As Mugabe, having productive farms turned into shanty towns, causing starvation, or Nauru, allowing a foreign company to exploit and deplete phosphate reserves, one can point to the reason. In Jamaica, there are a set of reasons how we reached this perigee.
Firstly, our emulation of Haiti.
Now you would think that a vibrant, functioning, progressive nation as Jamaica was in the '70s would never succumb to the well documented errors of our eastern neighbour. After all, Haiti was virtually born a failed state. And although apologists might point to 19th century racism, that sure doesn't work with 20th century exploitation by the local ruling class.
Haiti's problem is that its people speak no known language.
Creole is spoken in the gutters of Haiti. No one who doesn't live in the gutters is interested. The ruling class speaks French, to get a good job requires English. Hence speaking Creole allows one to sell in the market.
Jamaicans used to speak English until some moron who didn't want to take another language to enter a Canadian University, (which requires one be bilingual) hit upon the trick of having patois, (Jamaica's local incoherence) accepted as a language.
In the late '70s the idea; 'patwa fi wi langwij' was pushed down the throats of the uneducated, and taken on for fun by the educated who wanted street cred.
In 20 years the pass rate in English is below 20%. The people not only can't speak it, they can't understand it. This insures that any job requiring the speaking of English must go to an ex-pat.
When one can not understand English it is very simple to hide information in plain sight.
Along with this comes the corruption. A friend of a member of the elite can get permission to import X. X may cost $1.00 and can, with all acceptable mark-ups be sold for $5.00. Instead it is sold for $25.00 allowing that extra profit to be used in support of political campaigns, bribes and other necessary business expenses.
Ripping off the public has become standard, so that even electricity is so far beyond the pocket of the average person that they only way the poor can obtain light is to 'steal' it.
And of course, the Chinese firm which owns the Jamaican power company has no problem in cutting off and prosecuting poor Jamaicans.
In 2007, when the incumbent, Portia Simpson-Miller campaigned, her presentation fell far short of what could be expected from a leader. Golding countered this with his professorial stance.
As the PNP, (Portia's party) did not have pots of money, and the JLP, (Bruce's party) was well funded by a vast number of entreprenuers, he could buy the election, and did.
He has spent the past 2 1/2 years depleting public coffers to repay those debts so that he can go back for more next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment