It wasn’t the gold we all so badly wanted. But well-thinking Jamaicans were surely pleased that their Sunshine Girls claimed the bronze medal, beating New Zealand 52-45 at the Netball World Cup in South Africa on Sunday, sweetening still further the nation’s 61st anniversary of political independence from Britain.

It’s been 16 years since Jamaica’s national netballers last won a medal at the World Cup, making Sunday’s achievement all the more significant.

Jamaicans are hoping for even more sporting glory in this Emancipendence week when the record-breaking Reggae Girlz meet Colombia in the FIFA Women’s Football World Cup’s round of 16 in Australia on Tuesday.

Also, there is the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, later this month with our track and field ambassadors expected to achieve excellence as they have so many times.

Yet, even as Jamaicans bask in the glory cast by performers in sport, music, and culture, they yearn for a day when such achievements will be matched on the socio-economic front.

When the nation walked clear of colonial rule in 1962, the expectation was that by now economic dependency would be a thing of the past, and that social ills such as crime, extreme poverty, ignorance, and illiteracy would be firmly under the collective heel.

Instead, while there have been incremental improvements in areas, including the economy and very importantly debt reduction, there is much left to do.

Far too many Jamaicans live hand to mouth, barely able to survive.

Far too many have to make do without basic amenities in shanties and hovels, rather than houses.

Far too many are unable to afford even basic health care.

Far too many children attend school on an irregular basis for all sorts of reasons, not least no money for transportation.

Far too many leave school semi-literate at best, with no useful skills for an increasingly sophisticated job market.

And violent crime has reached levels never contemplated in the wildest nightmares of the 1960s.

An obvious answer to the many problems is national unity.

But how is that to be achieved when as former Prime Minister, Mr P J Patterson, has lamented even our leaders find it difficult to be civil one to another?

Says Mr Patterson:

“Utterances from some in the political sphere and positions of authority belittle us as a nation and also undermine respect for all.

“Public respect is rapidly descending to an all-time low. The language used routinely is distasteful, disgraceful, and comments are derogatory. The tone of their delivery is devoid of respect.

“Increasingly, the public is made to endure intensely negative public discourse that abuses, demeans, and vilifies others. Instead of mutual respect, a small but vociferous number of our public speakers are consistently mean-spirited and vulgar…”

Truthfully, though, while such behaviour may be getting worse, it is not new.

It’s one reason Mr Patterson famously launched his Values and Attitudes Programme back in the 1990s. As older Jamaicans and others now approaching middle age can recall that initiative died on the altar of political partisanship.

As we seek to build, brick by brick, that great nation Jamaicans had hoped for in 1962, reviving that values and attitudes initiative would be a useful tool, we think.

If there is genuine will, it’s not too late.