It was the 18th-century English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) who wrote: “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing/Drink deep or taste the Pierian Spring/There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain/And drinking largely sobers us again.”

Among my many critics, I find that a large majority might know something about the subject they are discussing but do not know enough for an objective discussion. Today, I refer especially to some of the critics who took me on last Thursday in Jamaica Observer online.

Last week ‘Ragarray’ wrote that “communism is the ultimate goal for socialism”. That may be true of scientific socialists or communists, but not all socialists. It is not true of the Roman Catholic Church that favours a co-operative system, living wages, and a limited amount of nationalisation for the common good, which is considered by some to be a form of socialism.

There are many capitalists who are in favour of nationalisation of public utilities, for example, but they would never be socialists. There are some socialists who say that imperialism is the ultimate goal of capitalism, but again not in all instances. Some capitalists are anti-imperialist, just as some socialists are. They draw the line at some point when it comes to private enterprise.

The capitalists who are anti-imperialist do not want to be bullied by a monopolistic entity from a more powerful country, but yet they would never go as far as being socialists — let alone communists. And not all people on a bus from Kingston to Montego Bay want to get off in Montego Bay, although that is the ultimate goal of the bus driver. I hope you get the drift.

On more than one occasion CliRey has referred to me as if I am my brother, and he has been corrected — this time by Fadagong and JKC1985 — yet he continues to do so. My brother’s views and mine do not always coincide. My brother Paul served as Portia Simpson Miller’s campaign manager to become president of the People’s National Party, but my preference in that PNP presidential election was Dr Peter Phillips, and this is widely known. Further, I am not a member of any political party.

I am heavily involved in the church and my brother is not “churchy” at all. I grew up in a family that never had what 1984 author George Orwell called “group think”. And there have always been members of both major political parties in my family. When it suits some people, they shout that James Robertson is my first cousin.

Chercher links the derelict buildings in downtown Kingston to socialism in the 1970s. However, the movement into St Andrew started with the opening up of New Kingston by Norman Manley while he was premier of Jamaica. This has nothing to do with Michael Manley. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing indeed.

And, by the way, Chercher, Michael Manley was rejected at the polls in 1980, but he returned to power in 1989.

Observer The Agenda columnist Garfield Higgins likes to remind people that Michael Manley said “socialism is dead” when he regained power in 1989. This does not mean that he was not still a socialist. In the very last recorded interview before he died, Michael Manley stated categorically that he would always be a socialist.

The facts are that the world had changed in terms of the countries that were willing to give grants to Jamaica. Michael Manley shelved his ideology to suit the international financial institutions and Jamaica’s trading partners. The reverse is true of Cuba. When the United States of America started its embargo, Cuba was forced to turn to the Soviet Union for economic aid. Castro then fitted into the Russian communist order as best he could — albeit with a Castro-type socialism.

And, Chercher, I did not write that Cuba’s education and health care systems were superior to those of the US. In some people’s views it is; however, I never wrote that. But it is a lot better than it was before Fidel Castro, and that is a fact as recorded in the statistics of the United Nations.

What about the schools that the Cubans built in Jamaica in the 1970s, including the Jose Marti School at Twickenham Park, St Catherine? What about the Cuban doctors that came here and worked over the years since the 1970s? Could Cuba have helped Jamaica with schools and health care before Fidel Castro ruled Cuba? I do not think so. Could Cuba have trained so many Jamaican tertiary students before Fidel Castro? Again, I do not think so.

Chercher says that if Cuba’s education and health care system was so good, Cubans would not be risking their lives to leave. Island people have always left their homelands for bigger countries ever since the world began. Even those who flee the dictatorial rule of the Castros would more than likely leave had they been citizens of any other island nation in the world.

We are always compared with Singapore and the great success story of Lee Kuan Yew. Has any Singaporean ever migrated? In Chercher’s line of reasoning there should not be any migrations from Singapore due to their economic success. I guess that there is less migration from Singapore to the USA because there are fewer Singaporeans than Cubans and the USA is further from Singapore than Cuba. But it does not mean that Singaporeans do not migrate, and yet Singapore is not an island but a country small in size.

Thanks to online commentator ‘Observer’ for commending me last Thursday regarding the Roman Catholic Church at the risk of being savagely abused by my detractors. I understand that in mentioning the annual Roman Catholic pilgrimage in Morant Bay to honour the Blessed Virgin Mary in her glorious assumption I was criticised openly at a church last Sunday.

I hope the pastor of the Pentecostal Church at 111 Windward Road will allow me equal time at his church to state my case in honouring the Blessed Virgin Mary as a Roman Catholic. Much knowledge is helpful. A little knowledge is dangerous.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com

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Cuban migrants trying to cross the Straits of Florida on a 1951 Chevy flatbed to reach the US mainland. (PHOTO: AFP)