Dismantling underdevelopment

Peter Espeut , Gleaner Writer

DURING THIS time when we are analysing the garrison phenomenon to death, looking at how they began and trying to figure out how to dismantle them, I believe we are forgetting two factors contributory to garrison formation which, if not addressed, could short-circuit our best dismantling efforts. It is quite likely that if we dismantle all the current garrisons tomorrow without dealing with these important factors, the garrisons might yet re-emerge in a few years' time.

Often it is said that millions of dollars need to be spent on building social capital in the inner city - in the ghettos of Kingston and Spanish Town - to provide economic hope for the residents, especially the young men, who have largely been failed by the education system. This exposes the first point: our present dysfunctional educational system is one of the causes of the present garrison phenomenon.

We are currently struggling to have our schools graduate Jamaicans who can functionally read and write, and not doing a very good job of it; but literacy is not enough. If our schools all across Jamaica - especially our high schools - graduated persons competent in language skills, able to manipulate numbers, with more than a passing acquaintance with the concepts of science and technology, with business skills, Jamaica would be a different place. This is not an impossible task; Barbados did it; Singapore did it. They set out to do it, and they did it.

I am not sure we have ever set our minds to do it here in Jamaica. We have always wondered who would cut cane and weed bananas and pick coffee if everyone were literate and numerate, and so we did not build high schools in cane fields. Singapore does not have enough of its own citizens to work as domestics and gardeners (their citizens are too educated for that); they have to invite foreigners to come in to do those jobs, just as the USA and Canada now invite Jamaicans to do farm work in their countries. If we want an end to garrisons in Jamaica - and to ghettos and underdevelopment - we must fix our educational system. I long for the day when our workforce is so educated that we have to import agricultural labour.

Citizens of a New Jamaica

Our educational system must teach more than academics; schools must train students in the values and attitudes needed for success in life: punctuality, diligence, hard work, respect for others, self-control, discipline, neatness and personal hygiene, entrepreneurship. The citizen of the new Jamaica must love to learn and discover new things, must be an inventor and an innovator. People like this do not make good garrison residents.

This leads well into the second point I think we so often forget. Why is it that our cities and large towns have so many ghettos and squatter settlements, inside and outside? Generally speaking, our rural areas are so underdeveloped that people who live there can't wait to leave! And many leave 'country' and come to town, and pack up in the inner city, making them ripe for some don to control.

It often starts with education; parents move their children to where they can get a good (secondary) education; most of the good high schools in Jamaica are in Kingston. But usually people decide to migrate to the towns to get work. There is so little work to be had in rural Jamaica (outside of tourism and bauxite). Drive up the Plantain Garden River Valley (St Thomas), the Rio Grande Valley, the Buff Bay River Valley (Portland), the Wagwater River Valley (St Mary), the Great River Valley (Hanover/St James), and so many others: there is so little there for people to do; migration is their best option. A few well-placed industrial estates would do wonders for rural development, and would take some of the increasing population pressure off the towns.

And so, if millions are spent training all the present garrisonistas such that they get jobs and improve themselves and move out (uptown), their spaces will be quickly filled with other lightly educated rural people migrating in from the country. It is a bottomless pit!

And so, if we want not just to dismantle the present garrisons, but to prevent them ever re-forming, we must educate all our people - across Jamaica - and we must provide more economic opportunities in rural Jamaica.

Peter Espeut is a rural-based sociologist and environmentalist. He may be reached at columns@gleanerjm.com