Ronald Thwaites | Help us to trust

The credibility of the Government and of the entire political order is repeatedly threatened – most often by political actors scoring own goals. At least the tacit approval by the governed of what lawmakers and law enforcers are doing is essential to social order. Surly acquiescence is not enough. But isn’t that what obtains now?

The trust deficit increases with the missteps of every week. An administration may not need to fear a vote of no confidence in the air-conditioned phlegm of Gordon House, but on the hot street, where for effective governance it means most, suspicion and cynicism – not to be confused with healthy criticism – infects everything. Even the University Singers, good-good patriotic people, in their recent concert has a piece tracing politicians, which surprised me for its sharpness and bitter edge.

Cussing the two parties as ‘teefs’ and moral bankrupts doesn’t solve the problem for those who do not intend to run away or who have children. For all its warts and faults, the existing political order controls what is law and how more than a trillion dollars of our money is taken and spent each year. Civil society and the private sector can’t run the country. God forbid, but if the elected political actors continue to delegitimise themselves in the public’s mind, there are plenty of examples nearby of what an army or gang leaders can do in such a vacuum. Reform, not scorn, is what is needed.

And lest there be any misunderstanding, the same gangrenous mistrust of the Holness regime will be transferable to a People’s National Party administration in the blink of an eye. The correction has to be systemic, because the problem affects the very constitutional structures.

LEAVE INTEGRITY COMMISSION TO DO ITS WORK

That’s why the stupidity of trying to interfere with the Integrity Commission and hiding the publication of its reports and those of the auditor general is so dangerous. Who do you think believes the prime minister when he decries the cass-cass which, by his correct assessment, weakens the anti-corruption institution, but permits the very cass-cass of Warmington, Malahoo Forte and Chuck, and the confused pseudo-legal antics of attorney Philibert and King Charles’ very own lawyer, Finson.

I ask you, if there is nothing you have to conceal, why not table the reports as soon as they are available? What can be the political advantage or the public interest principle in attracting more suspicion to yourself and impugning the very anti-corruption agencies which you put in place.

MPs and senators, don’t you get it yet? The public trust Mrs Ellis and Judge Panton more than unnuh – no matter the privileged bromides in Parliament or the CDs and OJs we give ourselves! Bobby, most people believe that we political actors are the “something rotten in the state of Denmark”, not Julian’s reference to a publicly available report.

A RESPITE

So that we can breathe despite such pains, let us praise the good move by the Ministry of Education to get school furniture early for September morning and, more so, to have engaged several schools in the repair and fabrication of desks and chairs. I’m sure there will be cost savings, a flow of needed resources into semi-bankrupt schools, and the inculcation of skills and good work habits among those students who I presume were involved.

Why not build on this? How about a system of engaging students in cleaning their schools and preparing school meals. Think of the life skills which would be gained and the sense of community, instead of specialness and self-obsession, which would be engendered. In a high-outcome pre-primary school in China, I observed children, under the supervision of their teacher and caregiver, taking pride in cleaning their classroom. No janitor, no maid: just positive values and attitudes.

WASTE BREEDS MISTRUST

Every time the television news shows the decaying Trelawny stadium or the underused Sabina Park, the public questions the priorities and accountability of public expenditure. The same is true right now about the embarrassing South Coast Highway Project. Why start 11 construction packages at once? Why was the necessary land acquisition not completed way before the first backhoe arrived? Why do we pave and then have to dig up?

What will be the inevitable massive cost over-runs which taxpayers will have to pay for this project, the abandoned Junction Road fiasco and the Cornwall Regional Hospital? Who is responsible? All while there is insufficient money for early-childhood education, healthcare and the hundreds more homeless appearing on the streets in recent months. Again, every time, it all redounds to the issue of trust in those who govern and the structures in which they operate.

THE REFUGEES

At this point, I am pleading. It would be a monstrous cruelty to send back the 37 Haitians who took refuge here last week. They have no less claim for asylum than the thousands of us economic migrants who push our way into North America and almost any other country where we can find refuge from Jamaica. What conscience would justify us spurning Boukman’s descendants who are fleeing from conditions far worse than anything we experience in Jamaica?

Please, do Mr Holness and Mrs Smith, believe themselves? How can they, in CARICOM and other circles, exude righteous concerns for Haiti and yet see no inconsistency in expelling de facto Haitian refugees – including little children – to their certain peril.

What suppression of conscience would allow us to seek compassion for the tens and hundreds of thousands of undocumented Jamaicans abroad, whose remittances prop up our dollar and save communities from largely state-ignored and normalised starvation, but like the Pharisee and Publican, refuse lodging and succour to the Haitian on the road to Jericho?

Again, don’t give us more reason to distrust your goodwill and good sense. Mind we don’t bring down a curse on ourselves.

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. He is former member of parliament for Kingston Central and was the minister of education. He is the principal of St Michael’s College at the UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.