THE OLD MOTHER COUNTRY IS NEITHER FAIR NOR FREE
By John Marquis
tribune242
Nassau, Bahamas
THE Bahamas, like all former British colonies, has a legal and parliamentary system based on English traditions dating back many centuries, with rights earned through a long history of warfare and social upheaval. However, the British people now find themselves in a new fight for basic freedoms, with the courts and parliament clashing over what they have a right to know. JOHN MARQUIS reports...
ANYONE who followed closely the case of soccer star Ryan Giggs in the British courts must have come to the wholly justifiable conclusion that "the old country" - the so-called cradle of freedom and justice - is not what it used to be.
There was a time when Britain, its human rights enshrined in the Magna Carta, signed by King John eight centuries ago, was held up as the ultimate example when it came to matters of free speech and personal liberty.
In fact, it was quite touching during my Bahamas years to hear former colonials laud the mighty precedents set by dear old England, traditionally seen by its admirers as a bastion of unshakeable rectitude and infallible judgment.
All former colonies - even America, the first to reject London's rule - conceded that, whatever its faults, Britain had virtues no other nation could surpass when it came to fair play, transparent justice and everyday human rights.
Not anymore.
Giggs, a supremely gifted player who was nearing the end of his glittering career with a squeaky clean reputation and a professional record second to none, is said to have paid a London law firm £250,000 to keep his alleged sexual indiscretions out of the papers. He was shelling out a thousand dollars an hour to lawyers whose specialty is to shield high-profile clients from the prying of the press.
Not only had he taken out a "super-injunction" to prevent exposure of his dalliance with a so-called "TV reality star", he had threatened to sue the social networking site Twitter through the US courts because his name had been "leaked" by several thousands of its users.
In itself, what Giggs allegedly got up behind his wife's back was of little account to anyone except those who find fascination in such matters. But his actions have highlighted one of many gaping flaws in Britain's current laws, and lent his name for all time to an insidious process of suppression which, fuelled by lawyers' greed, seeks to erode people's rights and silence the media.
So serious were the implications of Giggs' actions that judges began threatening parliament with dire consequences if one of its members dared to use the player's name in the Chamber, declaring in effect that even parliamentary privilege could not be allowed to trump an injunction handed down in the High Court.
For historians, this unseemly bust-up between the legislature and the executive was reminiscent of King Charles the First's actions in 1642, when he high-handedly marched his troops into parliament to threaten the people's representatives.
He took the view that, as a supreme ruler with divine powers, he was not subject to the criticism and scrutiny of the rabble and that his own survival and well-being were above all other considerations.
Seven years later, King Charles - after a bitter and bloody civil war - was to pay with his life on the chopping block outside the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall, a significant move by parliament in reinforcing the rights enshrined in the great charter signed at Runnymede in 1215.
You would think that, having been through so much bloodshed and upheaval in establishing basic rights over so many centuries that Britain would be hell-bent on protecting itself from the incursions of ruthless, avaricious and deceitful elements in society.
But since the late 1990s, when the most destructive British government of modern times took office for 13 truly awful years of decline, a country once held up as the democratic ideal has surrendered many of its hard-earned rights not only to the evil influence of political correctness but also to a foreign power in Brussels.
In fact, European human rights law is at the root of Britain's present predicament.
While it sounds fine and dandy in principle, this law has led to the spread of privacy legislation which, as interpreted by the London courts, is a dangerous threat to many of the freedoms that Britain and its former colonies have traditionally held dear.
Whatever its supposed merits, the reality is that it is available only to those with very deep pockets who can afford to splash out the equivalent of $80,000 to petition for a judge's decree silencing not only the press but anyone else rash enough to expose the applicant's identity.
It is, in fact, a court-approved shield for those who profit from being one thing in public and something else entirely in private. It is a deceiver's charter, a means of bamboozling the public into believing something that isn't true.
So far, those who have made use of it, generally sports and showbiz personalities, are people whose indiscretions don't amount to much when it comes to the potential impact on the national interest. But you don't have to look far for examples where its implications could be very serious indeed.
Imagine, for instance, the case of the American politician John Edwards, who promoted himself as a down-home family man deeply concerned with the health of his cancer-stricken wife while running for the Democratic party's presidential nomination some years ago.
Had British-style privacy law been available to him, he would have been able to stifle in advance the National Enquirer's revelations that he was having an affair with a woman photographer during his campaign.
Thus, his own carefully coiffed image as a straight-talking regular guy who cared deeply for his wife would have prevailed over the reality, which was that he was a two-timing deceiver unworthy of the public's support.
In the Bahamas, it would, of course, have had serious implications in the much-publicised friendship between then Immigration Minister Shane Gibson and the American starlet Anna Nicole Smith in 2006 and 2007.
While nothing untoward was ever suggested in this instance, the closeness or otherwise of Mr Gibson's friendship with Ms Smith was extremely pertinent to the granting of her residency permit.
Theoretically, Mr Gibson would have been able to apply for an injunction to prevent The Tribune or any other newspaper from divulging that he was apparently a much closer friend than he claimed to be.
Even more disturbingly, had he got wind of those famous photographs showing him embracing Anna Nicole on her bed at her Nassau home, he would have been able to apply for their suppression through the courts.
There is, in fact, a "public interest" provision built into British privacy law which enables the courts to overrule an injunction application if it is felt that it would not serve the public good.
Hence, the footballer John Terry failed in his attempt to secure an injunction against a newspaper that wished to publish a story about his affair with a colleague's former girlfriend because the judge felt he was merely trying to protect his sponsorship arrangements.
As I write, there is widespread discussion of the impact an alleged illicit affair might have had on a senior banker whose judgments and decisions led to his bank's subsequent meltdown.
As the bank was rescued by a taxpayer-funded bailout, there is no doubt that his state of mind at the time of its financial troubles was of great interest to those whose money was being used to fund the rescue.
However, a London lawyer admitted to me that it was "conceivable" that a judge could rule in favour of a complainant whether media exposure was in the public interest or not.
Given that the term "public interest" is open to wide interpretation, it is easy to imagine circumstances in which a judge might support a fellow establishment figure over the protests of a media outlet.
What's more, history has shown that British judges of the past have not exactly been free of their own peccadilloes, depravities and perversions, and might well have benefited from the availability of privacy laws when up to their out-of-hours shenanigans. The bordello queen Cynthia Payne spoke often of the judges and senior barristers who turned up at her door seeking sado-masochistic lashings from her leather-clad good-time girls.
Having the legal means to keep the hoi-polloi's prying instincts at bay is an attractive fall-back position for those with the money to buy silence through the courts. What emerges is an impression that privacy law encourages an "us and them" situation in which the law can be manipulated by wealthy figures to keep the public in the dark.
Poor Ryan Giggs, whose many years as a Manchester United star have rendered him an extremely rich and revered public figure, would have had no idea when he set out to secure his injunction that the result would have been massive and prolonged exposure of his alleged misdeeds, public ignominy of the worst kind, deep disappointment among his many fans, and total destruction of the pristine image he had spent a lifetime burnishing in soccer stadia around the globe.
