Jamaica has failed Emancipation test

H. Dale Anderson, Contributor

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OVER THE last few days, the print media, in particular, took a sober look at the significance of Emancipation. That is as it should be. But the effort must go further, much further, than a one-off event each year. Indeed, the main focus of Independence celebrations next year - perhaps beginning this year - should be a formal get-together at the national level to redefine ourselves as individuals and as a collectivity, within the context of a more balanced and instructive knowledge of our history.

Without this level of consciousness as a first step, we cannot define sound empowerment strategies to mobilise the inherent strengths of our people, and which, over the long term, can build a much better country and nation than what we have so far made of Emancipation and political independence. That is what should be understood by the injunction to reconstruct "... the social and economic society and life of Jamaica".

The sad fact is that a stultified Jamaica failed the test posed by Emancipation and, for decades now, has been reaping the whirlwind of violence and general waywardness. With very few exceptions, the normal points of leadership seem to have failed to grasp the real nature and magnitude of the challenge forced upon us by the pre-emancipation experience, of unspeakable brutality as the centrepiece of people management and economic activity. So much so that up to the onset of agitation for self-government, no sustainable structures and philosophy existed as the platform on which to build a viable society. It is a safe bet that even today, the overwhelming majority of Jamaicans are unaware of the nature and degree of inhuman barbarism suffered by their forebears.

Knowledge of past

The point here is not to stoke resentment and recrimination. We are all products of the pre-emancipation experience. Rather, it is to underline that without knowing and understanding our past, we could not really know and understand who and what we inherited when given the opportunity to construct a future with the sagacity and courage not to be misled into accepting inappropriate solutions to our problems.

That should be sufficient justification for a focused and historically informed review of our current situation as a more responsible and mature way to observe the 50th year of Jamaica's independence. Resulting insights should then shape the formulation, content and goals of national policy, in contrast to the traditional fire fighting approach.

To ensure credibility, such a discourse would have to be conducted objectively by those without self-serving individual, political or other institutional agendas, but with inputs from a wide range of stakeholders and enabling agencies, nonetheless. Though led by professionals in appropriate disciplines - economics, anthropology, psychology, history, political science - there would be no pecuniary inducements to participate, the only motivation being a commitment to nation building.

I am convinced that this can, and needs to be done - 'with malice towards none'. Our future depends on it.

August 3, 2011

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