Top Down Politics

A basic tenet of democracy is that it is the will of the people that  prevails or as Edmund Barton put it, "..creating a nation requires the will of the people".

Here in the Caribbean, we have some leaders trying to create a united states of the Caribbean called Caricom, without the will and consent of the  Jamaican people for if we go back to just over half century ago, it was definitely not the will of the Jamaican people.

However, based on the "school tie concept", some leaders in the English Speaking Caribbean are determined to push the idea of Caribbean unity down our throats even if it chokes us to death, all because the colonizers had left us with the concept of  the British West Indies and West Indies Cricket.  "

While it is true that the people of the eastern Caribbean are one big family and  this even includes people from Guadeloupe and Martinique because of their proximity to the rest, those of us in the western Caribbean have no such ties that bind.

The proximity of these islands mean that when you are born in Grenada, hopping over to school in Trinidad is normal or to Kittitians, having Christmas dinner with relatives in Antigua is the norm etc, so they know each other and are close family, unlike us in the western Caribbean who are virtual strangers apart from the parochial UWI trained politicians.

For the man in the street in Jamaica there is no relationship or even knowledge about  the people or culture in the eastern territories. In fact, many Jamaicans know so little about the other Caricom member countries that it is not unusual to hear my countrymen referring to Guyanese as "small islanders!" Neither do the people of the eastern Caribbean know much about us and some even think of us all as being gun toting , trigger happy people and only realize that the country is relatively peaceful  and we are like them in many ways, when they visit.

It is the fact that we know so little about each other that makes our being a part of Caricom so counterproductive and besides, in terms of trade, we are too far from the eastern Caribbean and their populations too small to make the free trade advantageous to us. In terms of free travel throughout the region, the difficulties we are having in the other territories are mainly because the man in the street knows nothing about us and judge us by the statistics that put us in the top five murder capitals of the world.  That is probably what encourages immigration authorities throughout the region to be wary of those of us carrying Jamaican passports.

In short, until regional unity becomes accepted from the ground level and the UWI school tie clique can prove to us that there are practical benefits and less counterproductive reasons for us to get closer to our eastern Caribbean cousins apart from it being the wish of our leaders, most of us will never willingly accept this shot-gun marriage.

Leadership Crisis

Jamaica has a serious leadership crisis which does not bode well for the future of this beleaguered country at all.

Things  have been made worse by the recent election of Andrew Holness, a Seaga protegee and apparently a follower of Machiavelli, to the leadership of the alternative government, the JLP.  For many people had hoped he being a young man who claimed to be transnational, would have brought some semblance of decently and integrity to the political process as the present government has long proven to be not only incompetent and corrupt but lacking in leadership. For while our first female Prime Minister Portia Simpson is a novelty, that is mainly what she is and in fact is an embarrassment to female leaders throughout the world, who until now, have been far better at governing and leading than their male counterparts.

So that was why all eyes and hope were on the young man, the representative of the new generation. Holness has however has proven to be far too vindictive, petty and totally dishonest to allow us to hold out any hope for this country, for since he won the election, his only mission seems to have been to go after not only those who openly came out in support of his opponent Audley Shaw but also to even punish those who remained silent, leaning neither towards him or Shaw!

Where he struck the nail in his coffin however was by his outright act of dishonesty towards his own colleagues and  party supporters,  showing what he has in store for all  detractors, independent thinkers and persons aligned to the PNP. 

When Holness was first selected JLP leader by the disgraced Bruce Golding in 2011, as per normal, he selected a group of senators to sit in the Upper House. What Jamaica did not know however is that these appointees had been required to demean themselves in exchange for the vaunted job, by giving Holness undated and open letters of resignations.

While it has been revealed that  the unsigned  letters did not state how or when they could be used. Holness had apparently given the senators verbal assurances that they would only be used if any of them opposed the party's stance on having the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) replacing the British Privy Council as Jamaica's Finial Court of Appeal. 

However when two senators Auther Williams and Dr. Chris Tufton refused to obey his unreasonable request for all senators to resign after he was elected Leader, he simply ignored his promise to the two to only use the letters for a specific purpose, dated them and sent them to the governor general!

If that is not a total breach of trust, I certainty do not know what is, but if Jamaicans do not understand by that act, he is totally without scruples, then we are as blind as lambs to the slaughter.

Of course the crisis of leadership in this country has not passed unnoticed by all around us, for, within days, Barbadian Minister of Industry and International Business Domville Innis,  in castigating the Gleaner for an editorial criticising his government, told them to mind their own business and instead pay attention to the  "...rot going on in Jamaica."