Until his cosy world of relentless adulation exploded in his face, the keenest of his supporters had been conducting a website campaign for him to be offered a knighthood in recognition of his undoubted contribution to his sport. It will be interesting to see now how long it takes for the campaign to suffocate under a barrage of ridicule.
While London's myopic legal fraternity were naively believing that one word from a British judge would ensure universal silence for eternity, lesser mortals like the rest of us - not, alas, earning a thousand dollars an hour - were well aware that the Internet has now become the world's great leveller, democratiser and liberator, and that Giggs' campaign of secrecy would be blown apart by the bloggers.
While British "justice" was seeking to uphold a wholly indefensible law, it was always unlikely that the online marauders would be frightened into silence by a man in a wig sitting in a London court. Instead, the more the judges brandished their rubber sabres, the more vocal Internet users became.
One defiant Twitter fan simply ran the name "Ryan Giggs" over and over again while others used unseemly soccer terminology
to describe what may or may not have gone on between him and the alleged object of his affections. Towards the end, more than 75,000 Internet users had exposed Giggs as the man behind the super-injunction.
The more purple-faced with rage Britain's legal establishment became, the more defiant the Twitterati proved to be, declaring - with more than ample justification - that the old country's legal pretensions and pomposity might have counted for something in 1890, but in the age of cyberspace they have less significance than a public pillory or a ducking stool.
The final, farcical development in the Giggs case came when his lawyer appeared on television to declare that he was planning to sue Twitter in the Californian courts.
Anyone acquainted with the fundamentals of American law knows that the first amendment of the constitution is absolutely paramount when it comes to freedom of speech. Under US law, a public figure has no chance of success in defamation actions unless he or she can prove malice, which most seasoned lawyers dismiss as nigh impossible. To imagine that an American court would uphold a British injunction guaranteeing a celebrity's anonymity was just sheer fantasy.
Since then, Giggs' predicament has got worse, with his sister-in-law alleging to the tabloid press that she fell pregnant to the soccer star just a few weeks before she married his brother. At his request, she alleged, she underwent an abortion.
For the long-suffering British public, the Giggs debacle has come as a refreshing reminder that bad law usually comes a cropper somewhere along the line. An added tonic has been the realisation that the star's high-priced lawyers, for all their grandstanding hubris, were powerless and hopeless when pitched against the growing might of the Internet.
So what should the Bahamas glean from the Giggs case? Most importantly, that all the old notions of British justice should be cast aside. The much-reviled New Labour government of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, probably the two worst prime ministers in British history, transformed the old motherland into what many consider to be virtually a police state. It is literally true to say that many British people are now scared of discussing certain issues openly for fear of falling foul of what George Orwell would have described as Thought Police, unofficial snoopers who make it their business to report indiscretions on subjects now deemed out of bounds.
"We can't say that nowadays, can we?" is a comment I have heard with frightening frequency since returning to Britain two years ago. In fact, it has occurred to me many times that the Bahamas, despite the fear instilled by the 25-year reign of Sir Lynden Pindling, is a much freer society than Britain in many important respects.
Homosexuality, immigration, ethnicity and gender are now extremely delicate topics considered off-limits for many people in Britain. Anyone making a stand against the gay lifestyle, for instance, leaves themselves open to carefully orchestrated persecution by a virulent lobby of homosexual activists who more often than not get the full backing of the law. Meanwhile, so-called political correctness outlaws meaningful discourse on immigration, which is now posing a major threat to British culture, and thwarts widespread condemnation of muslim extremism, which poses a genuine threat to the nation's security.
Traditional assumptions that Britain is a "free and fair" society are, frankly, laughable.
The brutal truth in the eyes of many Brits is that the nation's political class, whatever its party stripe, is a self-perpetuating cabal of nonentities whose twin objectives are retention of power and continued suppression of the masses.
The Giggs case exemplified its growing belief that political correctness and gagging laws can between them stifle free speech in all those areas where it might prove inconvenient.
Admittedly, Prime Minister David Cameron has been making the right noises of late, highlighting the "unsustainability" of such a law, and a Liberal Democrat backbencher was smart enough to drop Giggs' name in parliament, in spite of m'luds' dyspeptic spluttering.
But the proof of Cameron's apparent good intentions will come when this inexcusable law is repealed.
Until then, the casual observer is left to ponder just how much more of Britain's freedom will be eroded in the coming years.
If there is anything to be learnt from the Bahamas' old colonial master, it is that silence among the good encourages the bad into taking further liberties with our rights. Like Bahamians, the British are reactive rather than proactive when it comes to protecting their own corners.
In fact, the British - noted for their never-say-die courage in the face of foreign enemies - have proved pathetically supine in their attitude to overweening authority at home. Now they are counting the cost.
It is unfortunate that Ryan Giggs, a working class lad with sublime gifts in his field, will now become synonymous with all those who have the money and power to hide their misdeeds behind a camouflage provided by the courts.
Had he held up his hands and confessed, the story would have been no more than a two-day tabloid wonder.
As things stand now, his name is likely to crop up every time the subject of press freedom erupts in the media. He must be thinking his £250,000 in legal fees could have been better spent.
On the bright side, his lawyers' lamentable failure to secure him the anonymity he craved will cast a bright unforgiving light on the unsustainability of a disgraceful law which casts a blight on everything the Magna Carta stood for and besmirches the memory of all those who have died over the centuries to win the freedoms we have come to take for granted.
It seems almost unbelievable that, while British soldiers are being killed every week to protect freedom in foreign lands, the liberty of their own
countrymen back home is being trashed in the London courts.
Until it is scrapped, this law will mock Britain's increasingly forlorn claim to be a free and fair society.
Not only is it elitist, unjust and intimidatory, it is - thanks to the Internet - hopelessly and ridiculously unworkable. The sooner it goes the better.
August 09, 2011
tribune242
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, August 10, 2011
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Tropical Storm Emily stopped by Haiti!
By Jean H Charles
The red alert was on; the preparations were underway to displace the population in the zones at risk. The country, already on its knees following the earthquake, was braced for a strike by Tropical Storm Emily that had already caused one death in Martinique.
The island of Ayiti, baptized as such by the Tainos because of its mountainous structure, did what it has done for a millennium -- stopping the fury of the storm through its majestic mountains, exploding the eye of the cyclone and saving on the way Florida and the rest of the land on its trajectory.
The United States in general, and the western insurance companies in particular should reward Haiti with a special prize of recognition for preventing immense damage and compensation that would have resulted if the mountains of Haiti were not in the way to break down the strength of the elements.
Because of extreme poverty, which is the lot of the majority of the rural population, the vegetation cover in Haiti has been reduced lately to only two percent. Cutting trees to produce charcoal represents the cash crop that replaces coffee and coco as the annual source of revenue for that segment of the population.
