It is refreshing that increasing numbers of Jamaicans are realising that our political system has failed miserably and that there needs to be fundamental change in how we order our affairs as a nation.

Recently, leading financial analyst and chartered accountant, John Jackson, made an appeal at a Lions Club’s function that more Jamaicans must speak up and take a more active interest in the affairs of the country. In a word, it was an appeal to reject mediocrity and for constructive engagement with the structures of power in the society so that fundamental change can occur in how we govern ourselves.

It is about time that more people with influence in the society speak up. Of course, the appeal of the worthy accountant and financial analyst and patriot is not new. He has joined in the chorus of many of us who, through the written word and oral expressions, have lamented the sad state of governance in Jamaica since Independence.

But the time has come for change to be pressured. It is not enough to talk about the issues of the day. Too many of us are just content to be armchair gossipers about what ails the country. Few are willing to become participants in a constructive agenda for change to organise and come up with strategies that will lead to fundamental change in our society.

Our political governors over the years know only too well that we are a nation of talkers or, as one lower-level political operative put it, people who grovel at the feet of nine-day wonders. They know from experience garnered over the years that people will ‘bellyache’ about issues, but beyond that there will be no meaningful pressure for accountability. The prime minister only acted to remove Dr Fenton Ferguson from the Ministry of Health only when it became clear to her that she had to act. The same thing happened when Dr Davies was removed as the Opposition spokesperson for finance.

Indeed, the people who have been most effective in taking action leading to change have not been members of the intellectual class, of the “chatteratti” or “twitteratti”, or as Robert Pickersgill so infamously, and contemptuously, described them, the articulate minority. They are the several poor people scattered throughout the length and breadth of Jamaica, who, in rural or urban communities, demonstrate by blocking roads for various causes, the chief among them being water and roads.

These people have learnt, like the late trade unionist and Prime Minister Michael Manley, that blocking roads is a successful strategy of social protest. In their advocacy and protest they have had the most marked effect for immediate response in some instances from their political bosses.

It was not lost on Prime Minister P J Patterson how potent a force for change could enrage citizens until the aftermath of the gas riots that rocked his Administration in 1999. He acknowledged then that political leaders ought to be more attentive to the needs and voices of citizens, and ostensibly should pay them the appropriate respect they deserve.

But this is where it ended, because since then there has been no significant indication to convince the ordinary Jamaican that his voice is respected. Increasingly he sees himself as a mere pawn in the political chess game that is played by the elites in both political parties. This is why increasing numbers have retreated from the political process. One finds agreement with those who believe that, while one understands why people should be disinterested in the process, alienating oneself from it cannot be the right approach.

Constructive engagement of the political process does not mean merely voting in an election. Voting for either political party is giving assent to a political process that is broken and that has not served the people well since Independence. In Jamaica’s decadent political culture of tribalism, it is to give assent to political one-upmanship and “donmanism”, or as one leading member of a political party described it, to acknowledge “corruption, slackness and nastiness” as political virtues to be striven for.

No one party in our decadent political culture has a monopoly on these vices; they are both equal opportunity participants in them. It is just a matter of who is more or less brazen in indulging them. Finally, it is to aid and abet a political order that has died but which we are trying to resuscitate by prescribing placebos. It is time that the citizens rise up and do the decent thing of giving it the funeral it deserves. It is insanity to believe you can have any meaningful success from a political system that has failed over the years.

The political renaissance of which I speak must begin with comprehensive constitutional reform. What is clear is that the political directorate under both the People’s National Party and Jamaica Labour Party is not interested in a radical reform of the constitution. They will give intellectual acknowledgment of the need for reform, but deep down in their guts they do not see a need for radical reform. Each of them is looking out to see how best any reform can deepen their chance at entrenched power. They will carry out some measures but these will be at best cosmetic, piecemeal and superficial. They will not be radical enough to shake the foundations of the present status quo.

Career politicians of the likes of which we have in Jamaica, who derive benefits from power and predatory intrusions into people’s lives, will not be in any hurry to cauterise what is a veritable livelihood for many of them. Such politicians are deeply vested in the status quo and are therefore in no hurry to change it.

Any meaningful radical change has to come from the citizens themselves. This is where the appeals of people like John Jackson find their relevance. Sadly, too many of our citizens are too closely allied to either major political party in a tribalistic way. They have drunk the Kool Aid of subservience from their bosses for too long that they now bow in supine acquiescence to their every demand. It is the party first and the country last. But there is a growing phalanx of the politically unattached which hold out the best hope for change.

But for change to occur it cannot be just about articulating the problems and pressing the politicians to make the change. The people have to propose the change they need. They must determine what they want in the constitution to bring about change in political governance; what structures of accountability are required to punish the corrupt, the slack and the nasty. They must get among themselves and organise for change.

When they have a set of proposals that are agreed upon, they must then advocate peacefully, by civil disobedience if necessary, for these changes to be adopted. The year 2016 has to be the year when serious organisation is attempted.

Politicians will not do for us what we are not willing to do for ourselves. I remember US President Barack Obama saying that politicians will not move to make change unless they are pressured to do so. And pressure can come in various ways, except by violence, as Martin Luther King Jr and Gandhi before him knew.

Let 2016 be the year when we see a desire for constructive engagement for change. Otherwise, at the beginning of next year not much would have transpired beyond the consciousness raised in John Jackson’s speech. Things may very well be worse. We are in an election year.