Great effort is required to arrest decay and restore vigour. One must exercise proper deliberation, plan carefully before making a move, and be alert in guarding against relapse following a Renaissance. — Horace

Jamaica, at this time, is experiencing a Renaissance period. Poverty is down — the lowest in decades. Inflation is down — lowest in a very long time. Crime is down, substantially. Cost of living is under control. Investment by the private sector is up. Capital spending by the government is up to record levels. Infrastructure works right across the island are in full swing. Youth unemployment is down, and overall employment is the lowest it has been in the living memory of many of us right across the board. Business confidence is way up alongside consumer confidence.

Based on where we are coming from, this is truly the Renaissance period for Jamaica. The Golden Age of Jamaica’s prosperity. Thanks to the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

Jamaica has had the unfortunate distinction of undergoing not one but two major “Dark Ages” in the space of 30 years and a mini one. For a small nation like ours that’s a remarkable feat to accomplish. Not once, but twice! The entire continent of Europe only experienced one Dark Age. Recently, we had a mini one which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) made sure didn’t take on the magnitude of the first two. We should thank our lucky star that the Jamaican electorate realised quickly the only thing keeping us away from the third major Dark Age was the IMF and turned to the Renaissance leader, Andrew Holness, with the prosperity plan.

Dark Age I was 1972 – 1980 and Dark Age II was from 1989 – 2007. In the Dark Ages, crime spiralled out of control, the entrepreneurial class was decimated, innumerable scandals were unearthed, and if that wasn’t bad enough, handcart and ATM taxes were concocted. Jamaica suffered.

We were very near in 2011 to 2015 of slipping back into a major Dark Age when the gas tax was placed on us for a ridiculous oil hedge, electricity was taxed, and over $60 billion of new taxes were levied on us. That was a frightening time! I remember it well. How could we ever forget?

We must use history to help chart our future, and we must remember the bondage and sufferings of the two major Dark Ages — and the mini one — and resolve to ourselves never to go back there again. We must never reverse the course that we are on now towards prosperity and let in the leaders of the previous Dark Ages to take over and put us back there. The parade has been new and different, but from their mouth comes the same language reminiscent of those very dark times.

When you have the leader of the party that plunged us into two major Dark Ages, Peter Phillips — who also served as finance minister and de facto prime minister under Portia Simpson Miller – hell-bent on creating a third by putting a price tag on the lives of ordinary Jamaicans in the state of public emergency in St James, we must reject him and say no, we are not going back into the Dark Ages, it’s Renaissance time now!

When you hear one of the high-ranking members of the party of two major Dark Ages and a mini one, Phillip Paulwell, attacking a civil servant based on a mistake she made 25 years ago, asking for her to lose her job, we must reject it and say no, we are not going back into the Dark Ages, it’s Renaissance time now!

When you hear a party that has so many scandals in its closet that it would take a scroll to write them down talking about corruption in Government, we must reject them and let them know we are not going back into the Dark Ages because it’s Renaissance time now.

Jamaica, for the first time in decades, is experiencing a time of hope, a time of enthusiasm, a time of looking at itself and saying I can get better… I am getting better… I will get better. We’re in a time of genuine expectation that things are finally moving in the right direction. That’s the time that we all dreamt about in the Dark Ages of People’s National Party rule. Now we are out of those years, let’s make a resolution of never ever going back there.

Things will get better. Things are getting better.

tyronelewis272@gmail.com