Golding and his cojones must show up in 2010
If we live long enough we get old, and once we live, death is the only certain condition at the moment of birth.
We rejoice at the birth of a new one: “Lawd, di baby cute, ‘im look like him faada.” In too many cases the “faada” is absent because he has much to do, populating his part of the lane and adding to the early “dead stock” of this poor, bewildered, uncertain, beautiful paradise that Jamaica is.
Unlike the great countries of the world, we have never had reason, in some distant past, to fight a sustained battle against an enemy intent on harming us. Slavery happened to us just as its end happened. There is no compelling evidence that the efforts of Daddy Sharpe and later, Paul Bogle and William Gordon took us any closer to an appreciation of our physical and mental attachment to another man’s ownership of our bodies and head space and our need to step off into another psycho-social dimension.
Unlike most of the developed states, we have no season of winter when the ground is too hard to jam a hoe into it. We are free for 12 months of the year and if our backs are strong, the man with little education and half a pound of intelligence can plant a few vegetables and keep his family from starving. Unfortunately, it seems, we gain comfort in being within shouting distance of poverty. So we plant a few rows of corn, send the children off to a holding area known as school, hatch up a few more babies and raise a toast to ordinariness.
If a hurricane comes, there is no fund bursting at the seams with the “excess” from the years of no hurricane. We know that our neighbour to the north, the good ol’ USA, will be the first to send shiploads of food and supplies to us. And in case America jets in emergency supplies, it is almost certain that the plane will actually land on the runway.
Coming from a legacy of sporadic acts of bravery of slaves of the past, embarrassments surrounding the demise of our heroes – Bogle was captured by a Maroon, yet Nanny, a Maroon is one of our national heroes – we are at best uncertain of our history and find it most difficult to clutch any strength from it. Our freedom was GIVEN to us, our independence was GIVEN to us and, in many instances, our room, board and sustenance were given to us by our latter-day slavers, otherwise known as the politician of the day, while seeking his maintenance of the chair in the big house on the hill.
As we move forward into 2010, the priority must be the maintenance of hope. Without hope, all the other objectives of social and economic development are useless on our main agenda of items. We are not all idiots and in fact this country is filled with highly intelligent people. For our size, our influence on the world is awesome, but in too many instances the “influence” segues to the comedic.
“Hail up Rasta!” on the streets of Helsinki may attract the attention of natives of Finland and many will say, “Ah, Bob Marley country – Jamaica.” But it won’t get us to Finland with a GDP per capita of US$37,000 compared to Jamaica at US$8,600.
Two ample-sized Jamaican immigrants cussing out each other on the streets of Brooklyn where too uncomfortable a percentage of our young men are drawn to the street drug trade may make some fear us, but it also invests us with ridicule. In plain language, that is the Jamaica which sticks out in the mind of foreigners. It’s in the same realm as our cartoon rastas hawking white-skinned women on a sex-for-cash beach in Negril and in Jamaican schoolboys floating through five years of high school in their effort to become foul-mouthed DJs.
We are consumed by our politics but for all of the wrong reasons. Our development is discussed in hushed tones, if at all, because the important thing to us is, whose fault? PNP or JLP? Which party will allow us to “eat a food”?
The “eat-a-food” politics has been encouraged by our politicians because it was the most convenient track to take. One man suggested that PJ was our worst prime minister… until Golding showed up. I have, from my small space, hurled barbs at this administration to the extent that this year the telephone contacts have been few. In this regard, I hail the efforts of Daryl Vaz and Bobby Montague, ministers unafraid to engage with key media people when the temptation would be to back off because of my criticisms of the prime minister’s leadership.
It is that very leadership which will define 2010, especially the first six months. In every instance that I have given an encouraging word to this administration, either by way of penning in a column an endorsement of some of its unpopular moves which I believe simply had to be done, I have received slaps on the wrist from key media people who were silent when I was into giving the JLP administration a little piece of hell from my corner.
I would just like to say to them that I would much prefer if they take their criticisms publicly, to the media. I also need to inform them that I play to my own playbook and that is, I call it as I see it. If it is in season to bash a government on every and anything, it has never been my habit to eat the fruit only because it is in season. The moo of the herd has never been one of my favourite bits of cacophony.
That said, and I said it recently, the Bruce Golding who showed up in most of 2009 cannot show that same face to 2010. The country cannot afford that to happen. We are too blessed to be so stressed by that same Golding.
I have seen signs of a “new and different” Golding. Now, I can hear the choir and the chant saying, “Haven’t we heard that one before?” And the choir would be right. Seaga told us in 1995 that Golding “no ready”. I took Seaga to task then but in all of 2008 it was that “no ready” Golding which showed up. Bruce was like the virginal husband in 2008 and the first half of 2009, afraid to enter the marital bedchamber for the first time because his macho promises and his shortcomings were poles apart.
In 2010, we want and must demand that that husband must stamp his virility on the leadership of this country. We have had too much of the virginal leader when what we expected after his victory speech in 2007 was a man with “nuff” cojones and an excess of testosterone in his leadership.
Prime Minister Golding in 2010 must decide what part of the pack he is most comfortable in. If he wants to “lead” from the rear, tell us now and let us make a critical decision.
Macho man, macho leadership, and man-to-man engagement of the people are what we will accept.
The “fear of full disclosure” leadership died in 2009.
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