Who as a child did not harbour thoughts of one day being the master of his or her own destiny; deciding when to come and when to go, what to do and what not to do, not being pushed around or dictated to by anyone? That is the infantile and narrow context within which many of us formed our views about what it means to be independent.

And that, it seems, is what Jamaica has been attempting to do these 64 years of political independence. We have gone about our business, living according to our own rules, without a common vision of where we want to go, a collective strategy for getting there, and shared values to keep us on course. It has not worked. We have not progressed to the extent we should, given our God-given assets.

In its Monday, August 3, 2026 editorial, the Jamaica Observer opined, “Life remains very difficult for tens of thousands of Jamaicans in the country’s west who are still struggling to fit pieces back together following Category 5 Hurricane Melissa last October. And for many everywhere in this pleasing-to-the-eye island nation, even the most basic demands, such as putting food on the table, represent a major struggle.”

It is undeniable, Jamaica’s progress since gaining Independence has been like a rolling plain: pleasing to the eyes but with modest highs and treacherous lows. Progress, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Depending on who you ask, Jamaica is hell, paradise, or something in-between.

One of the more carefully considered and objective assessments of Jamaica’s progress was given by a man who should know. On July 28, 2022, the year Jamaica celebrated 60 years of Independence, former Prime Minister Bruce Golding delivered the third G Arthur Brown Memorial Lecture at the Bank of Jamaica auditorium. In creating a scorecard of the country’s performance, Golding painted a lurid picture of Jamaica’s development trajectory since Independence. Economically, he pointed to growth of 135 per cent or a paltry average of 1.4 per cent per year. On the social dimension, he pointed to the country’s world-leading murder rate.

The dismal performance did not, however, totally obliterate the achievements over the period. Golding pointed to improvements in infrastructure – road, water, and electricity; access to secondary education and health services; institutional development; and social legislation as some of the achievements we can be justly be proud of.

He arrived at a final assessment by weighing pluses and minuses, concluding as follows: “By any objective measure, our scorecard for the last 60 years is a mixed bag – a goulash of successes and failures, progress and regression, triumph and disappointments.”

Jamaicans who live in poverty and endure hardships daily do not equivocate in their assessment of the country’s economic and social health as politicians are wont to do. An August 2017 Bill Johnson poll asked the question: Would Jamaica be better off today if it had remained a colony of Great Britain? Only 27 per cent strongly disagreed or disagreed with the statement that Jamaica would be better off remaining a British colony. A majority 73 per cent said they strongly agreed, agreed, or didn’t know. One may conjecture about whether the results would be any different if that same poll were conducted today.

The late management guru and author Steven Covey gives insight on the human maturity continuum based on development psychology in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Every child, he posits, is born into a state of dependency. As the child matures, he or she moves from dependence to independence, and ultimately to interdependence. According to Covey, interdependence – learning to live and work harmoniously and cooperatively with other people towards a common goal – not independence, is the final stage of maturity. What is true for people is also true for nations.

Jamaicans, by nature, according to some observers, tend to be individualistic. With the possible exception of women netball, the effects have been telling in team sports and in nation-building. This proclivity towards going it alone extends to external affairs, most famously reflected in the results of the 1961 referendum to reject the idea of West Indies Federation and to pursue instead independent statehood. Some are clamouring for republic status as if that is a panacea for our economic and social ills.

If we are to point to a single failing that has held back Jamaica’s progress, it must be our failure to live our national motto: ‘Out of many one people’. The economy, in particular, lacks inclusiveness and equity. At the policy level and increasingly in the prevailing culture, we have grown insensitive to suffering. We have not been good at being our brother’s keeper.

In many ways we are a divided nation. We are divided along political, religious, and social lines, as well as by class – so there is not one, but two and maybe three Jamaica. The 64th anniversary of our Independence is a good time to reflect on and heed the biblical injunction: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Dr Henley Morgan is founder and executive chairman of the Trench Town-based social enterprise Agency for Inner-city Renewal (AIR) and author of My Trench Town Journey – Lessons in Social Entrepreneurship and Community Transformation for Policy Makers, Development Leaders, and Practitioners. Send comments to hwardmorgan+articles@gmail.com.