The services delivered by the mountains of Haiti go behind the confines of the republic; as such there should be an international movement to replenish and maintain Haiti’s mountain ranges. They seem to have been placed there by God to remind humanity of His promise that never again He will send on earth another deluge.
I am witnessing in Haiti how, through the lack of leadership -- national and international -- eight million people are reduced to the life of gleaning and scrounging, eroding the very surface that sustains growth.
The Emily experience is a wakeup call to extend to Haiti the carbon exchange program, whereby the developed countries agreed to provide the less developed nations with funding to plant trees and save their forests, because the benefits go beyond the confines of the geographical frontiers of (in this case) the Republic of Haiti.
It is predicted that the hurricane season that lasts until November might produce twelve to eighteen named storms. Many of them will go through Haiti, if their direction is the same as Emily, and they will certainly face the same fate of explosion and reduction as soon as they meet the gorgeous mountains of the country.
Haiti has the glorious fate of serving as a beacon for humanity for daring to break the chains of servitude. It did not profit from that advantage -- its people are still in de facto bondage.
It is a bulwark against the intemperance of nature; this fact is not well known amongst nature aficionados; worse, Haiti does not receive any recognition for this international service.
Haiti’s environment, depleted by the misery of the Haitian people, deserves international sustenance; its maintenance is the business of the insurance business because whether the hurricane season creates havoc or relief in Florida will depend on the mountains of Haiti.
An astute investor could risk with reasonable confidence the filling of the mountains of Haiti with mahogany, cedar and all types of hardwood trees. The benefits will be compounded. The mature trees, twenty years from now will represent a fortune. The mountains of Haiti, replenished with trees, will continue to defy the hurricanes, saving Florida and coastal United States billion of dollars. This operation will contribute to the cooling of the atmosphere, postponing for a few generation the bubble theory of the melting down of the planet.
Emily, the hurricane that was, because of Haiti, shall remind us all that Mother Nature could create its own antidote to its unpredictable vagaries. We shall be humble, caring and hospitable to those antidotes. Haiti and its mountains need our compassion and our stewardship. They will be there like Michael the Archangel to protect us against Franklin, Gert, Harvey, et al, the next named storms for the season.
August 9, 2011
caribbeannewsnow
The red alert was on; the preparations were underway to displace the population in the zones at risk. The country, already on its knees following the earthquake, was braced for a strike by Tropical Storm Emily that had already caused one death in Martinique.
The island of Ayiti, baptized as such by the Tainos because of its mountainous structure, did what it has done for a millennium -- stopping the fury of the storm through its majestic mountains, exploding the eye of the cyclone and saving on the way Florida and the rest of the land on its trajectory.The United States in general, and the western insurance companies in particular should reward Haiti with a special prize of recognition for preventing immense damage and compensation that would have resulted if the mountains of Haiti were not in the way to break down the strength of the elements.
Because of extreme poverty, which is the lot of the majority of the rural population, the vegetation cover in Haiti has been reduced lately to only two percent. Cutting trees to produce charcoal represents the cash crop that replaces coffee and coco as the annual source of revenue for that segment of the population.
The services delivered by the mountains of Haiti go behind the confines of the republic; as such there should be an international movement to replenish and maintain Haiti’s mountain ranges. They seem to have been placed there by God to remind humanity of His promise that never again He will send on earth another deluge.
I am witnessing in Haiti how, through the lack of leadership -- national and international -- eight million people are reduced to the life of gleaning and scrounging, eroding the very surface that sustains growth.
The Emily experience is a wakeup call to extend to Haiti the carbon exchange program, whereby the developed countries agreed to provide the less developed nations with funding to plant trees and save their forests, because the benefits go beyond the confines of the geographical frontiers of (in this case) the Republic of Haiti.
It is predicted that the hurricane season that lasts until November might produce twelve to eighteen named storms. Many of them will go through Haiti, if their direction is the same as Emily, and they will certainly face the same fate of explosion and reduction as soon as they meet the gorgeous mountains of the country.
Haiti has the glorious fate of serving as a beacon for humanity for daring to break the chains of servitude. It did not profit from that advantage -- its people are still in de facto bondage.
It is a bulwark against the intemperance of nature; this fact is not well known amongst nature aficionados; worse, Haiti does not receive any recognition for this international service.
Haiti’s environment, depleted by the misery of the Haitian people, deserves international sustenance; its maintenance is the business of the insurance business because whether the hurricane season creates havoc or relief in Florida will depend on the mountains of Haiti.
An astute investor could risk with reasonable confidence the filling of the mountains of Haiti with mahogany, cedar and all types of hardwood trees. The benefits will be compounded. The mature trees, twenty years from now will represent a fortune. The mountains of Haiti, replenished with trees, will continue to defy the hurricanes, saving Florida and coastal United States billion of dollars. This operation will contribute to the cooling of the atmosphere, postponing for a few generation the bubble theory of the melting down of the planet.
Emily, the hurricane that was, because of Haiti, shall remind us all that Mother Nature could create its own antidote to its unpredictable vagaries. We shall be humble, caring and hospitable to those antidotes. Haiti and its mountains need our compassion and our stewardship. They will be there like Michael the Archangel to protect us against Franklin, Gert, Harvey, et al, the next named storms for the season.
August 9, 2011
caribbeannewsnow
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Back Pay For Slavery
Carolyn Cooper, Contributor
jamaica-gleaner
THE PRINCIPLE of reparations was established long ago in the 1833 Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British colonies. But there was a catch to the act - not much different in essence from the original sin of catching Africans for enslavement in the Americas. Reparations were to be made to the perpetrators of human trafficking, not to the victims.
This is how the act opens: "Whereas divers persons are holden (held) in slavery within divers of His Majesty's colonies, and it is just and expedient that all such persons should be manumitted and set free, and that a reasonable compensation should be made to the persons hitherto entitled to the services of such slaves for the loss which they will incur by being deprived of their right to such services ... ," etc.
This is a classic example of the diabolical mindset of 'wicked white people'. Slaveholders were legally entitled to the services of their slaves and therefore had a right to 'reasonable compensation' for loss of service. The enslaved had no such rights or entitlements. They were freed with nothing in their two long hands; just like that rather sad-looking couple standing in a basin of water in New Kingston's 'Emancipation Park'.
When I talk about 'wicked white people' I don't mean specific individuals who have done me personal wrong. I'm not speaking about singular acts of evil. It's a far bigger issue. What concerns me is the collective crimes against humanity committed by gravalicious people who consider themselves absolutely entitled by God and nature to dominate the world. In many instances, these self-proclaimed rulers just happen to be white.
In the age of colonial conquest, 'wicked white people' as a special interest group committed crimes of unapologetic horror. They ravaged other people's bodies, souls, lands and histories; they vandalised sacred objects and then locked them away in 'museums' - those cemeteries of other people's culture. 'Wicked white people' invading and stealing, stealing, stealing without conscience.
I know I'm going to be accused of racism for exposing 'wicked white people' to public scrutiny in this way. But that's just another ploy of 'wicked white people' and their collaborators to perpetuate mental slavery. It's racism to talk about racist behaviour. But actual racist behaviour is not racism. It's just human nature. What an irony!
