Whom do you trust?

[Karl]

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>Whom do you trust?</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Henley Morgan
Thursday, February 22, 2007
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=88 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Henley Morgan</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>"In God alone we trust. All others pay cash." I first saw a sign bearing those words hanging from the wall of a shop in rural Jamaica. It makes mockery of our national motto, "Out of many one people".<P class=StoryText align=justify>Take our vaunted court system, which Attorney General AJ Nicholson feels is beyond even a hint of corruption. In a recent survey, only 12 per cent of respondents say they place a lot of trust in the judiciary.<P class=StoryText align=justify>These and other findings are contained in the book, Probing Jamaica's Political Culture - Main Trends in the July to August 2006 Leadership and Governance Survey, published by the Centre for Leadership and Governance, UWI, Mona. The work is produced by Lawrence Alfred Powell in collaboration with Paul Bourne and Lloyd Waller.<P class=StoryText align=justify>I don't mean to single out the judiciary. In fact, many of the institutions we depend on to build a safe, secure, prosperous and moral society are given short shrift by Jamaicans. The percentage of the sample (1338) saying they have a lot of confidence or trust includes: local government 8 per cent; political parties 8 per cent; police 9 per cent; Parliament 10 per cent; large companies 13 per cent; armed forces 16 per cent; newspapers 16 per cent; television 20 per cent; radio 22 per cent; prime minister 24 per cent; churches 52 per cent; universities 54 per cent; schools 55 per cent and families 60 per cent.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Ever wondered why the growing apathy towards politicians and government? The study gives an insight through the responses to the following question: Would you say most people in government can be trusted to keep their promises, or would you say instead that you can never be too careful in dealing with people in government? The responses: Most people in government can be trusted 7.4 per cent; never can be too careful in dealing with people in government 84.8 per cent; no answer 7.8 per cent.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The responses to this next question reveal how deep the distrust goes. Would you say that most people can be trusted to keep their promises or that you can never be too careful in dealing with people? The responses: People can be trusted 14.1 per cent; never can be too careful in dealing with people 83.5 per cent; no answer 2.4 per cent. It is clear from these responses that Jamaicans living in Jamaica largely do not trust each other.<P class=StoryText align=justify>That's a shame because as long as that remains the situation there are many things requiring teamwork (for which trust is essential) that we will never be consistently good at. The most obvious is team sports where the tendency is to grandstand rather than go for collective glory. Wealth creation too is almost always the outcome of teamwork rather than individual effort. But there is no activity for which this is truer than nation building. American freedom fighter and Marcus Garvey contemporary, Booker T Washington, said words to the effect that while the fingers may each be separate and unique, fingers must come together in a hand for activities such as catching a ball, grabbing hold of opportunity and for nation building. "Out of many one people" powerfully attests to the fact that without trust there will be division, and a house (or a nation) that is divided or at war with itself cannot stand.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The most difficult question which

[Karl]

RE: Whom do you trust?

Would this have something to do with the present Boxhill/Burrell JFF politics undercurrent?

Would this have something to do with successive JFF administrations doing all during the tenure of expatriate TD-coaches and little when locals are the TD-coaches?

Does this explain why our national teams and too many of our teams below the national level do not play TEAM?

...and, what can we do about setting things right?

[OJ]

RE: Whom do you trust?

how comes this has not been moved yet... privieledge is a hell of thing.

[Lazie]

RE: Whom do you trust?

(waitin)

[Jangle]

RE: Whom do you trust?

OJ how much time me haffi say it. All posters are equal, but some are more equal.

[Karl]

RE: Whom do you trust?

OJ (2/22/2007)how comes this has not been moved yet... privieledge is a hell of thing.

Is it a football post?

I would say, yes!

[Lazie]

RE: Whom do you trust?

Yeah .. right. If it was posted by anybody else it would have been quarantined as if it had the plague.

[Mosiah]

RE: Whom do you trust?

<DIV>Care to give one example where a similar post was quarantined?</DIV><DIV>
Thanks.</DIV><DIV></DIV><DIV>(Is this a case of have mouth, will shoot off carelessly?)</DIV>

[Lazie]

RE: Whom do you trust?

Yuh have a tendency fi have memory lapses. A few weeks back I think it was after the Empire lost to the Gummers, you made a post about suicide or something to that effect. What happened to that post? Or yuh ago figet bout it?

[Mosiah]

RE: Whom do you trust?

<DIV>

Lazie (2/22/2007)Yuh have a tendency fi have memory lapses. A few weeks back I think it was after the Empire lost to the Gummers, you made a post about suicide or something to that effect. What happened to that post? Or yuh ago figet bout it?

</DIV><DIV></DIV><DIV>heh heh! (shame)</DIV><DIV></DIV><DIV>Yes, Karl was the one who moved my post when it had a lot more to do with football than this one. But, I gave him a call, with the right amount of race-up attached, and it knocked some sense into him. He said he had lost at bridge that night at Shady Pines and was not thinking straight.</DIV><DIV></DIV><DIV>heh heh!</DIV>

[Karl]

RE: Whom do you trust?

OK!

Where we wondering in another post what our experiences have to do with the support we give to our TDs/coaches?

I think today we were thinking on just that.

Is this the very first time we have spent looking into this matter?

I think not!

As it relates to our football, the writer of the article"Whom do you trust?"invites us to look at the relationships between the JFF administration (our football leaders) and the desperate parts (institutions, stakeholders groups, individual persons) around the administration (leaders) and "thehow" of working together to get where we wantto go.

What should be the nature of that relationship?

This particular paragraph 'grabbed' me -

...there are many things requiring teamwork (for which trust is essential) that we will never be consistently good at. The most obvious is team sports where the tendency is to grandstand rather than go for collective glory. Wealth creation too is almost always the outcome of teamwork rather than individual effort. But there is no activity for which this is truer than nation building. American freedom fighter and Marcus Garvey contemporary, Booker T Washington, said words to the effect that while the fingers may each be separate and unique, fingers must come together in a hand for activities such as catching a ball, grabbing hold of opportunity and for nation building. "Out of many one people" powerfully attests to the fact that without trust there will be division, and a house (or a nation) that is divided or at war with itself cannot stand.

Besides the obvious truism what about the way we view each other - administration and fanz - is preventing us from moving faster towards our goals? I say 'our goals' because I am convinced that we both want to see our national teams and more generally our football climb to the TOP OF THE WORLD - what, for example,it is that would lead one of our members here to view our roles -JFF administrators andthe fanz - as adversarial. In fact, it moves that individual so much...it is so deep seated...that the individual felt constrained to write on it... post it on another site in a manner that was dismissive and ridiculing of such an idea?

We are a part of our society...aren't we? ...and, would normal sensible politicians...JFF politicians be sensitive to all parts of the society's vision of where our football can take us? ...where we can all together go? Why would any leader and or group of leaders embrace cutting off of any of the 'fingers' on the 'hand'?

There is also the matter of viewing anyone who criticizes the JFF administration as being against the administration. Is criticizing a part of your organisation - entity, family, relatives - a healthy thing? can it ever be a healthy thing?

...and, what of good ideas being proposed by segments of the society? Should such ideas be ignored because it orginated from those outside our inner circle? ...or, should those ideas be used to help to shape the way forward...for our collective good?

I would think the JFF, the fanz and the football would be stronger...would progress more rapidly forwardif greater TRUST was there and we worked closer together. If the pool from which ideas where drawn was wider...

etc, etc.