Is Jamaica really where you want to live?

By George Davis

The great Manleys, Norman Washington and Michael, along with the no less exceptional Alexander Bustamante, dreamt of and worked towards building a Jamaica where a man or woman could raise a family, fully confident that the State would do its part in the facilitation process.

Their collective dream was that the State would take care of the necessaries of infrastructure, policy implementation and system of governance to meet the needs of the people. The people, on the other hand, would use their initiative and endeavour to achieve social mobility, build strong interpersonal relationships and make the country great.

Based on the dream of those three great men, every Jamaican could achieve the education their ability and ambition dictated. Every Jamaican could dream of, and attain, any office in the land by dint of hard work and application. By their dream, nowhere could be more enticing than this land of strong wood and flowing water, to establish families and create communities.

But my, how we've managed to piss on the dream of those men! Men who ran the hard part of the relay before being forced by infirmities and poor health to hand over the baton of leadership to successive demolition crews.

Jamaica, today, is not a country for the family oriented. It's not a place where you will reap the reward, over time, of hard graft and toil. It's not a country where a man, without the parachute of old money or a stake in some illegal enterprise, can plan for a wife and three children, and hope to live comfortably.

It's not a country where you pay your taxes with a smiling face, knowing full well that whenever you drive on the streets or walk in your community, there's ample evidence of your tax dollars at work. It's not a place where you believe the political leaders, when they profess love of country over love of party. Sadly, it's not a place where you can play by the rules safe in the knowledge you won't get shafted.

hand-to-mouth country

What Jamaica is right now is a hand-to-mouth country. It's a place for the hustlers to thrive. It's a place ideal for providing a bellyful now, with no realistic hope that the same will be provided any time later.

It's a place where the taxman is always in your pocket. Even though his grubby fingers almost never probe the purse of those of greater avarice and means than you, but who see themselves as being above contributing to government revenues except through consumption. It's a place where the amount that has been borrowed, over time, in your name, is not reflected in the rate of the country's development.

It's a place for the 'gallis', a man who only needs enough to allow him to find a cosy space to lay both heads. It's a place where it's easy for each 'gallis' to have lengthy 'gallistry', populated by women reeled in by a promise to take care of only their most basic needs.

It's a place where the womenfolk are so denied opportunity that in order to survive, they must suppress dignity and provide a cushion for various 'gallis' to rest their weary heads comfortably. It's a perfect place for the undisciplined, the wild and reckless.

No future

This Jamaica is the ideal place if you want to live in the moment, carefree because the future doesn't exist, and accepting you can be murdered at any time.

It's a place, this Jamaica, that drives you mad with all the broken promises, elusive dreams and high taxation. It's a place where you sometimes feel as if it would be easier for you, like so many others, to relinquish ambition.

Why burden yourself with dreams of self-actualisation? Why try every day to improve yourself and your circumstances when the country's going nowhere? Why not just float like plankton in the sea, going where the current takes you?

Why not just accept being the class of citizen that successive decades of bad governance and stooge-like leadership want to turn you into? Why? God knows I know the answer. But even so, my belief in same is draining. Fast.

Selah.

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