Justice versus expediency
So let's say instead that 'nice and decent' white people agreed that it was "just and expedient" to set the enslaved free. But the yoking of justice and expedience in the Act for the Abolition of Slavery reveals the central philosophical and practical dilemma at the heart of the emancipation enterprise.
Justice seemingly puts emancipation on solid moral ground. Expedience erodes all claims to moral authority. It was expedient to emancipate enslaved Africans because plantation slavery had become an expensive proposition. The substitution of beet for cane turned West Indian sugar into a rather sour deal.
After centuries of mostly verbal outrage - incessant talk, talk, talk about 'wicked white people' - we, the collective victims of transatlantic slavery, must finally decide to take legal action in the largest class-action suit in the history of the world. This is a truly wonderful idea. Not the wishy-washy, everyday sense of 'wonderful', meaning simply 'great'; it's the mind-blowing, original meaning of the word: full of wonder.
Five hundred years after the rape of the body and land of the original inhabitants of this part of the world; 500 years after the violent uprooting and enslavement of millions of Africans, we, their descendants, both native and immigrant, must lay claim to rights of reparation.
In the sweet by and by
For many Africans in the diaspora, it is in religion that we find hope for reparations. The Christian religion seems to recommend long-term investment in the celestial stock market. The concept of reparations has best been expressed in pious hymns like this: "In the sweet by and by I'll have a mansion so bright and so fair, won't it be glorious when I get there in the sweet by and by?" God will repair the breach. God is the ultimate human rights arbitrator.
Then we have those Africans who want hard cold cash in the here and now. Think of the title song from the movie The Harder They Come: "They tell me bout the pie up in the sky waiting for me when I die. But between the day you born and when you die, they never seem to hear even your cry. So as long as the sun will shine, I'm gonna get my share, what's mine. The harder they come, the harder they fall, one and all."
That's an excellent anthem for the Reparations Movement, the Garveyism of our times. It's the same kind of daring that made Marcus Garvey conceive the Universal Negro Improvement Association and Communities League: a global movement of African peoples who see themselves as having a shared history and a common destiny.
And don't think it's a joke. With derisive laughter cynics like to say, 'when you get the money you can check me.' But the Jews got compensation from the Germans; Japanese-Americans got compensation for the atrocities committed against them. Why not Africans? I'd like to know what, exactly, our National Commission on Reparations is doing about it.
If you think that after 500 years it's now too late for reparations, just remember Psalm 90:4 in which David, himself a Jew, converses with the Supreme Arbitrator: "For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past." Come to think of it, all we're really talking about is half a day's back pay.
August 7, 2011
jamaica-gleaner
jamaica-gleaner
THE PRINCIPLE of reparations was established long ago in the 1833 Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British colonies. But there was a catch to the act - not much different in essence from the original sin of catching Africans for enslavement in the Americas. Reparations were to be made to the perpetrators of human trafficking, not to the victims.
This is how the act opens: "Whereas divers persons are holden (held) in slavery within divers of His Majesty's colonies, and it is just and expedient that all such persons should be manumitted and set free, and that a reasonable compensation should be made to the persons hitherto entitled to the services of such slaves for the loss which they will incur by being deprived of their right to such services ... ," etc.
This is a classic example of the diabolical mindset of 'wicked white people'. Slaveholders were legally entitled to the services of their slaves and therefore had a right to 'reasonable compensation' for loss of service. The enslaved had no such rights or entitlements. They were freed with nothing in their two long hands; just like that rather sad-looking couple standing in a basin of water in New Kingston's 'Emancipation Park'.
When I talk about 'wicked white people' I don't mean specific individuals who have done me personal wrong. I'm not speaking about singular acts of evil. It's a far bigger issue. What concerns me is the collective crimes against humanity committed by gravalicious people who consider themselves absolutely entitled by God and nature to dominate the world. In many instances, these self-proclaimed rulers just happen to be white.
In the age of colonial conquest, 'wicked white people' as a special interest group committed crimes of unapologetic horror. They ravaged other people's bodies, souls, lands and histories; they vandalised sacred objects and then locked them away in 'museums' - those cemeteries of other people's culture. 'Wicked white people' invading and stealing, stealing, stealing without conscience.
I know I'm going to be accused of racism for exposing 'wicked white people' to public scrutiny in this way. But that's just another ploy of 'wicked white people' and their collaborators to perpetuate mental slavery. It's racism to talk about racist behaviour. But actual racist behaviour is not racism. It's just human nature. What an irony!
Justice versus expediency
So let's say instead that 'nice and decent' white people agreed that it was "just and expedient" to set the enslaved free. But the yoking of justice and expedience in the Act for the Abolition of Slavery reveals the central philosophical and practical dilemma at the heart of the emancipation enterprise.
Justice seemingly puts emancipation on solid moral ground. Expedience erodes all claims to moral authority. It was expedient to emancipate enslaved Africans because plantation slavery had become an expensive proposition. The substitution of beet for cane turned West Indian sugar into a rather sour deal.
After centuries of mostly verbal outrage - incessant talk, talk, talk about 'wicked white people' - we, the collective victims of transatlantic slavery, must finally decide to take legal action in the largest class-action suit in the history of the world. This is a truly wonderful idea. Not the wishy-washy, everyday sense of 'wonderful', meaning simply 'great'; it's the mind-blowing, original meaning of the word: full of wonder.
Five hundred years after the rape of the body and land of the original inhabitants of this part of the world; 500 years after the violent uprooting and enslavement of millions of Africans, we, their descendants, both native and immigrant, must lay claim to rights of reparation.
In the sweet by and by
For many Africans in the diaspora, it is in religion that we find hope for reparations. The Christian religion seems to recommend long-term investment in the celestial stock market. The concept of reparations has best been expressed in pious hymns like this: "In the sweet by and by I'll have a mansion so bright and so fair, won't it be glorious when I get there in the sweet by and by?" God will repair the breach. God is the ultimate human rights arbitrator.
Then we have those Africans who want hard cold cash in the here and now. Think of the title song from the movie The Harder They Come: "They tell me bout the pie up in the sky waiting for me when I die. But between the day you born and when you die, they never seem to hear even your cry. So as long as the sun will shine, I'm gonna get my share, what's mine. The harder they come, the harder they fall, one and all."
That's an excellent anthem for the Reparations Movement, the Garveyism of our times. It's the same kind of daring that made Marcus Garvey conceive the Universal Negro Improvement Association and Communities League: a global movement of African peoples who see themselves as having a shared history and a common destiny.
And don't think it's a joke. With derisive laughter cynics like to say, 'when you get the money you can check me.' But the Jews got compensation from the Germans; Japanese-Americans got compensation for the atrocities committed against them. Why not Africans? I'd like to know what, exactly, our National Commission on Reparations is doing about it.
If you think that after 500 years it's now too late for reparations, just remember Psalm 90:4 in which David, himself a Jew, converses with the Supreme Arbitrator: "For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past." Come to think of it, all we're really talking about is half a day's back pay.
