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The big lie, the best prime minister, 'let them eat cake' yam, cassava
Franklin Johnston
Friday, January 09, 2009
This year will be a good one for Jamaica. Our people should resolve to work hard, stop killing, help the poor, and if unemployed "work for food" or as an apprentice with some farm or business and get know-how until the economy turns. Praise God, dance regularly and do what you enjoy; life is short, but do not idle or waste time.
Our capacity to deceive ourselves is limitless. I sometimes wonder if some writers and analysts lived in Jamaica before the American sub-prime crisis. The big lie is that something happened to Jamaica last year, different from the bind we have been in for many years. The world had over 20 years of wild growth, yet we have been credit-crunched for decades.
To start, I have a credit crunch quiz; seven questions. Name one Jamaican institution which is exposed to American sub-prime debt? Iceland is suffering now, but made money in the boom years. Its people grew rich; GDP per capita is US$50,000 and they bought some top UK firms.They have lost billions, but nothing can move the schools, airports, hotels, opera houses, infrastructure and the know-how they accumulated. What success did we enjoy in the global boom years? How many Trinidad firms did we buy? What dizzy heights did workers' wages, GDP and FDI reach? Did we have easy access to loans, food or housing? Did we have jobs, a big trade surplus and pay our national debt easily?
Which of our institutions relaxed their credit terms and brought our young, poor and unemployed people into home ownership? It never happened here. Poor Americans bought houses, fridges, cars, stoves with no money down, interest-free for months, and in the UK people got 120 per cent mortgages. People overseas made millions and "small fry" like Joe the plumber "licked their fingers". Our crisis is long-standing. We suffered when our partners were booming and we will suffer more now they are suffering. Our consumers and small businesses were never given the credit to live well or succeed in their ventures.
We need a Ministry of Food to focus minds. More anon. For now, just know that food is a key tool of politics - the best case study is Zimbabwe. Whoever controls food, controls people, and so instead of industry adjudication, an import permit is in the politicians' gift. This tactic is designed to control farm bodies, brings large farmers to conform by the threat of bankrupting them using imports and for cronies to start up business. In the boom years, the NDFJ chaired by R Danny Williams, was a unique, successful, non-government bank which gave small people loans for businesses and farming and held their hands in a crisis. But even they could not get enough money to lend.
Let's continue with a credit crunch exercise! Make a list of what was going very well in Jamaica before the global credit crunch. good! Now, make a second list of what was going badly. Check your list, here is mine! Crime, violence, gambling, imports, debt and financial services were growth areas. We had many tourists, but Air Jamaica made no profit. Was health care good? Which Christmas did we not import chicken chassis?
Marie Antioinette is much maligned. Her "Let them eat brioche" is misunderstood. In France then, sweet bread (sugar bun) was easy, same price as bread, but for the rich only. For us, it is easier to grow rice, corn and beef than to change the eating habits of three million citizens. We farmed them once and we can do so again. My hope is that Dr Tufton will revert to his solid pre-election instincts and act on them.
Cabinet may think that, like salmon, they can swim upstream and ignore people's wishes, but they do so to their peril. The cassava edict is high-handed. If the poor desired more cassava (the rich always eat what they like), they would not need to be told to eat more. As a cassava farmer, I lost my shirt. Parish officers marvelled at our varieties and yields, but sales under 30 tons did not dent our volumes or pay the bank and so we put on the ripper and ploughed the crop under.
The last straw was a visit by head office experts who advised us to make bammy. Imagine this: at reaping time, in debt, no factory; with rats despoiling our crop in the fields. advice most cruel and stupid. Jamaican appetites are for rice and peas, chicken, flour, pork, cornmeal and meat; other crops are "relish". In Africa, yam and cassava are basics, not in Jamaica. Past Cabinets tried to "ram" breadfuit flour, yam rice, cassava dough down our throats; and we used our purchasing power to say "no". Yet, they still try. We want rice and chicken, curry goat on Friday with hard food on the side and on Saturday beef soup. We are a free people, not children. We need no diet sheet from Cabinet - they should take it home first and see what the wife and kids think; respect our choices and promote the crops we want. If the minister acts, we can grow a third of our needs in three years.
Brains are best, but there is no brain without a body and a nation moves forward on its belly! Cassava and yam are culture, just like mento is culture; respect to mento, but we drudge reggae and dancehall and eat rice, flour and meat 90 per cent of the time.
So, what is the big truth? The challenges we face now are the same ones which existed at Independence. No change. Prime Ministers - the Manleys, Bustamante, Seaga, Sangster, Patterson and Simpson Miller all failed. We had the orator, the white, the finance genius, the beloved of the masses and black like me; none of them m ade us sustainable in food, education, jobs, health care, peace, or housing; not even in one. We are still at ground zero - 1962.
