It seems as if we have been here before.

Jamaica has sun, sand and beaches. It is paradise, especially for those who have been able to carve out the opportunity to be here — including many who do not live in Jamaica.

In 2008, while I was walking next to a rail line in Memphis, Tennesee on which street cars ran, I saw a police car pulling up beside a man who was obviously a street person. The weather was beautiful that September evening, and as a foreigner I paused to observe the interaction between the burly, white policeman who exited the blue car and the heavily-padded black man on the concrete bench.

I was less than 30 feet away from the car as the policeman exited and said, “Sir, I have received reports that you have been creating a disturbance here. Is that true, sir?”

I stopped where I was. The street was a beauty — no garbage, no street vendors. Alongside office buildings there were flowers in gardens, which were obviously well-tended.

The giant of a policeman walked towards the man then said to him, “How long have you been here? Are you sure you haven’t been creating any trouble here, sir?”

Did he say ‘sir’? In Jamaica policemen hardly ever call anyone sir. Earlier that day I had left my hotel, dressed in shorts, to lazily stroll along a road which ran parallel to the great Mississippi River. The day before, I had been hosted by a scion of the city who had been close to the great singer Isaac Hayes, who had just died. She had been instrumental in placing lights on the bridge which led to the state of Arkansas. She had hosted a group of 23 journalists from many countries — including myself — and feted us in royal style in her penthouse overlooking the muddy Mississippi River.

So there I was the following day, watching what could be the real life of part of the city.

The man on the park bench showed no signs that he was mentally troubled, which would force the authorities to rein him in and corral him. At least, that was my impression. Unlike Jamaican street people he was fairly clean, as the bench, the street and the general surroundings would make it very difficult for him to be as dirty and decrepit as our street people usually are.

“No, I ain’t giving nobody no problems,” he said.

“I received reports, sir,” said the policeman as he towered over the man seated on the bench, who himself was not small in stature.

“I just need to be sure about this, sir,” said the policeman who then began to question the man in more detail.

I crossed the road just before an ornately designed street car passed. I paused to watch the interaction.

In Jamaica our policemen are hardly ever made popular for treating our citizens with courtesy. Our citizens, on the other hand are, too many of them, coarse and always pushing for a fight.

Here I was in another jurisdiction, another city, another country, walking around, looking for the best that its grime and underbelly could produce.

As the mountain of a policeman headed towards his car, he said to the man who sat quiet and unsmiling on his stone bench, “Sir, I hope I don’t get any more reports about you.”

“I ain’t giving nobody no problem,” the man responded.

In Jamaica in 2010 we have a mountain of problems to overcome. Our people are highly uneducated and our politicians are afraid of telling our people the ‘full hundred’ because the politician believes that by doing so, the people will disrespect him. There are people in this country who are willing to die just to acquire a 42-inch HD TV, yet at the same time they care little about how their neighbour is faring.

We are running off the rails and, increasingly, we are locking down interaction with others because our financial resources do not allow us to listen to what we cannot solve.

In 1968, as an 18-year-old impetuous youngster, it would be the norm for me, along with 10 or so of my friends, to walk from a street dance in Cross Roads to Pembroke Hall/Arlene Gardens at 4:00 in the morning.

In 1971 when I was courting my wife, I took a bus from Harbour View to downtown Kingston and missed the last bus to Washington Boulevard. Unfortunately, I only had bus fare and not the $2 or so that I would need for a taxi ride. Having no other choice, I walked from Parade in downtown, along West Queen Street, past Tivoli Gardens, along Spanish Town Road, then turned onto Waltham Park Road, to the bend on Molynes Road, then onto Washington Boulevard — at minutes after midnight. Could anyone do that now?

How did we come to this, and what can we do to return to better times? Can there ever be real civility in this country?

My answer: Not in the immediate future.

Too Many Hangers-on

The politics of this country encourage those who are most favoured. Until that is changed, this country will never move forward. There are businessmen in this country who want to move forward but they are, collectively, scared of the nasty nature of the politics. In Jamaica, the businessman who sticks his neck out and challenges the orthodoxies of the system is probably the one we will hear about taking the next flight out with his broken family.

It is not that they are cowards but the system tends to favour those who blend with the flavour of the moment.

In PNP time, PNP connected businessmen do well. In JLP time, unfortunately for that party, in tamarind season, JLP-connected businessmen do well. I happen to know that the present prime minister, Bruce Golding, wants to change that arrangement.