August 7, 2011
jamaica-gleaner
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Jamaica: Scrap Metal And The Death Penalty
I THINK public defender Earl Witter has missed the point about the shutting down of the scrap metal trade. He is concerned that the rights of the scrap metal gatherers, dealers and exporters to earn a living may have been infringed by a stroke of the minister's pen. He does not condone the theft of railway lines, electricity wires, bridge rails, cultural artefacts, house gates and the like (he thinks persons who do this have "a disease of the mind"); his concern is "the honest dealer, gatherer, and honest exporter who plays by the rules ... may have been, by this act of the minister, shafted".
The main issue, Mr Witter, is not the honesty or criminal behaviour of many of the scrap metal operators, but the unsustainability of the scrap metal trade. If unscrupulous persons had not been ripping off public and private property, the industry would have been forced to shut down long ago, because it would have run out of scrap metal to export.
The gathering, compressing and exporting of scrap metal is not a typical business enterprise; it has more in common with fishing than with manufacturing. A manufacturer sources his raw materials on the open market and processes it to produce his product; he can increase production at any time by sourcing more raw materials on the open market, and increasing his staff. A fisherman has to chase down his fish in the open sea; he can only catch them if mother fish lay enough eggs to hatch, and after bigger fish have had their fill; you cannot fish harder to increase fish production beyond a certain point, after which the catch will decline (you will now be catching and killing the mother fish). You cannot catch more fish than are hatched without a decline in fish stocks (overfishing).
(Once the backlog of scrap build-up has been taken off) you cannot export more scrap metal than is generated without cannibalising non-scrap metal. The industry had expanded on the fat of the backlog of scrap build-up and long ago had become unsustainable. It does not have a "right" to exist if there is no more legitimate scrap to export.
What I would encourage Mr Witter to do is to explore a little more the concept of sustainable development. Although most governments have signed United Nations treaties committing their nations to pursue it, and have national policy documents prescribing that government departments must encourage it, few seem to understand it. In their election manifestos political parties will declare their undying support of sustainable development, and then afterwards descend into opportunism and expedience, approving the destruction of wetlands, forests, fragile coral cay ecosystems and the like in the name of progress and (what is definitely unsustainable) "development".
Vandalism, Mr Witter, has forced our present government to take the right decision in this case, in support of sustainable development. Please do not do anything to threaten their one claim to sustainable behaviour.
Capital punishment
You can tell we are fully in the silly season; several voices from within the government are raised in concert calling for the resumption of hanging. When you are in opposition and you call for hanging, you are harassing the government; when you are in government and you call for hanging, who are you harassing? The human rights groups?
It is naked populism!
Opinion polls show that most Jamaicans support capital punishment, and flogging; and the frequency with which our countrymen lynch and chop up goat thieves and homosexuals is a sure sign of where our moral compass lies.
The recent beheadings have led to public outrage, and the latest calls for hangings to resume; I wonder if the perpetrators of the beheadings were identified and caught by a Jamaican mob, whether they would not chop them up and behead them to show their disapproval of the beheadings? What an irony!
If we want to detect and apprehend more murderers, we must first increase the level of education and training within our police force, certainly among the homicide detectives. And we must further increase our investment in forensic science and technology available to our crime fighters.
And the Jamaica Labour Party and the People's National Party must not just disassociate themselves from their gangs with their gunmen and beheaders, but must turn them in, and bring in the guns. There is too much hypocrisy in Jamaican politics.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a Roman Catholic deacon.
August 5, 2011
jamaica-gleaner
The main issue, Mr Witter, is not the honesty or criminal behaviour of many of the scrap metal operators, but the unsustainability of the scrap metal trade. If unscrupulous persons had not been ripping off public and private property, the industry would have been forced to shut down long ago, because it would have run out of scrap metal to export.
The gathering, compressing and exporting of scrap metal is not a typical business enterprise; it has more in common with fishing than with manufacturing. A manufacturer sources his raw materials on the open market and processes it to produce his product; he can increase production at any time by sourcing more raw materials on the open market, and increasing his staff. A fisherman has to chase down his fish in the open sea; he can only catch them if mother fish lay enough eggs to hatch, and after bigger fish have had their fill; you cannot fish harder to increase fish production beyond a certain point, after which the catch will decline (you will now be catching and killing the mother fish). You cannot catch more fish than are hatched without a decline in fish stocks (overfishing).
(Once the backlog of scrap build-up has been taken off) you cannot export more scrap metal than is generated without cannibalising non-scrap metal. The industry had expanded on the fat of the backlog of scrap build-up and long ago had become unsustainable. It does not have a "right" to exist if there is no more legitimate scrap to export.
What I would encourage Mr Witter to do is to explore a little more the concept of sustainable development. Although most governments have signed United Nations treaties committing their nations to pursue it, and have national policy documents prescribing that government departments must encourage it, few seem to understand it. In their election manifestos political parties will declare their undying support of sustainable development, and then afterwards descend into opportunism and expedience, approving the destruction of wetlands, forests, fragile coral cay ecosystems and the like in the name of progress and (what is definitely unsustainable) "development".
Vandalism, Mr Witter, has forced our present government to take the right decision in this case, in support of sustainable development. Please do not do anything to threaten their one claim to sustainable behaviour.
Capital punishment
You can tell we are fully in the silly season; several voices from within the government are raised in concert calling for the resumption of hanging. When you are in opposition and you call for hanging, you are harassing the government; when you are in government and you call for hanging, who are you harassing? The human rights groups?
It is naked populism!
Opinion polls show that most Jamaicans support capital punishment, and flogging; and the frequency with which our countrymen lynch and chop up goat thieves and homosexuals is a sure sign of where our moral compass lies.
The recent beheadings have led to public outrage, and the latest calls for hangings to resume; I wonder if the perpetrators of the beheadings were identified and caught by a Jamaican mob, whether they would not chop them up and behead them to show their disapproval of the beheadings? What an irony!
If we want to detect and apprehend more murderers, we must first increase the level of education and training within our police force, certainly among the homicide detectives. And we must further increase our investment in forensic science and technology available to our crime fighters.
And the Jamaica Labour Party and the People's National Party must not just disassociate themselves from their gangs with their gunmen and beheaders, but must turn them in, and bring in the guns. There is too much hypocrisy in Jamaican politics.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a Roman Catholic deacon.
August 5, 2011
jamaica-gleaner
Thursday, August 4, 2011
The 'New Whale Order': Despotism threatens International Whaling Commission
By Elsa Cabrera
Although some seem to consider the results of the last annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) as insufficient, this meeting made history as the most important in the defense of governance and democracy within this international body.
After two days of negotiations to adopt by consensus a resolution about transparency and governance, and the subsequent hijacking of the IWC by whaling nations -- to obstruct the voting process for the creation of the South Atlantic whale sanctuary – the annual assembly of the IWC could be misguidedly perceived as a waste of time that left important conservation issues out of the meeting.
