reduce or limit emissions; countries have achieved significant progress on preserving forests; and countries have agreed to provide comprehensive support to the most vulnerable to cope with climate change".
President Obama called the Accord an "important breakthrough that lays the foundation for international action in the years to come" but also admitted that it leaves the world with "much further to go" to get the legally binding agreement that is agreed to be necessary to avert the most devastating potential impacts of climate change.
And besides the question of turning the Accord into an agreement with legal teeth, the criticism remains that while it "recognises" the scientific case for keeping global temperature rises to no more than two degrees celsius in total it does not contain the kind of commitments by countries to reductions in emissions that would achieve that goal.
Meanwhile, it is not yet known whether all 192 countries outside of the small group who ultimately negotiated the Accord will adopt it.
Yesterday Mr Jagdeo, who has been a strong advocate for action on climate change, said that based on what transpired at Copenhagen, he does not think the type of agreement which climate experts say is necessary to save small island and low lying states like The Bahamas and Guyana can now be reached by the end of 2010.
December 21, 2009
tribune242
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the rest
By David Roberts:
First the good news. Support for democracy in Latin America is at its highest level since the late 1990s, according to the latest version of the highly respected Latinobarómetro survey, published a few days ago. And that's despite the quasi coup in Honduras and the financial crisis-cum-economic slump.
Overall explicit support for democracy - those believing it is preferable to any other system of government - stands at 59%, according to the survey of some 18,000 people in all Latin American countries except Cuba. Last year the figure came in at 57% and the year before 54%.
"Implicit" approval, meaning accepting democracy has its shortcomings but it's still better than other systems - what Latinobarómetro calls Churchillian democracy based on his famous quote paraphrased in the headline of this column - stands at 76% in the 2009 survey.
"In summary… Latin America is more democratic after the 2009 crisis, it is more tolerant, is happier," the survey's authors conclude, as reforms in the region are starting to bear fruit. It seems we've never had it so good, to paraphrase another former British prime minister.
Interestingly, support is strongest in Venezuela, a country where many regard democracy as being under threat at present, at 85% in the explicit category and 90% in the implicit one, the 2009 version of the survey concludes. Perhaps if Cuba had been included it would have scored even higher. Next, in the explicit category, come Uruguay, Costa Rica and Bolivia.
A little disturbingly, however, at the other end of the scale support is a mere 42% in Mexico (explicit) and 62% implicit. It's also worryingly low in Colombia, Paraguay, Ecuador and Guatemala, at least according to the 115 page survey produced by the Santiago-based NGO.
It's easy to pick holes in a survey of this type, but one thing is for sure: Latin America is in much better shape now than it was two or three decades ago, at least in terms of democracy and stability.
In the 1970s and 80s, military regimes ruled large parts of South America (Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay) while Paraguay was under the iron fist of Alfredo Stroessner. Bolivia's "palace coups" were all too frequent, and Mexico was effectively a one-party state.
In the 1980s, civil wars were raging in Central America, Cuba was seen as a real military threat to much of the region and Peru was rocked by terrorist violence, while Colombia was being torn apart by guerrillas, drug barons and paramilitaries. Then there was the US invasion of Panama, and in the 1990s came the Zapatista "uprising" in Mexico's Chiapas.
And while the recent crisis has hit the region hard, especially Mexico and those countries more dependent on manufacturing and US markets, things need to be put into perspective. In the 1980s, we had hyperinflation in many countries in the region, the infamous debt crisis and banking meltdown after meltdown, and that's not to mention the Tequila and Asian crises that followed.
Today, with the one obvious exception of Cuba and the less obvious one of Honduras given the recent elections and the prospect that the "civil coup" will simply peter out after Porfirio Lobo takes office, democracy in some form or another prevails universally throughout the region, as witnessed most recently by Sunday's elections in Chile. In the meantime, there are plenty of signs that the region and the world are emerging from the recent economic crisis.
So, reasons to be cheerful there are indeed, although as Latinobarómetro says, the positive results of this year's survey provide no motive to celebrate just yet given the problems in the region and the potential to return to instability.
bnamericas
First the good news. Support for democracy in Latin America is at its highest level since the late 1990s, according to the latest version of the highly respected Latinobarómetro survey, published a few days ago. And that's despite the quasi coup in Honduras and the financial crisis-cum-economic slump. Overall explicit support for democracy - those believing it is preferable to any other system of government - stands at 59%, according to the survey of some 18,000 people in all Latin American countries except Cuba. Last year the figure came in at 57% and the year before 54%.
"Implicit" approval, meaning accepting democracy has its shortcomings but it's still better than other systems - what Latinobarómetro calls Churchillian democracy based on his famous quote paraphrased in the headline of this column - stands at 76% in the 2009 survey.
"In summary… Latin America is more democratic after the 2009 crisis, it is more tolerant, is happier," the survey's authors conclude, as reforms in the region are starting to bear fruit. It seems we've never had it so good, to paraphrase another former British prime minister.
Interestingly, support is strongest in Venezuela, a country where many regard democracy as being under threat at present, at 85% in the explicit category and 90% in the implicit one, the 2009 version of the survey concludes. Perhaps if Cuba had been included it would have scored even higher. Next, in the explicit category, come Uruguay, Costa Rica and Bolivia.
A little disturbingly, however, at the other end of the scale support is a mere 42% in Mexico (explicit) and 62% implicit. It's also worryingly low in Colombia, Paraguay, Ecuador and Guatemala, at least according to the 115 page survey produced by the Santiago-based NGO.
It's easy to pick holes in a survey of this type, but one thing is for sure: Latin America is in much better shape now than it was two or three decades ago, at least in terms of democracy and stability.
In the 1970s and 80s, military regimes ruled large parts of South America (Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay) while Paraguay was under the iron fist of Alfredo Stroessner. Bolivia's "palace coups" were all too frequent, and Mexico was effectively a one-party state.
In the 1980s, civil wars were raging in Central America, Cuba was seen as a real military threat to much of the region and Peru was rocked by terrorist violence, while Colombia was being torn apart by guerrillas, drug barons and paramilitaries. Then there was the US invasion of Panama, and in the 1990s came the Zapatista "uprising" in Mexico's Chiapas.
And while the recent crisis has hit the region hard, especially Mexico and those countries more dependent on manufacturing and US markets, things need to be put into perspective. In the 1980s, we had hyperinflation in many countries in the region, the infamous debt crisis and banking meltdown after meltdown, and that's not to mention the Tequila and Asian crises that followed.
Today, with the one obvious exception of Cuba and the less obvious one of Honduras given the recent elections and the prospect that the "civil coup" will simply peter out after Porfirio Lobo takes office, democracy in some form or another prevails universally throughout the region, as witnessed most recently by Sunday's elections in Chile. In the meantime, there are plenty of signs that the region and the world are emerging from the recent economic crisis.
So, reasons to be cheerful there are indeed, although as Latinobarómetro says, the positive results of this year's survey provide no motive to celebrate just yet given the problems in the region and the potential to return to instability.
bnamericas
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