I envy poor people

By George Davis

The plight of poor people in Jamaica and the stated commitment to improving their lives has, over time, received far more lip service than Ron Jeremy. And that's partly why I envy poor people.

I envy them because of how much attention they get from successive governments and politicians in this country. I envy them because they are a part of every speech by politicians, mentioned at every opportunity by almost all ambitious members of parliament or parish councillors as their raison d'être.

I envy poor people because each year there's a segment of the Budget Speech of the prime minister and finance minister specially dedicated to lamenting their plight and how they are struggling not just to survive in the perennially tough economic times, but how they even manage to exist.

Notice whenever a prime minister or finance minister's speech is flagging during the Budget Debate how they just trump for a paragraph or two about loving poor people? Notice how their colleagues are seemingly re-energised by this punchline and attempt to beat the varnish off the desks in solidarity with such statements?

CROCODILE TEARS

Ever notice how prime ministers almost always say the Budget for any fiscal year is crafted on poor people's concerns, designed to break the cycle of poverty by improving their lives and lifting their statuses? Ever notice how prime ministers will, teary-eyed, talk about a proposal that would've been implemented to benefit nearly everyone in the country but was abandoned because of their love for the poor and the impact such plans would have on the poor?

Ever notice how attuned prime ministers say they are to the condition of poverty, even though they themselves bade farewell to similar circumstances decades ago? Do you ever notice how some prime ministers have made legends of themselves as defenders of the poor, given how much, over time, they've talked and promised to do for poor people?

I envy poor people because they have this special quality about them which makes opposition leaders 'look bad' if they fail to speak with passion and conviction when professing their love for them. At the end of almost every comment to the media concerning the state of the country at any given time, every opposition leader almost appears coached to say that the real casualties of all the 'evil' being wrought on the economy by the government are those poor Jamaicans living on the margin of society.

I envy poor people because they make opposition leaders' Budget presentations eminently predictable. Almost as if by pact, the opening response to the Government's Budget by opposition leaders is to tell Mr Speaker there's nothing in it for - you guessed it! - poor people.

PUTTING ON A SHOW

And even where there are tax measures which an opposition leader would've implemented had his/her side been in office, such measures suddenly become destructive to the lives of poor people, once they are implemented by the serving government. There are times when it seems as if an opposition leader, if he/she wants to establish credibility, must appear to be outdoing a prime minister in professing love for the poor.

It has happened in a minor way in the past, but one day very soon, our most senior political leaders will have an official 'cuss-off' over who loves the poor more. They'll make a grand show of it, inviting every person who owns a recording device as they use figures from STATIN and the Planning Institute, along with adjectives from the inner cities, to bludgeon each other.

I envy poor people mostly because I am a part of the country's struggling, unappreciated, disrespected and disregarded middle class. There are profound commonalities between the middle class and the poor, the most profound of which is the fact that over several decades successive governments have failed to improve their lives.

But I envy the poor because while our leaders constantly talk about them and their plans to assist them, middle-class Jamaicans are shunned and forgotten as a politically unsexy constituency. And at the current rate at which things are going in this country, I may become tomorrow that which I envy today.

Selah.

George Davis is a journalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and george.s.davis@hotmail.com.