However, both situations unveiled the hypocrisy and manipulation to which several nations act in order to control and impose – through the denial of basic rights of sovereign Commission member states – an obscure destiny to whale populations worldwide.
A meeting that was anticipated to be passive and inactive ended with the Commission finally forced to face substantive issues that were dropped in the drawer of memories in order to maintain an artificially friendly environment aimed to diplomatically sink the conservation and non lethal use interests of the majority of IWC countries.
Preparations for an Assault Disguised as Consensus
The collapse of all great cetacean species due to the over exploitation of the whaling industry destroyed the credibility of the IWC as the body in charge of “regulating the orderly development of the whaling industry and the conservation of whale populations”. Only the enforcement of the global moratorium on commercial whaling from 1986 prevented the extinction of many of these species and saved the Commission from collapsing from exhaustion and permanent disappearance of the "resources" it was supposed to manage responsibly.
Following the implementation of the moratorium, IWC's credibility slowly began to rebuild, hand in hand with the increase of some populations of large whales and the generation of new and better alternatives related to the non lethal use of whales. However the vote buying policy of Japan for over a decade within the IWC – that has systematically blocked conservation initiatives -- has eroded the still vulnerable credibility of the Commission.
After the scandal revealed by The Sunday Times in 2010 about irregular payments of Japanese officials to Caribbean and African representatives of the IWC, the resolution on transparency and governance that was presented by the United Kingdom in Jersey became the best alternative to address this and other important matters, such as the lack of civil society participation in IWC meetings.
But the harpoon diplomacy consumed two valuable workdays of endless negotiations oriented to weaken basic transparency and governance measures in favor of obscure whaling interests. As a result, the Commission finally adopted a significant but weakened version of the English resolution that, among others, does not improve in any way the current outdated and restrictive system of NGO participation, and will only reduce and not eliminate corrupt practices within the IWC.
However, several whaling delegations and supporters of Japanese whaling policies celebrated enthusiastically its adoption as if it meant the consolidation of consensus as the single decision (making) mechanism of the IWC.
Diplomatic Hanging of Democratic Processes in the CBI
Since 2001 Brazil and Argentina – with the support of all the Latin American countries (Grupo Buenos Aires) – have led a proposal to create a whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic. However, the initiative has not been adopted because it requires 75% support of the Commission and the vote buying policy of Japan has always recruited enough countries to assure that it will never reach this percentage of the votes.
But during the annual IWC meeting in Alaska (2007) the number of votes in favor of the creation of the sanctuary reached the historical level of almost 60% of the countries and the Latin American region prepared to put the proposal for a vote during the next year meeting in Santiago de Chile.
However, the decision of the Commission to begin a negotiation process to define the “future of the IWC” – that required all countries to abstain from addressing conflicting issues (for the whalers, that is) in order to resolve the challenges of the IWC in an harmonious way – prevented the region from putting the proposal to a vote thereafter on behalf of making positive progress in the process.
On the other hand, the government of Japan continued to kill whales under the so called “scientific whaling” program in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary; imported dozens on tons of fin whale (endangered) from Iceland, although international trade of whale products is forbidden; it got involved in a bribery and corruption scandal that unexplainably put the complainants in jail; and evidence of illegal exports of minke whale meat caught in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary to a fancy restaurant in the United Stated were revealed.
The strategy of this new whaling order seemed to work perfectly for the Japanese government interests and its main allies. Led by the USA and New Zealand the whaling interests were finally consolidated in 2010 in a proposal for the future of the IWC that not only seeks to eliminate the moratorium but (is) also intended to legitimize “scientific whaling” operations in whale sanctuaries.
Fortunately, the proposal drastically failed and the negotiation process – along with its consensus policy – finalized after the meeting came to a close in Morocco. The closure of the negotiation process and certain favorable conditions for the pro conservation block in the IWC 2011 became a unique opportunity to retake conservation and development proposals that are of key importance to the Latin American region, such as the creation of the South Atlantic whale sanctuary.
In this context, Brazil presented the proposal to the Commission, giving solid biological, ecological and social arguments for its establishment and required its adoption by consensus. Exercising its legitimate right, Brazil also stated that if it was not possible to reach consensus, it would put the proposal to a vote. The IWC recognizes the voting procedure as a basic element of the decision making process when it is not possible to reach agreement by consensus.
After the stubborn and unjustifiable opposition of the whaling nations to the creation of the whale sanctuary, Brazil – with the support of Grupo Buenos Aires – exercised the undeniable right of every sovereign member state of the IWC and put the initiative to a vote.
Democracy vs. Whaling Tyranny
The reaction of the whaling nations – led by the government of Japan – could pass to history as one of the most villainous and dangerous moves in international environmental law.
Once the voting process was open, more than a dozen pro whaling delegations or those associated with vote buying practices abandoned the room with the alleged purpose of breaking the necessary quorum to continue the decision making process. Even in the absence of these countries the voting process should have continued because it was opened before the country representatives left the room, so there was a quorum when it began.
But the confusion and apparent unwillingness of the interim president of the IWC (South Africa) to respect and apply its procedures led to the suspension of voting on the whale sanctuary until the next annual meeting to be held in Panama in 2012.
Ironically, the determination to postpone yet another year the whale sanctuary proposal was reached after nine hours of secret deliberations in which civil society remained completely excluded.
This situation made it clear that the consensus reached the day before on the resolution of transparency and governance was merely a cover for the true interests of a minority that seeks to take control of the IWC to make it an organization dedicated to the commercial slaughter of whales.
While a first reading of what happened to the whale sanctuary proposal blames the government of Japan and the whaling nations for the shocking and disturbing whaling coup attempt, the leadership and continuing support of the United States and New Zealand to revitalize the failed negotiation process is a serious additional threat to the hijacked democracy of the IWC.
Although there is still too much time to truly envision the scenarios of the next IWC meeting, it is clear that the urgent rescue of democracy and governance of this international organization will have to be main issues in the 2011 agenda.
In this context, the active participation of Latin America and Caribbean countries and coordination of both members of the Grupo Buenos Aires and its strategic partners, will be essential to liberate the IWC of the the current whaling tyranny generated by the despotic and reprehensible behavior of a handful of nations.
Elsa Cabrera is the executive director of the Centro de Conservación Cetacea, an IWC accredited observer since 2001.
August 4, 2011
caribbeannewsnow
Although some seem to consider the results of the last annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) as insufficient, this meeting made history as the most important in the defense of governance and democracy within this international body.
After two days of negotiations to adopt by consensus a resolution about transparency and governance, and the subsequent hijacking of the IWC by whaling nations -- to obstruct the voting process for the creation of the South Atlantic whale sanctuary – the annual assembly of the IWC could be misguidedly perceived as a waste of time that left important conservation issues out of the meeting.
However, both situations unveiled the hypocrisy and manipulation to which several nations act in order to control and impose – through the denial of basic rights of sovereign Commission member states – an obscure destiny to whale populations worldwide.
