The sensational performance of Jamaican sprinters at the Beijing Olympics shows that a small, very poor island can gain world-class results if it has the vision, energy and technique. Asafa Powell, Usain Bolt and other athletes have achieved a fame that Jamaican politicians and businesspeople never will. Coaches and other experts worked without fanfare to nurture them to this glory.

Jamaicans have performed at this level in the past, in music and cricket, and in the miraculous achievements of freedom fighters and philosophers - from Sam Sharpe to Marcus Garvey. The Chinese, who provided the arena for the spectacle of Usain Bolt in full flow, also had lessons for incompetent leaders: in four years they constructed venues as iconic as their Great Wall, and arranged their programmes with unerring precision.

Why cannot Jamaican leaders follow the examples of Paul Bogle, Marcus Garvey, Bob Marley and Usain Bolt? Why do they eschew these world-class exemplars and instead compete with corrupt African, Asian and South American dictators? Without vision and dedication, Powell and Bolt might have become gunmen or con artists rather than international superstars.

They can now afford mansions on the hills and Mercedes-Benzes, because of hard work rather than embezzlement, pyramid schemes, or colluding with killers in the ghettos. And they are celebrated by ordinary Jamaicans who identify with their glories gained through honest toil. They have delivered the goods which prime ministers, business people, police commissioners and generals have not.

Compared to politics, athletics is a complex, demanding activity which taxes every aspect of human endeavour. World-class athletes must spend hours a day, seven days a week, acquiring the skills of their trade. They require not only talent but also discipline, and the willingness and ability to sacrifice. An athlete who took bribes or killed opponents could never run the 100 metres in 9.69 seconds. And if he spent more time with his baby mother than on the track he could never win even a local meet.

Politicians lack all the qualities which make athletes successful. They lack all vision except the lust for power, a mere instrument for achieving objectives. They lack discipline as seen in their loutish behaviour on the campaign trail and in the conduct of public affairs. They are corrupt, and they would have a heart attack if they did concentrated work for eight hours a day.

The problems of Jamaica and other "poor" countries are so obvious that even infants and lunatics can identify them. Poverty, violent crime, unemployment, poor health, and illiteracy are evident and connected. These predominate in the ghettos, not in the mansions and gated communities on the hills and surrounding areas. But fear and horror have spread from Trench Town up into expensive Smokey Vale.

The quality of life that should be assured by condos and BMWs is spoilt by homicidal burglars and resentful domestic servants. Intelligent young men and women who should study to be doctors and architects learn to kill their middle-class compatriots when they are not killing each other. In the old days Bob Marley could get out of Trench Town through music, while others escaped through sports or schooling.

But now the ghettos are sealed and there is no escape except through automatic weapons. Instead of solving problems of the ghettoes through social investment, politicians cement them through alliances with mass murderers who bring out the votes at elections. Even in Italy corrupt politicians do not attend the funerals of Mafiosi who achieve notoriety through massacres.
When the sprinters return from Beijing they will be feted by politicians who drove young men and women like themselves into crime in the "garrison communities". They will be surrounded by princes of darkness who bathe themselves in reflected light.

The Jamaican people who celebrated when their athletes crossed the finish line in World or Olympic record times must come together and break the tribal divisions which their masters have created through the two parties. Ghetto people must throw out their dons as well as the politicians who support them. And they must learn from their Olympian heroes that they can escape the political slaughterhouses through vision, dedication and hard work. They must compare the power of their athletes with politicians who need BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes to take them to the toilet.

Patrick Wilmot writes out of London. He's a visiting professor at two Nigerian universities. His latest novel Seeing Double was published by Jonathan Cape in London and Thomas Dunne in New York.

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