Wednesday, May 16, 2012

We Are A Confused People

I have finally understood why I am such a confused person. Its because I am a Jamaican stupid!

 Its been in front of me all my life and I just could not put my finger on it before. WE ARE A VERY CONFUSED PEOPLE.

Take the issue of our the monarchy and our determination to get rid of it during our fiftieth year as an independent nation. Let me state up front that I do not support the monarchy and would have gotten rid of it from the day we got our independence, so for me fifty years later is very late but not too late. So now that there is a big rush to do it as we celebrate 50 years as an independent nation and get rid of the Priviy council in England as our final court of appeal, instead of becoming truly independent and establish our final court here, we are talking about  using the Caribbean Court of Justice.

Now I have never been a rationalistic and I have always felt we have the resources and ability to be masters of our own destiny, so I have always preached against our inclusion in Caricom, even calling on successive  governments to do a cost benefit analysis of our relationship with that regional body. But of course since Caricom is nothing but a talk shop where bureaucrats and politicians go to shoot the breeze and have a great time, my calls are largely ignored and the general population doesn't seem to care too hoots about how our name is being maligned by our association  or the fact that we are getting the royal grind by our continued association.

 Our name is being dragged down by  the very fact that the current chairman of the organisation is the president of Suriname, a man wanted for cocaine trafficking in Holland and  someone who was implicated tin the assassination of 19 opposition activists in Suriname. He was being tried for this role in this, but due  to internal manipulations, it seems to have  been moved from the agenda. But do we really want to be associated with an organisation chaired by such a character? And what is our history with Suriname that has caused them to be accepted into Caricom without the politicians even discussing such matters with their constituencies?

But back to the matter of cost benefit. I see where the Jamaica Manufacturing Association is saying that they are now doing a study . I guess its a matter of better late than never since other Caricom nations have been  putting every possible stumbling block in the way of Jamaican producers to the extent that our trade  deficit with them is now almost one billion dollars, although a large portion of this is because we import oil from Trinidad.

Then there is the issue of how Jamaicans are treated by the authorities in other territories. Our newspapers are replete with complaints about the disrespectful treatment of  Jamaicans travelling to the other countries. Even I noticed the difference recently when I went to south America and was welcomed with open arms when I presented my Jamaican passport but looked at with suspicion and cross examined as I stopped  over for a day in Trinidad!


So  what about the W you may ask. when this was first established as usual, Jamaica was required to pay the largest amount of the cost but guess what, not one of our jurists who applied for a position on the panel was accepted.

I do not think jurists from the other territories are as qualified as ours and if we really opting for independence, we should be looking to ourselves for our final court of appeal.


Unless of course we are only tying to undo the wishes of the people as expressed in the Referendum of 1961, by going through the backdoor.

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