Jamaica's most important challenge

Byron Blake Guest Columnist

Going forward, Jamaica's most important challenge is not our fast-approaching US$2-trillion debt - important as that is in demonstrating our voluntary enslavement to others with their right to dictate our policies and actions.

It is not our growing food import bill in face of our declining currency value and growing inability to finance - revealing our perversity to economic logic.

It is not even the growing number of the unchurched, underscoring our separation from our Creator and consequent loss of moral moorings.

It is our crudeness and uncouthness - our lack of respect for each other as human beings, for life, for property, for institutions and national symbols, including our dead and their places of final rest.

It is that lack of respect and crudeness which we see in our public places, in our schools, on our roads and in our marketplace. It is that which gets picked up and highlighted in our commercials, our media and our music, thereby encouraging and reproducing itself.

It is that by the next generation or two, we will know nothing else.

What does all the above have to do with the election of Mr Doran Dixon as president of the professional organisation of the teaching force of Jamaica? I dare say everything.

Was I surprised that six out of 10 of the nation's 'teachers' voted for one who has demonstrated publicly, in the crudest manner and language, absolute and non-repentant disrespect for the highest office responsible for the education of our young children and young adults to be their standard-bearer? Yes. Should I have been surprised? No.

The environment in which our teachers are moulded, the behaviour they see in schools and clearly the behaviour of some who train and lead them should have been ample sign that only the strongest, usually a minority, would see and think otherwise.

GLORIFYING UGLY

We live in a society where only the crudest and ugliest gets response. This, together with idleness and superficiality, explains the blocking and destruction of roads, school gates, etc., and the disruption of others en route to do their legitimate business, some very urgent, to seek redress for matters which have nothing to do with the roads, the schools or the other citizens being discommoded.

Jamaican teachers have clearly bought into the view that only the crudest will get them what they want at the negotiating table. And it might well be so. They might yet make short-term gains under Mr Dixon's leadership. But, let me suggest that in the global society of the 21st century, your leadership needs to represent you not only in Jamaica.

Also, many of you will seek to offer your services outside of Jamaica. There are some persons who are even suggesting that in this period of fiscal and economic crisis, Jamaica should train teachers for work in other countries. Indeed, Jamaica currently has teachers who are highly effective and greatly respected in many countries of the world. The great majority of these teachers were trained and honed their craft in a Jamaica of another time.

Most countries are at this time looking for civility and cooperative relationships in their classrooms, schools and education systems. The news of what happens here in our classrooms, schools and education systems is not local news.

Let me then suggest that the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA), its leadership and indeed its membership begin a process of introspection to determine whether, by training, behaviour or leadership, they are contributing optimally to positioning Jamaica as a society of choice to live, work and raise families.

To those leaders, not just in the JTA, who believe that negotiations depend on crudeness and loudness, let me share two pieces of advice which were offered to me freely by two Jamaican stalwarts of yesteryear.

The first was by the late Frank Francis, who became one of the longest-serving and most-respected permanent secretaries in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, indeed in the public service of Jamaica. His advice was simply this:

"Always remember that the person across the table is a human being just like you. Whenever you think of saying something, think of what your reaction would be if that person were to say that to you."

The other piece of advice came from one of our most successful and pleasant trade union leaders, Hugh Lawson Shearer. His advice: "Negotiations do not take place around the open negotiating table. They take place in one-and-one 'informals' with your influential counterpart."

Both pieces of advice are underpinned by relationship and mutual respect. The cold formalities you will always have because that is required behaviour. But, you cannot pull out or signal a key opposing negotiator, nor will one seek you out for that five-minute huddle in the critical break to understand each other's bottom line and seek possible mutually acceptable solutions which might be tactfully introduced at the appropriate time by the one or the other.

Relationship and respect, coupled with detailed preparation and unity, are the main requirements for resolution in even the most complex negotiation.

The challenge for the JTA is how to pivot on the pedestal on which it is now hoisted. The challenge for Jamaica is how to change our behaviour and our relationships with each other.

Byron W. Blake is a former two-time lead economic negotiator for the G-77 and China. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.