Broke, violent and happy?

Kevin O'Brien Chang, Contributor

Boss: "So in conclusion, things look pretty dismal."

Jamaican: "You know what this room needs? A smile. Who want to come with I?"

Say what you want about that controversial VW Super Bowl ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H0xPWAtaa8), it sure nailed our national mentality.

In fact, one can just imagine a similar scene at a Cabinet meeting.

Peter (or Portia, since we're not sure who really calling the shots now):

"So in conclusion, the country bruk like a stone and wi haffi go raid NHT again."

Phillip and Lisa: "You know what this room needs? Some music fi dance. Who a come Trini carnival wid we?"

The tired but true cliché 'Jamaica is such a contradictory country' has never seemed more apt. While the world uses us as a yardstick of joie de vivre - happiness is yardiness that Super Bowl ad implies - our papers are filled with headlines of murder and debt. Should a happy people be slaughtering each other at such a rate? Or be so mired in poverty that we have to keep constantly begging the IMF for yet another 'let-off'?

Some dismiss 'happy Jamaica' as mere myth. "My pay cheque can barely pay rent and buy food and send di pickney dem go school. And mi haffi lock up behind burglar bars a night-time. And dem a tell mi how happy mi is? Big kiss teet!"

Full-blooded laughter

Yet every country has its ups and downs, so why of the roughly 200 nations on the planet should Jamaica have become 'the land of no problem'? Well, one obvious reason is the amount of laughter you hear all the time. We cuss and moan and groan with the best of them, but no one can walk around long on this island without hearing some outburst of full-blooded laughter. No doubt it's often 'tek kin teet kibber heart bun'.

But those who've travelled know the bouts of uproarious belly laughter that punctuate Jamaican discourse are pretty uncommon in most places.

A couple of years ago, I visited Panama, which ranks high on 'well-being surveys', and has a much higher per-capita GDP than Jamaica. From the outside, they would seem to have the best of both worlds: relative economic prosperity without a joy-killing 'all work, no play' lifestyle.

Yet while it's a nice enough place, my girlfriend and I found ourselves continually commenting on the lack of smiles and laughter we saw and encountered there. On our first couple of days, she was highly enthused: "This place is way richer and safer than Jamaica! Why can't we get good government like this?" But by the end of our trip, she was like, "Bwoy, give mi back mi Jamaica, even with the crime and bad road. People here too cold and stiff."

Mark you, we spoke no Spanish, and it was only a one-week trip in mostly tourist and shopping areas, so our impressions could never be considered expert or definitive. Yet her reaction is by no means uncommon among travelling Jamdowners. As another weary but not entirely wrong cliché goes, there's just something about Jamaica.

I've talked to people who have lived for extended times in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, places which rank very high on human development and well-being statistics. But when asked who seems happier, the average Yardie or Yankee or Canuck or Ozzie or Kiwi, they always pauses for a moment and then laughs, "You know the people here do seem happier!"

Happy people

Why this should be so, nobody really knows. Happiness itself may be an indefinable concept, but most would agree that happy people smile and laugh a lot - and don't often kill themselves. Now few people anywhere laugh as easily or often or loud as Jamaicans, and we do have a pretty low suicide rate by global standards - the sixth lowest in the world. (source: Wikipedia).

So if 'Happy Jamaica' is a myth, it's at least partially an evidence-based one. On the other hand, if we are so happy, why can't we stop killing each other? While trending down over the past three years, our homicide rate is still the sixth highest in the world. (source: Wikipedia)

No doubt the problem is multifactorial - a lack of involved fathers; low economic growth; rising inequality; drug trade and lottery scam involvement; an inefficient and, in many eyes, corrupt justice system; political garrisonism, etc. The list goes on.

The greatest mystery about our high murder rate is why we, as a country, refuse to do the obvious things to cut it. A triple-pronged attack - of more police, tougher sentences for repeat criminals, and more prisons to hold them - would almost certainly reduce our homicide rate significantly.

It was no accident that our murder rate fell dramatically after the police crackdown and state of emergency that followed the May 2010 Tivoli operation. Who doubts that our murder rate would be lower today had that state of emergency been renewed and extended as requested by our security forces in July 2010?

Of course, perhaps as way of compensation, our police continue to kill 'suspected' criminals at almost one a day, a probably unparalleled per capita rate. Apart from localised demonstrations, most of the public seem to view these events with indifference. Now, our police force is too often given basket to carry water and has one of the toughest damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't jobs in the world. But it's hard to see our level of police killings as anything else other than capital punishment by other means.

Systemic fixes

Relatively minor tweaks here and there - proper tax restructuring, a modernised justice system, an education system focusing resources on basic fundamentals rather than tertiary learning - would almost surely make Jamaica a far more prosperous and peaceful place.

Yet, for good or bad, we as a society appear content with our status quo and adamantly opposed to any kind of fundamental reform. "A ya so nice, so leave well enough alone" seems to be the national mindset.

Sure, we chat a lot about change, but when it comes to walking the walk, everyone goes back to playing dominoes and chatting on cell phones. Countries that are truly "fed up and can't take it no more" show their dissatisfaction with mass marches and protests. When was the last time 1,000 Jamaicans got together to protest anything?

Yes, we have two packs of jokers in Parliament. One party, at least, pretends to listen to the people and tells them what they want to hear but seems incapable of producing economic growth or financial stability. The other has done fairly well at tying administrative nuts and bolts together when given the chance but keeps demonstrating a scarcely veiled "we know what's best, so who cares what you idiots have to say" contempt for the masses.

It's like a town with two doctors. The first is an incompetent quack who kills one of every two he attends to but is friendly and nice to patients and makes them feel good about themselves. The other is slightly more competent - killing only one out of three - but is arrogant and disrespectful towards patients. One might feel some sympathy for the poor town people. But every time a new - and hence potentially better - physician tries to set up shop, a lack of customers puts him out of business.

Because in the end, if we Jamaicans don't like what we have, who can possibly be to blame but ourselves?

Kevin O'Brien Chang is author of 'Jamaica Fi Real: Beauty, Vibes and Culture', and managing director of Fontana Pharmacy. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and Kobchang365@gmail.com.