A meeting that was anticipated to be passive and inactive ended with the Commission finally forced to face substantive issues that were dropped in the drawer of memories in order to maintain an artificially friendly environment aimed to diplomatically sink the conservation and non lethal use interests of the majority of IWC countries.
Preparations for an Assault Disguised as Consensus
The collapse of all great cetacean species due to the over exploitation of the whaling industry destroyed the credibility of the IWC as the body in charge of “regulating the orderly development of the whaling industry and the conservation of whale populations”. Only the enforcement of the global moratorium on commercial whaling from 1986 prevented the extinction of many of these species and saved the Commission from collapsing from exhaustion and permanent disappearance of the "resources" it was supposed to manage responsibly.
Following the implementation of the moratorium, IWC's credibility slowly began to rebuild, hand in hand with the increase of some populations of large whales and the generation of new and better alternatives related to the non lethal use of whales. However the vote buying policy of Japan for over a decade within the IWC – that has systematically blocked conservation initiatives -- has eroded the still vulnerable credibility of the Commission.
After the scandal revealed by The Sunday Times in 2010 about irregular payments of Japanese officials to Caribbean and African representatives of the IWC, the resolution on transparency and governance that was presented by the United Kingdom in Jersey became the best alternative to address this and other important matters, such as the lack of civil society participation in IWC meetings.
But the harpoon diplomacy consumed two valuable workdays of endless negotiations oriented to weaken basic transparency and governance measures in favor of obscure whaling interests. As a result, the Commission finally adopted a significant but weakened version of the English resolution that, among others, does not improve in any way the current outdated and restrictive system of NGO participation, and will only reduce and not eliminate corrupt practices within the IWC.
However, several whaling delegations and supporters of Japanese whaling policies celebrated enthusiastically its adoption as if it meant the consolidation of consensus as the single decision (making) mechanism of the IWC.
Diplomatic Hanging of Democratic Processes in the CBI
Since 2001 Brazil and Argentina – with the support of all the Latin American countries (Grupo Buenos Aires) – have led a proposal to create a whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic. However, the initiative has not been adopted because it requires 75% support of the Commission and the vote buying policy of Japan has always recruited enough countries to assure that it will never reach this percentage of the votes.
But during the annual IWC meeting in Alaska (2007) the number of votes in favor of the creation of the sanctuary reached the historical level of almost 60% of the countries and the Latin American region prepared to put the proposal for a vote during the next year meeting in Santiago de Chile.
However, the decision of the Commission to begin a negotiation process to define the “future of the IWC” – that required all countries to abstain from addressing conflicting issues (for the whalers, that is) in order to resolve the challenges of the IWC in an harmonious way – prevented the region from putting the proposal to a vote thereafter on behalf of making positive progress in the process.
On the other hand, the government of Japan continued to kill whales under the so called “scientific whaling” program in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary; imported dozens on tons of fin whale (endangered) from Iceland, although international trade of whale products is forbidden; it got involved in a bribery and corruption scandal that unexplainably put the complainants in jail; and evidence of illegal exports of minke whale meat caught in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary to a fancy restaurant in the United Stated were revealed.
The strategy of this new whaling order seemed to work perfectly for the Japanese government interests and its main allies. Led by the USA and New Zealand the whaling interests were finally consolidated in 2010 in a proposal for the future of the IWC that not only seeks to eliminate the moratorium but (is) also intended to legitimize “scientific whaling” operations in whale sanctuaries.
Fortunately, the proposal drastically failed and the negotiation process – along with its consensus policy – finalized after the meeting came to a close in Morocco. The closure of the negotiation process and certain favorable conditions for the pro conservation block in the IWC 2011 became a unique opportunity to retake conservation and development proposals that are of key importance to the Latin American region, such as the creation of the South Atlantic whale sanctuary.
In this context, Brazil presented the proposal to the Commission, giving solid biological, ecological and social arguments for its establishment and required its adoption by consensus. Exercising its legitimate right, Brazil also stated that if it was not possible to reach consensus, it would put the proposal to a vote. The IWC recognizes the voting procedure as a basic element of the decision making process when it is not possible to reach agreement by consensus.
After the stubborn and unjustifiable opposition of the whaling nations to the creation of the whale sanctuary, Brazil – with the support of Grupo Buenos Aires – exercised the undeniable right of every sovereign member state of the IWC and put the initiative to a vote.
Democracy vs. Whaling Tyranny
The reaction of the whaling nations – led by the government of Japan – could pass to history as one of the most villainous and dangerous moves in international environmental law.
Once the voting process was open, more than a dozen pro whaling delegations or those associated with vote buying practices abandoned the room with the alleged purpose of breaking the necessary quorum to continue the decision making process. Even in the absence of these countries the voting process should have continued because it was opened before the country representatives left the room, so there was a quorum when it began.
But the confusion and apparent unwillingness of the interim president of the IWC (South Africa) to respect and apply its procedures led to the suspension of voting on the whale sanctuary until the next annual meeting to be held in Panama in 2012.
Ironically, the determination to postpone yet another year the whale sanctuary proposal was reached after nine hours of secret deliberations in which civil society remained completely excluded.
This situation made it clear that the consensus reached the day before on the resolution of transparency and governance was merely a cover for the true interests of a minority that seeks to take control of the IWC to make it an organization dedicated to the commercial slaughter of whales.
While a first reading of what happened to the whale sanctuary proposal blames the government of Japan and the whaling nations for the shocking and disturbing whaling coup attempt, the leadership and continuing support of the United States and New Zealand to revitalize the failed negotiation process is a serious additional threat to the hijacked democracy of the IWC.
Although there is still too much time to truly envision the scenarios of the next IWC meeting, it is clear that the urgent rescue of democracy and governance of this international organization will have to be main issues in the 2011 agenda.
In this context, the active participation of Latin America and Caribbean countries and coordination of both members of the Grupo Buenos Aires and its strategic partners, will be essential to liberate the IWC of the the current whaling tyranny generated by the despotic and reprehensible behavior of a handful of nations.
Elsa Cabrera is the executive director of the Centro de Conservación Cetacea, an IWC accredited observer since 2001.
August 4, 2011
caribbeannewsnow
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Jamaica has failed Emancipation test
H. Dale Anderson, Contributor
jamaica-gleaner
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
jamaica-gleaner
jamaica-gleaner
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
jamaica-gleaner
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Haiti and the entrenched business of the NGOs
By Jean H Charles
“There are plenty of reasons why countries have made mistakes. Often their decisions are driven by a particular interest group or a coalition of them whose short-term gains stand at odds with the nation’s long-term interest. Some interest groups have captured countries and dragged them down, some have been resisted,” said: Alan Beattie in False Economy. Yet, history is not determined by fate or national culture, it is determined by people and by leadership.
The unhappy story of Haiti after its glorious outburst from a slave entity to a free nation is the story of one damned thing after another, as would say Arnold Toynbee. There was first the complete destruction of the very profitable sugar industry of the island to force the French colonists to leave and then there was the constant repositioning of the entrenched interests to stiffen the national economy to the point of completely killing indigenous capitalization.
