Ronald Thwaites | Contrasting realities

Start with the realities foisted on the world by the Emperor recently. What was the point about the on-then-off-then- maybe tariffs except to preen and embed universal distrust ? After the tirade about China’s unfair conduct, what was the point of imposing 145 per cent levies then, constrained by the likes of Walmart, Amazon, Apple and even Musk, a wimpish push-back to 30 per cent which is still touted as a win – “bigly”? What is the truth?

IN CONTRAST

Pope Francis died leaving €100 to his name. Bill Gates is giving away his $200 billion. There are credible reports that the Emperor’s personal fortunes have increased a billion dollars every month since his accession. So he thinks he wins. Ask yourself, is it a triumph to die with your pockets full of money? Did that save Bob Marley or Steve Jobs?

CAUSING CHAOS

Now that Walmart has announced price increases, and other Chinese-product dependent retailers will follow, it is certain who will lose – the world’s consumers – including us.

Jamaica’s and America’s underclass grows. Remittances, Jamaican poor people’s lifeline are in imminent danger of being taxed at source, even as more of us give up on Jamaica and line up to migrate.

Heads I win. Tails you lose.

The mirage of prosperity is announced half-hourly nowadays in the bought-out media. Same time, the scourge of cost of living increases draws blood from the working poor . The latter is unavoidable. The former is illusion.

LEADERS MATTER

Leadership inspires or demoralizes followership. The Emperor flies in a $400 million luxury jet plane. To hell with the constitution which forbids such gifts.” L’Etat, c’est moi”. Recall what happened to the bumptious king who said that. Contrast Pope Leo, spiritual leader of more than four times more persons than reside in the US, who rides in the passenger seat of his VW car.

My friend Hutchinson extols the efficiency of the Chinese road contractors and shows contempt for the local contractors who put him where he is. Remember that during British times, the said local contractors used to fix the road from Santa Cruz to Malvern passing Northampton good-good.

The otherwise promising Minister Samuda dives into the NWC’s bunker to hide water quality data from the local boards of health. Who is he defending? It is as if the monopoly NWC is saying to our elected representatives. “Go siddung KSAMC! Tek dat. Nah tell yu nuttin. After you can’t even bush out cemeteries good”. This is what happens when you dissent. Power emboldens disrespect.

The foreign contractors underpay local workers, cheating them and rendering local master builders uncompetitive because they must obey the law. Who gave these foreigners permission to operate unjustly even when they are using our money and enjoying the concessions which, in our self-contempt, we continue to give to outsiders while denying them to our own?

Once again last week, this government has earned for itself, but at the expense of our blood and liberty, the disgrace of having the cornerstone of its crime plan, permanent states of public emergency, struck down by the Constitutional Court.

Check how many court cases this administration has lost during its term in office. Bad legal advise and representation have crashed their credibility. Like the Emperor, arrogance, whim, panic and twisted thinking supersede ethics and settled principles.

AUTOCRACY TRENDING

Not that law matters much to this kind of ruler. Intoxicated with the allure of office, like their ideological mentor, they will evade the constitution and court by extra-legal activity justified as a permanent “emergency”. There are lawmakers in Jamaica uncomfortable with the Charter of Rights.

How dare they offer themselves for re-election and swear by the same Charter they despise! If they can’t achieve the preventive detention which the rolling states of emergency would provide, then watch the recourse to multiplying extra-judicial killings and mandatory sentences even for children. This is the way autocracy erodes democracy.

“It is better that one man die for the people” said the chief priests about Jesus. (John 18:14)

Tyrants have no respect for law. They threaten with death. Law and constitution can go on their slow and idealistic way. What the State and the criminals do on the street corner is settled right there – no appeal. The formal systems of separation of powers; of due process can always be rationalised away and the starvelings will always bay for blood.

“Auditor General, go siddung. Who tell you to business with how MP give out fertiliser”?

DOUBLE VISION

Help me figure out reality. Last week, international agencies and their satraps once again portrayed a vision about Jamaica’s poster child economic turn-around. They normalise a measly two per cent GDP growth going forward – though that still eludes us. But the poster-child, God’s creation, has an ugly backside – a vulnerable contrasting picture. Tourism is down, remittances are soft, taxation is flat and purchasing power is reducing weekly. What can go so?

SAVING GRACE

Then last Friday, usually the weakest day for attendance at the school I have been telling you about, just after dismissal, the teenage boys hung around . “Miss, you have any tea”? When they got tea, the girls came for some. “Miss, don’t you have biscuits in that box”? They were allowed to rummage in the supplies sent by the students in the connected up-town school. “Miss, we find sardines in there too! Do Miss, we can get some”? “Miss, can tek two tin: no food deh a my yard” pleaded one girl in a whisper. Others followed. It’s not greed. It’s need.

Those provisions were intended for breakfast this week. The box is empty now . But in our reality, the Lord whose mercy never fails, will provide.

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