Ronald Thwaites | Escaping the slipstream

What positive outcome for humanity can come from the self-described government by “gut feeling” displayed last week in America? How much richer or greater is The United States now that 100 nations are lining up to “kiss my (his) a**” to secure trade deals and avoid the poison of tariffs?

Are any Caribbean governors in that queue? Who among our leaders have the stomach for the sacrifice and struggle of resistance? Remember what kind of s-hole nations we have already been classed.

WHAT FOR?

All this turmoil, animosity and uncountable loss is for what yield or purpose? What value is being added to the human condition by sowing irredeemable suspicion and detriment in the world’s financial and productive centres and consequentially causing millions to starve? What crippling injustice to the American people, the richest in the world, is being redressed?

JUDGMENT

Christians and many other religions believe that each of us will face a final judgment where the conduct of our lives will be placed in the balance. Do the murderers, both in and out of uniform, of high or low status; those who prescribe slow torture and death from far-away boardrooms and legislatures, as much as those who shed blood point-blank, ask themselves how they will face their reckoning? For it is inconceivable that the evils of history and the present will have no redress.

We are born with nothing, spend our life acquiring “things” and then die leaving everything behind. If that is all, what is sublime about us?

The great and generous United States now portrays itself as the victim of exploitation by the rest of the world, except apparently Russia. What can go so?

THE REACTION

So apparently the Chinese called the bluff and began the sell-off of some of their $800 billion worth of US treasury bonds last Monday. The spectre of destabilising currency markets appears to have so frightened the Caesars of Washington that they have retreated to regroup, even as their self-inflicted infection feeds upon its own necrotic skin and gets worse for them and for all of us.

Nations and investors are losing their trust in the dollar. At the weekend, despite Wednesday’s erratic reversal of the most absurd tariffs, the bleeding of value and confidence continued. To what end? Living in Massa’s wake, just look at the chronic strain on the local dollar, the one we use to buy food, the prices for which are rising every month.

REVERSAL

White families are being encouraged to breed so as to prevent the browning of America and, in the truthful explanation of one high official “to keep those on the margins where they belong: on the margins”! The economic and social gains of the post-war age are being reversed before our eyes.

VALUING WHO WE ARE

In the slipstream of this travail and mix-up, Jamaicans should pause this Easter and cherish our culture, our spirituality, our constitution and ethical legal systems which, despite huge flaws and the battering of history, all come together to give us a radically different perspective on life, its meaning and conduct.

Let us continue to reject ego-centric and autocratic leaders. Following Isaiah Ch58 v7, we must never turn our back on our own. Our women perform the miracle of feeding the hungry with five loaves and two fish, which, once broken and shared selflessly, are never finished. We abhor advantage-takers and Anansi-followers even if we have to ‘kin-teet’ with them when they hold the handle.

For all our disorder, we know how to “live gud” when we are ready. And while not enough, we continue to teach our children Christian principles of civic awareness and ethical behaviour.

So we have a strong national character to sustain and embellish in the turbulence of these times. The tonic we need is greater self-reliance, higher productivity and balanced relationships with our Caribbean, Chinese, European and American friends with the confidence of self-respect and reverence for all others, especially the weak. Vote for, and cast your lot with candidates whose lives and careers display virtue and principle rather than slackness. Copy little Antigua for insisting that Cuban and Venezuelan ties will not be pawned.

TRUTH AND MATURITY

The maturity required for Jamaica to survive in these choppy international waters demands that we speak truth to each other instead of belching on the gas of fizzy slogans and ribbon-cutting for shoddy work.

For example, dispel the popular delusion that technical and vocational skills are the lot of those who are weak academically. That was the design of the post-slavery educational model where schooling for low-wage labour was prescribed so that “those who are supposed to be on the margins, stay on the margins”.

“Pivoting” towards higher order industries in the BPO and every other sector, without literacy, numeracy and superior character formation will keep us in our present rut. Deal with foundations before superstructure. We need to transform skill training not reinforce its inequality. HEART offerings are hampered by the limited preparedness of its entrants. Some catch up. Most don’t.

UPSKILLING

Every early childhood and primary teacher needs significant reorientation and up-skilling given the weak social and moral context from which most children come. Mandatory continuing professional development must start this year. Let the earnest of the task precede the tabling legislation since the parliament continues to be slothful in taking the Jamaica Teaching Council Bill.

OBSTRUCTION

Even more than the wobbly dollar, the most expensive and frustrating part of any development activity in Jamaica today is dealing with state agencies. I know of projects which are losing viability for want of prompt facilitation by state-owned companies, municipal corporations and ministries. There are no sanctions for delays and withheld cooperation despite all the talk of promoting efficiency and the creation of a cabinet portfolio.

Meanwhile the public sector wage bill as a percentage of GDP continues to balloon. The private sector is being held to ransom by systems and people whose attitude and tenure renders them unaccountable to either minister or chairman who only think they run things.

Wilful obstruction is a species of corruption. Surviving the slipstream heading south to the Caribbean requires us to radically alter our thinking and behaviour.

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