Jamaica is indeed the sick man of the Caribbean. 

I Plead Insanity!

I plead insanity for having believed the hype on Sunday last that despite the bruising leadership challenge to Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader Andrew Holness, he would have been willing to be magnanimous in victory.

I guess I was just hoping against hope.

Instead, Holness moved swiftly to get rid of those who did not support his leadership, reappointing only Bartlett and Shaw as showpieces to the new shadow cabinet.

What would have been magnanimous and sensible would have been for him to have reappointed everyone from the original shadow cabinet en bloc then over a period remove the non performers, as they have always outnumbered the performers. Instead he jumped straight into stark victimization.

Plus what possible reason can there be for wanting the senate to resign for nothing has changed over the 2 years since Holness appointed those senators except that some did not support him ion his leadership challenge.  His calling for their resignation therefore has nothing  to do with their performance or usefulness to the country but pure pettiness.

I  therefore applaud  Mr. Shaw for putting his own political future on the line and standing up with those who supported him who are threatened with victimization, none more obvious than the two deputy leaders who came out in support of him but whose nomination papers mysteriously disappeared  few days before the election.

And if Holness really wanted to unify the party as he claimed , what of the fate of the lady Councillor who was evicted from Samuda's office for supporting Shaw and the one whose future in  politics was threatened by Warmington?

It is perfectly clear that while democracy prevailed on Sunday, it is really vindictiveness  and divisiveness which is the final victor.

Looking into the future

On Sunday, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) pleasantly surprised the Jamaican people by having a peaceful and apparently fair election. Surprised everyone I say, as so many of the older, influential persons in the party had been totally against an electoral challenge to the leader Andrew Holness because of their culture of  allowing only the elites in the party to select the leaders, thus opening up of the system to allow delegates to decide was to them totally unacceptable to them.

Their vitriol on the campaign trail even indicated that they considered anyone who supported the challenger as a traitor and we all know the penalty for treachery!

It will now be very interesting  to see who makes the new shadow cabinet and even the senate as that will tell us whether the talk of uniting the party is really genuine.

Now that the process is over too, we look forward to them presenting the country with a workable alternative to the mismanagement and corruption which is the order of the day and hopefully, those who were only roused from their slumber by a leadership challenge though being well paid by taxpayers, will remain wide awake to defend the interests of the Jamaican people. 

The Red Rio Cobre

Someone suggested to me yesterday that I change my name to "Sunday Dropper". This is because yesterday was my second spill in about a month, although unlike the one I took on the "Goat Island" trip, this time I got a mere graze when I fell after my front wheel touched Lisa's back wheel. I hope it teaches me to pay attention to whats in front of me, no matter how animated the conversation but somehow I doubt it!

The ride to Linstead was absolutely great in that it was overcast and the blaring sun which usually discombobulates me quickly, was absent. 

The Bog Walk gorge with its huge rocks was as serene, peaceful and spectacular as usual except we knew from then that with the Rio Cobre running red, our chances of swimming in it would be nil.

As usual, the A riders went over Red hills while the majority of us stuck to the main thoroughfare and by the time Grace and I, the last two riders, got to Jucci in Bog Walk, they were already there.

To get to Winnie's place, we had to ride on the old road from Bog Walk to Linstead which was great as we did not have to contend with the highway traffic. We were supposed to have been joined by some walkers in Bog Walk, but they fell by the wayside. 

To get to Linstead, we passed though a very pleasant village called Deeside and the area, dotted with citrus plants was picturesque and homely.

You know I had been hearing about Dinthill high School for years but never really noticed where it was until yesterday when we stopped at the gate to wait for other riders.

Chuck who had been on the planning trip and had been to Winnie's place in Linstead was our pilot but he took us on a wild goose chase up a steep hill which ended at a dead end where the "Collector of Taxes" is located. (I had been on the planning trip but could not recall where the turn off was either)

 I rode  up that steep hill, no problem but when we had to ride down  then up the right steep hill, it was too much, so I had to get off my bicycle and push up that hill.

Winnie, who is a new rider and someone I knew from when we farmed in Spanish town, has set himself up in a nice business in Linstead with a small hotel and that was our final destination yesterday. It has a section of the Rio Cobre river with even a tiny waterfall  for bathing at the back of his place, but as I said earlier, because the river was running red, swimming at this time was out although some persons did swim in a tiny pool there which 'Winnie said had started out as an aquarium until he decided he needed the water more than the fish. lol.

