Welcome to 2010! As the first decade of the “noughties” draws to a close we see no sign of the millennium promise. New year resolutions are good as they help the weak to “screw their courage to the sticking place” and the strong to overcome. Those who commit to nothing are of no use in a fight. Resolutions are a self-check. What you most desire tells who you are and where you are going. If you want a Ferrari but can’t get out of bed you will always walk! I wish for world peace, but it’s ironic that global strife is led by Abrahamic religions – Jews, Christians, Muslims – not by atheists. I do not see how God’s plans benefit from their intolerance and violence. It’s his creation and surely he can fix it without their interference! But what of Jamaica in 2010?

My resolutions for Bruce and the nation are immodest. We are still in the wilderness after 48 years. All our triumphs are as individuals as Marley, Tosh, Fraser-Reid, Bolt. Most are minstrels – sing, dance, smile – few changed our lives. Our nation qua nation has been singularly unambitious and underachieving. We claim achievers as a “national” feat but the nation contributed little to their success and our leaders have done little for or with our masses – the core of our nation. Michael Manley urged us en masse to eradicate illiteracy. It got money, he was involved in every parish, every MP was on a literacy platform, the middle classes taught, deductions were made from workers’ pay, business gave its staff and resources. Even the diaspora and foreigners came to help. Jamaica was alive – full marks for vision and effort. Bruce needs to revisit this model, embrace revolution and move us beyond our comfort levels. We need challenge to grow in 2010! Time is not on our side so here are some insights to set the stage for progress in this new year:

*I am ambitious for Bruce and I hope he is as ambitious for himself. What if he took on poverty eradication? Was passionate and mobilised us? Could he do this one thing well? Could he salvage the generation of the 1960s who went to university in large numbers and were given this sacred mission by GBeck? Could he? Would he? Will he?

*All those born after 1962 should join a party and be an agent of change. Parents may say “dirty politics!” but join! Are we so insecure as not to allow our children to clean the Augean stables? Are our values so fragile? We have clean MPs who need help from good new members. Rally your friends and join. Use your numbers for good. If not, in 2030 you will be behind your grills “bitching” just like your parents today.

*We need national ambition. We are not ambitious for nation. Our history is all caution, not revolution. One-one coco has failed. The British built us great dams, bridges, public buildings, hospitals, theatres, parks, cathedrals, gardens, railways and roads – we use them now. Since 1962 we have done little to show any will, creativity and vision. We build short-term, it’s soon ghettoised or needs expanding. PNP makes, JLP breaks and so on.

*We need intergenerational projects. We run the country like a “cold supper shop” and have no such long-term projects, it’s all just-in-time. The UK designs nuclear power plants, trains, tunnels, towns, buses, IT systems, which will come on stream after 2025. We do not behave like a nation that’s here to stay. By 2050 climate change will be pressing and we should now be designing labour-intensive, intergenerational projects. We need a Bog Walk Gorge dam before the 2030 droughts; Kingston subway/monorail mass transit, a mid-island new town, a rail network; a Western state hub, a nuclear power plant so firms can compete in 2025 and Blue Mountain cable ways to foster new green tourism options and

temperate-type crops. Our plans are pedestrian and earthbound. We are a nation with myopic leaders. Their personal wealth plans are long-term (after leaving office, their descendants will never want again), but their wealth plans for nation are short-term. Our signal public works, our stadiums, were short-term, event-driven projects. God bless Norman Manley’s Negril and PJ Patterson’s highway 2000, our intergenerational projects since Independence.

*The UK and US can help us by holding the grant of migrant visas. The brain drain is bad, but the fact that we can pick up and leave our country on a whim keeps us febrile. We are nomads at heart – hunters and gatherers. We are transients! The grass is greener, let’s go! This is not about not owning land here, as the diaspora have land but choose to die abroad and send the body back to occupy it. We lack commitment! There is a lazy, selfish gene in our pool. We run from hardship! The “land we love” looks better from far. There, we live a lifestyle built by others and won’t stay here to build our own nation. We don’t migrate to Africa as we want luxury, not work. Our minstrels pay the fare to sing, dance, be criminal and sell drugs in the US and UK, but even Rasta won’t pay the fare to farm the land Haile Selassie gave them. We were born to “drink milk” not to “count cow”! Our poverty is a direct result of our failure to take ownership for our nation.

I wish PM Golding well in 2010. Our future hangs on it. He needs a vision to feed our souls, inspire us to perform, and labour-intensive projects to put us to work. Kudos to Churchill “If you are going through hell, keep going” and I add “and go quickly!”. This generation will not tolerate the hell, insipid policies and failure of the past. We have been through eight PMs and did not get the promised prosperity. Bruce can now break the pattern by some revolutionary action. The year 2010 may be his last chance for glory! I wish our GG, Bruce, Portia, MPs and Senators health and vision. My own desire is for a safe return to my native land. God bless, Jamaica! God bless us all! Happy New Year!

Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston Consultants, currrently on assignment in the UK.

franklinjohnston@hotmail.com.