Didn’t Michael Manley, Eddie Seaga, PJ Patterson and Portia Simpson Miller all want to change that destructive system? If they all did — and that is a big IF — why is it that we are still in such a terrible bind?

Why is it that our political leaders continue to laud their efforts when we the people know that those very efforts have brought this paradise of a country to its social and economic knees? Is it that they are evil, or just plain deceptive because they think we are all idiots?

Politicians like Bruce Golding, before he became prime minister, spoke like how Peter Phillips, a highly respected PNP MP, is now speaking. Both have said that the country spent too much time chasing the politics, winning at all costs while the business of actually running the country faded into nothingness.

Phillips speaks with more conviction simply because he is no longer in government. Golding spoke with conviction when he was in some nonentity called the NDM. Of late the same old NDM has been having all of the answers because it has no power.

Give a party power, the answers cease. Place it in opposition and it becomes the expert on solving the country’s problems. Is it a game? Have they been taking us for a ride?

Education is key, application is the endgame

I am always amazed that the academics among us allow our high rate of literacy, 88 per cent, to remain without a whimper. I have said for years that that is a plain lie and the real literacy rate is closer to 65 per cent. Why do we do this? Do we have a need to fool ourselves?

Apart from the surveys I have done, all our cloistered academics have to do is go on the road — at times a scary place for them. Speak to the so-called typical Jamaican, listen to him/her. It is not good news. It is shocking.

In 1989, the late Professor Carl Stone conducted a survey and literacy in Jamaica was found to be at 65 per cent at a time when the official figures were significantly higher. In the early 1990s, I conducted a survey and the numbers were not changed from the 1989 ones.

Again, at the end of the 1990s, I conducted another survey and the numbers had hardly moved. The question is, why do we need to fool ourselves?

It is my belief that the government agencies responsible for collating these numbers are beholden to the funding agencies behind these studies. Therefore, when the expected results do not manifest, they are forced to prove to them that the money was well-spent, hence the inflated numbers.

How in hell can a country be run if the leaders are in a con game, fooling themselves and, in the process, taking us all for a ride?

What we must do in this new year is force the Government to face up to our realities, because it is obvious that whatever the targets are, they are absolutely nowhere near reality.

Why has Jamaica not erupted?

In response to the JLP Government’s tax package, the opposition PNP took to the streets and, from reports, the demonstrations were peaceful.

To the politically correct that means that the PNP is a responsible opposition party. Let us face one major fact. All tax packages in this country have been unpopular. If you know of one, please tell me.

The difference this time around was that the global economy was in a recession. As such, I had expected that the Government would have relaxed the standard playbook and treated us as adults, capable of dealing with bad news.

Prime Minister Golding (acting on a madman’s advice) jooked us first then took back something and, according to the playbook, made us feel good.

Wasn’t Bruce Golding the head boy at his high school? Is that what his role taught him — to mess with people’s patience?

The fact that the PNP took to the streets and there were no disruptions tells us two things. One, the PNP is a responsible political party, having no interest in creating mayhem in this country. Two, the PNP did not have the crowd support to create mayhem in this country.

People hark back to April 1999, when riots broke out after the PNP Government of the day had imposed a new gas tax. From my perspective — and I was on the road early, as the stirrings occurred — it was a spontaneous eruption which began at certain sections of Red Hills and Grants Pen roads, areas loyal to the JLP. These were areas where the normal unemployment rate was in the order of 65 per cent and over.

Most of the people who began burning debris and blocking roads were idlers, criminals and people who had been unempowered for too long. It was then that the JLP, as an official organisation, jumped on board and began to supply the troops with food and to transport debris to keep the rot going. I was there; I saw it. I was in the heart of it, on the streets while the shots were being fired (in two instances) and the looting was on.

The Government owes us the duty of governance.

Much will be the pain that will be prescribed in 2010, and I expect that the prime minister will have it in him to dish out to us the realities. One person suggested to me that our people also need to step out with their, er, cojones too, as I had suggested the prime minister should in 2010.

While I agree with that, it is simple even to the most simplistic that leaders must lead. Let no one fool you. The PNP would have been quite happy had its demonstrations resulted in significant disruptions.

As such, all plans it had for pushing for elections are now placed on hold. It is the nature of the political beast; PNP or JLP.

None of them know any better.

Can the great debater, the former head boy of his school, lead us to a better place and his own place in history?

Mr Golding, I am waiting on you. May you and everyone else survive this year.

observemark@gmail.com