Breakfast  was ok and most of our time was spent playing or observing dominoes and would you believe that shortly after we ate, Ayatollah was announcing that there was more food for us at Charlemont, a few miles from Linstead.

Incidentally, Mark Richards who has been missing in action for a while and his friend Michael joined us on this ride. They rode back to Bog Walk and with Maurice (RIBI) being absent, no one rode back home.

At about noon we departed but I went with Ayatollah, Neville and two young ladies to pick up the food we had ordered from a lady who was supposed to  meet us at the playfield at Jericho Primary School.

Jericho  is quite a pleasant and well developed district west of Linstead, As we went up a dirt path to the football field, the Ayatollah came out of the vehicle to guide us then we saw him running back saying there was a big bull ahead, looking at him!

 On inspection however, the poor "big bull" turned out to be an innocent little heifer which was even tied with a rope. That's all the Ayatollah wanted to hear to get the courage to become a bull fighter or should I saw a cow fighter.

Ayatollah the courageous bull fighter, faces the enemy! lol

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All I can say it was a good thing that the lady we were waiting for was not the person who was feeding us when we first arrived, for she did not arrive with the food for over an hour but she brought some really good juice which we thirstily  welcomed and carried the food into Kingston .

It came in handy for dinner for those of us who had no dinner at home so  turned up at the Ayatollah's in the evening.

Great day but next time we have to go there during the drought period when the rains are not washing down the surrounding hills into the river.

The JLP Leadership Race

In another few days we will know who will lead the once alternative government (the JLP) to most likely, another  defeat, in the next election. Lead to another defeat I say, since the JLP has become more and more irrelevant  and unattractive over the years, so I really cannot see them ever winning power again in the near future without first going back to basics. But of course I could be wrong for as they say, a week is a long time in politics.

When Andrew Holness became leader of the JLP in 2011, many of us welcomed a bright young man who one would have expected to come with new ideas. Instead he seems to have surrounded himself with dinosaurs whose attitude has kept them miles away from the grass roots while Holness sat back and relaxed, collecting a fat pay as Leader of the Opposition while apparently just waiting on the government to become so unpopular that the people would vote them out.

Had it not been a leadership challenge to Holness, he would apparently have remained asleep, though equipped with the report outlining the reasons for the losses in the 2011 election but doing nothing to correct the problems.

Then there are the questions being raised about his possible apparent, sudden, immense wealth as being displayed in the construction of an ostentatiously vulgar mansion in Beverly hills which numerous people in the know, claim he is the owner of.

The big questions are , if Holness wins on Sunday, will he finally start to reorganize the party taking into consideration the suggestions in the report or will he promptly go back to bed? And if challenger Shaw wins, will his health hold out considering the strain that Jamaican politics can put on an individual? ( Remember, he had a few health scares when he was minister of finance after the 2007 election.)

Time will tell but it seems Jamaicans who are not stuck on any party but just the welfare of this beautiful country,  have got to start actively seeking out and supporting and building third parties which show the potential to help the country weed out the corruption for which this PNP government has become notorious, a direction from which they will apparently never deviate, unless forced by a conscious electorate. Problem is, no such parties have yet been formned!

Backward Constitutional Requirement

On reading an  article in the Jamaica Observer today that Jamaican born Mark Escoffery-Bey  is vying to become president of the Bronx borough  with its almost 1.5 ,million population, I could not but be reminded of the fiasco in my own country, Jamaica, where persons born in the USA cannot represnt our tiny constituencies without first revoking their American citizenship.

This became an issue in the 2011 election and one would have thought we would have looked at this discriminatory constitutional provision by now, discriminatory because it prevents younger Jamaican born persons who take up US citizenship   (as opposed to the older generation who migrated mainly to England and became English citizens) to return to serve their country while remaining dual citizens.

 On the other hand, commonwealth citizens, even those who have never lived here for more than a year, are welcomed with open arms to become constituency representatives and even prime minister, without having to give up anything.

It is time this 50 year old provision be reworked one way or the other, either to keep out all aliens or level the playing field.

One would have thought that the JLP which was the party that suffered most because of this discriminator constitutional requirement, would have gotten off their bottoms to mobilize the citizens to have this requirement changed to give Jamaicans better a wider choice in candidate selection, but I must have been dreaming to have expected the JLP to really fight for progressive change.