Dear Reader,

My column last week , “Greg Christie’s aborted legacy” spurred an extraordinarily high volume of responses – most of them positive and in agreement with the positions I had taken on the issue.

I was especially touched by one such response and felt compelled to share it with you, the reader. The citizen, who didn’t want her name published, wrote:

“Contractor General Greg Christie is not the enemy of Jamaica’s growth and development; corruption is. The state of affairs which necessitated a man of Greg Christie’s fortitude was described by Prime Minister PJ Patterson while addressing the National Executive Council of the PNP in September 1992 in these words: ‘Many people seem incapable of telling right from wrong. They do not know what is the limit. There is no fear of being ostracised for wrongdoing. In other cases they feel they can get away with anything. They will not get caught, and even when they are caught the sanctions are too weak and ineffective.’

“This 50th year of Jamaica’s Independence is a gift which can be used to re-order the nation to ‘get back to the standards and values which will build a great nation’ to fulfil her promise to herself and all mankind. This will require a national singleness of purpose and the internal fortitude of a Greg Christie to do right, no matter what price has to be paid in the short term. This is how Christie has conducted himself, which would be extremely offensive to those of us whose moral fortitude is not as developed. However, should we decide to stop wanting prosperity, but doing ‘almshouse’ or being doubleminded and go in the direction in which we set our faces on August 6, 1962, Jamaica can still be the greatest little nation on earth.

“Lest we forget: our flag rose out of the darkness of colonialism as a standard of light, health and strength that signalled the dawn of a new future heralded by the sound of a prayer for specific blessings from the source of all life – Eternal Father. The birth of this nation signalled to the world a level of righteousness, never before seen as the magnanimity of the spirit of the Eternal Father led us to lay aside bitterness and division and enter into a vision of ourselves as ‘Out Of Many One People’ – slave and slave master, colonist and colonised – embracing the freedom to choose peace and tranquility with maturity. Jamaica would be bigger than our differences and would make the best use of the diversity of our ethnicity as a unified nation to be the answer to the problems of all humanity.

“The unity which we set out to accomplish, we knew would not come easy and as we travel down the political road, it seems as if it has been only a pipe dream. We obviously took the wrong road which led us to continue to ‘fight’ after the common enemy had left. We fight on the labour front; we fight in our politics; we fight in our communities; we fight in our homes; we fight over the children; we fight for scarce benefits and spoils; we fight in the church; we fight the institutions which we have set up to protect our democracy; we fight each other even unto death. We have kept up the ‘fight’, all the time forgetting the goals which we have set ourselves for becoming a nation of ‘One’. These goals were spelled out by our founding fathers to provide a guide and a barometer for the way Jamaica should function at every level of the society to be her most beautiful; her most fulfilled; and her most prosperous. But they did not just give us goals without the map to attain these goals.

“Listen: Many of us dare to believe that this country, so blended in origins, so fashioned in time, so wrought on by our own history may go out into the world to make a contribution larger than our size would lead on to expect.

‘…I believe that as an Independent nation we can so manage ourselves as to demonstrate one day how, by making our great motto Out of Many One People come to speak the truth about ourselves, we can become a worthwhile and shining example of the sort of world men sometimes dream to live in.’ (Address to Parliament by NW Manley – August 7, 1962).

‘…I know that you all will respond to the challenge of this new era on which we now enter to the difficult tasks and heavy responsibilities ahead of us. Independence means the opportunity to rely on ourselves in so doing. It does not mean a licence to do as we like. It means work and law and order.’ (Address to Parliament – Sir Alexander Bustamante – August 7. 1962)

“Greg Christie came into our lives at our invitation. We sought him out, because we realised that we had gone so far off course there was no hope for a nation known as the most corrupt little nation on earth. Christie has been a juggernaut for righteousness, giving back the rigidity of meaning to our flag, rather than the impotent flaccidity for which it had become known throughout the world. This was confirmed by an eminent lawyer who worked with me at a large New York law firm when he had moved on to work in the Clinton administration and then to set up his firm’s South African office. When asked about bringing investments to Jamaica, he laughed derisively and said: ‘I know of no one who would want to invest in Jamaica, as it is known as the most corrupt little nation behind Nigeria as the most corrupt big nation.’ Ouch! That hurt, but I had to contend truthfully with the description.

“If our law makers do not understand independence to mean ‘work and law and order’, or see the vision of us becoming ‘a worthwhile and shining example of the sort of world men sometimes dream to live in’, then they have not been watching our athletes and observing the unyielding standards to which they have to submit in order to compete. Dr Davies and his parliamentary colleagues who make the long-term laws by which we can be governed as a civilised nation must see this as the wrong road if they are serious about ridding the country of crime and corruption, which means they absolutely cannot take the convenient road to undermine the authority of the contractor general in the name of expediency. It is a return to the kind of politics which keeps us a poor, beggarly nation and which would give every petty criminal the excuse for the ‘eat a food’ mentality and every big thief the right to bypass government rules and regulations and ‘pay off’ as we continue to live by the spirit of piracy.

“In good faith with the law and the Jamaica people, the integrity of the minister and his Cabinet colleagues would certainly be served if they were to ensure that the contractor general is given the promised strengthening forthwith to facilitate the expeditious working of the law, so that fasttracking for such contract approvals through the legitimate system can be effected.

“I am sure Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller’s government understands that Jamaica cannot have it both ways: it will either be ‘work and law and order’ which fosters economic growth or the ‘Dudus bandoolo’ economy which brands us the most crime-ridden and corrupt, underdeveloped little laughing stock of other nations. Hence, the short-term gain would have brought us long-term pain which is the result of corrupt or weak governance.

“After 50 years of Independence we must demonstrate the maturity to get past personal offences and obstinacy and agree on what kind of country we want to live in. If we find that the Independence model which was set before us is still a good and acceptable one, we must set aside our own agenda and join hands and hearts together ‘to work diligently and creatively; to think generously and honestly’ no longer accepting unrighteousness, unforgiveness or corruption from ourselves or others, so that Jamaica may under God increase in beauty, fellowship and prosperity and play her part in advancing the welfare of the whole human race’.”

Thank you, citizen.

With love,

bab2609@yahoo.com