The last group of entrenched interests compromising the future development of the country is the positioning of the NGOs as a passage oblige for the national recovery.
Haiti before and much more after the earthquake of January 12, 2010, has been invaded by an army of NGOs from all corners of the world, in addition to its own enterprising ones. The Haitian government does not know the actual numbers of non-governmental organizations working in the country. It is estimated at 8,000, more than any other country in the world except maybe India with a population of more than a billion people.
The tiny town of Leogane has more than 800 NGOs trying to find a mission. They have profited from the loose regulation and coordination from the governmental authorities to propagate and operate at will, sometimes in contradiction with each other and the long term vision of the needs of the nation.
Some countries have been impoverished by unbridled capitalism; other nations have seen their country’s productive force stagnated by Marxist policies. Haiti will prove to the rest of the world that resting on the NGOs to create wealth in the country has produced just the contrary.
The biggest culprit is the MINUSTHA of the United Nations, a mammoth operation designed not with the interest of the nation in mind but with its own needs as priority. There is something at odd with a standing army with all the military gear ready to fight against a nation that refuses to fight.
The blinded vehicles of the MINUSTHA, making their way in the crowded streets of Port au Prince at crucial peak traffic time, with their cannons pointed at the mothers with their children in hand, trying to navigate the cars and the crowd to reach the school doors, provides a spectacle comical and cynical.
There was first the very arrogant Edmond Mulet in charge of the operation, replaced now by the very humble and collegial Mariano Fernandez Amunategui, who will either run a charm operation for the MINUSTHA to remain longer in the country or facilitate its demilitarization to transmute into a facilitating force for infrastructure development in Haiti.
UNICEF for its part has bloated the previous Haitian administration with thousands of brand new vehicles that feed the greed, the corruption and the venality of the high executive echelon without proper safeguard that these assets will be used for the good of the nation.
CIRH (Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti) -- the Clinton instrument to facilitate the reconstruction of the country after the earthquake -- has disbursed in the last year the amount of $4 billion without minimal visible impact for the displaced population.
The myriad of NGOs circulating in rental vehicles enrich only the car rental companies, and those who can lease their villas, their warehouses and, according to the witty and whimsical Haitian people, their wives and their daughters.
The previous Haitian government has refused to create a strong NGO coordination under the umbrella of a sub-cabinet minister. Other countries such as Indonesia or even reclusive Burma have recovered faster from cataclysm by channeling the efforts of the NGOs through a guided governmental apparatus.
I met recently a discreet diplomatic delegation from Rwanda visiting Haiti to advise the new government on its policies with the NGOs. Rwanda before the genocide was run almost entirely by the NGOs. The new president, who received high accolade from the concert of nations in his handling of the national economy and the national reconciliation process, has taken effective measures to diminish the influence of the NGOs in the country.
Is it a signal that Haiti will finally take its fate in its own hands in creating the conditions to build a nation free of exclusion, enhanced with sane institutions and adequate infrastructure for the benefit of the population that will enrich itself and enrich the country free of the bloated NGO apparatus that represents an interest group as malignant and entrenched as the old government was for the Haitian reconstruction.
August 1, 2011
caribbeannewsnow
“There are plenty of reasons why countries have made mistakes. Often their decisions are driven by a particular interest group or a coalition of them whose short-term gains stand at odds with the nation’s long-term interest. Some interest groups have captured countries and dragged them down, some have been resisted,” said: Alan Beattie in False Economy. Yet, history is not determined by fate or national culture, it is determined by people and by leadership.
The unhappy story of Haiti after its glorious outburst from a slave entity to a free nation is the story of one damned thing after another, as would say Arnold Toynbee. There was first the complete destruction of the very profitable sugar industry of the island to force the French colonists to leave and then there was the constant repositioning of the entrenched interests to stiffen the national economy to the point of completely killing indigenous capitalization. The last group of entrenched interests compromising the future development of the country is the positioning of the NGOs as a passage oblige for the national recovery.
Haiti before and much more after the earthquake of January 12, 2010, has been invaded by an army of NGOs from all corners of the world, in addition to its own enterprising ones. The Haitian government does not know the actual numbers of non-governmental organizations working in the country. It is estimated at 8,000, more than any other country in the world except maybe India with a population of more than a billion people.
The tiny town of Leogane has more than 800 NGOs trying to find a mission. They have profited from the loose regulation and coordination from the governmental authorities to propagate and operate at will, sometimes in contradiction with each other and the long term vision of the needs of the nation.
Some countries have been impoverished by unbridled capitalism; other nations have seen their country’s productive force stagnated by Marxist policies. Haiti will prove to the rest of the world that resting on the NGOs to create wealth in the country has produced just the contrary.
The biggest culprit is the MINUSTHA of the United Nations, a mammoth operation designed not with the interest of the nation in mind but with its own needs as priority. There is something at odd with a standing army with all the military gear ready to fight against a nation that refuses to fight.
The blinded vehicles of the MINUSTHA, making their way in the crowded streets of Port au Prince at crucial peak traffic time, with their cannons pointed at the mothers with their children in hand, trying to navigate the cars and the crowd to reach the school doors, provides a spectacle comical and cynical.
There was first the very arrogant Edmond Mulet in charge of the operation, replaced now by the very humble and collegial Mariano Fernandez Amunategui, who will either run a charm operation for the MINUSTHA to remain longer in the country or facilitate its demilitarization to transmute into a facilitating force for infrastructure development in Haiti.
UNICEF for its part has bloated the previous Haitian administration with thousands of brand new vehicles that feed the greed, the corruption and the venality of the high executive echelon without proper safeguard that these assets will be used for the good of the nation.
CIRH (Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti) -- the Clinton instrument to facilitate the reconstruction of the country after the earthquake -- has disbursed in the last year the amount of $4 billion without minimal visible impact for the displaced population.
The myriad of NGOs circulating in rental vehicles enrich only the car rental companies, and those who can lease their villas, their warehouses and, according to the witty and whimsical Haitian people, their wives and their daughters.
The previous Haitian government has refused to create a strong NGO coordination under the umbrella of a sub-cabinet minister. Other countries such as Indonesia or even reclusive Burma have recovered faster from cataclysm by channeling the efforts of the NGOs through a guided governmental apparatus.
I met recently a discreet diplomatic delegation from Rwanda visiting Haiti to advise the new government on its policies with the NGOs. Rwanda before the genocide was run almost entirely by the NGOs. The new president, who received high accolade from the concert of nations in his handling of the national economy and the national reconciliation process, has taken effective measures to diminish the influence of the NGOs in the country.
Is it a signal that Haiti will finally take its fate in its own hands in creating the conditions to build a nation free of exclusion, enhanced with sane institutions and adequate infrastructure for the benefit of the population that will enrich itself and enrich the country free of the bloated NGO apparatus that represents an interest group as malignant and entrenched as the old government was for the Haitian reconstruction.
August 1, 2011
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