Michael Manley was best of the lot for three reasons: first we learnt to love ourselves and be ourselves; black, bastard, white, poor, rich, maid, doctor; second, that we could speak up, demand more and better, not take just what was doled out; third, he served the poor and died poor. PM Golding can top him by delivering the goods; but there is a cost. President Johnson signed into law the civil rights of black Americans, knowing that the South would not vote for his party for decades to come. He did the right thing for country, at great cost to his party. Our PM should match this. He should explain to the nation why we must focus resources on food, basic and primary education and then act. He has two good ministers in the portfolios, and these areas lay the foundation for all our other needs to be met. Tacius would approve and Jamaica would ever call him blessed.
Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston, currently on assignment in the UK.
franklinjohnston@hotmail.com
Franklin Johnston
Friday, January 09, 2009
This year will be a good one for Jamaica. Our people should resolve to work hard, stop killing, help the poor, and if unemployed "work for food" or as an apprentice with some farm or business and get know-how until the economy turns. Praise God, dance regularly and do what you enjoy; life is short, but do not idle or waste time.
Our capacity to deceive ourselves is limitless. I sometimes wonder if some writers and analysts lived in Jamaica before the American sub-prime crisis. The big lie is that something happened to Jamaica last year, different from the bind we have been in for many years. The world had over 20 years of wild growth, yet we have been credit-crunched for decades.
To start, I have a credit crunch quiz; seven questions. Name one Jamaican institution which is exposed to American sub-prime debt? Iceland is suffering now, but made money in the boom years. Its people grew rich; GDP per capita is US$50,000 and they bought some top UK firms.They have lost billions, but nothing can move the schools, airports, hotels, opera houses, infrastructure and the know-how they accumulated. What success did we enjoy in the global boom years? How many Trinidad firms did we buy? What dizzy heights did workers' wages, GDP and FDI reach? Did we have easy access to loans, food or housing? Did we have jobs, a big trade surplus and pay our national debt easily?
Which of our institutions relaxed their credit terms and brought our young, poor and unemployed people into home ownership? It never happened here. Poor Americans bought houses, fridges, cars, stoves with no money down, interest-free for months, and in the UK people got 120 per cent mortgages. People overseas made millions and "small fry" like Joe the plumber "licked their fingers". Our crisis is long-standing. We suffered when our partners were booming and we will suffer more now they are suffering. Our consumers and small businesses were never given the credit to live well or succeed in their ventures.
We need a Ministry of Food to focus minds. More anon. For now, just know that food is a key tool of politics - the best case study is Zimbabwe. Whoever controls food, controls people, and so instead of industry adjudication, an import permit is in the politicians' gift. This tactic is designed to control farm bodies, brings large farmers to conform by the threat of bankrupting them using imports and for cronies to start up business. In the boom years, the NDFJ chaired by R Danny Williams, was a unique, successful, non-government bank which gave small people loans for businesses and farming and held their hands in a crisis. But even they could not get enough money to lend.
Let's continue with a credit crunch exercise! Make a list of what was going very well in Jamaica before the global credit crunch. good! Now, make a second list of what was going badly. Check your list, here is mine! Crime, violence, gambling, imports, debt and financial services were growth areas. We had many tourists, but Air Jamaica made no profit. Was health care good? Which Christmas did we not import chicken chassis?
Marie Antioinette is much maligned. Her "Let them eat brioche" is misunderstood. In France then, sweet bread (sugar bun) was easy, same price as bread, but for the rich only. For us, it is easier to grow rice, corn and beef than to change the eating habits of three million citizens. We farmed them once and we can do so again. My hope is that Dr Tufton will revert to his solid pre-election instincts and act on them.
Cabinet may think that, like salmon, they can swim upstream and ignore people's wishes, but they do so to their peril. The cassava edict is high-handed. If the poor desired more cassava (the rich always eat what they like), they would not need to be told to eat more. As a cassava farmer, I lost my shirt. Parish officers marvelled at our varieties and yields, but sales under 30 tons did not dent our volumes or pay the bank and so we put on the ripper and ploughed the crop under.
The last straw was a visit by head office experts who advised us to make bammy. Imagine this: at reaping time, in debt, no factory; with rats despoiling our crop in the fields. advice most cruel and stupid. Jamaican appetites are for rice and peas, chicken, flour, pork, cornmeal and meat; other crops are "relish". In Africa, yam and cassava are basics, not in Jamaica. Past Cabinets tried to "ram" breadfuit flour, yam rice, cassava dough down our throats; and we used our purchasing power to say "no". Yet, they still try. We want rice and chicken, curry goat on Friday with hard food on the side and on Saturday beef soup. We are a free people, not children. We need no diet sheet from Cabinet - they should take it home first and see what the wife and kids think; respect our choices and promote the crops we want. If the minister acts, we can grow a third of our needs in three years.
Brains are best, but there is no brain without a body and a nation moves forward on its belly! Cassava and yam are culture, just like mento is culture; respect to mento, but we drudge reggae and dancehall and eat rice, flour and meat 90 per cent of the time.
So, what is the big truth? The challenges we face now are the same ones which existed at Independence. No change. Prime Ministers - the Manleys, Bustamante, Seaga, Sangster, Patterson and Simpson Miller all failed. We had the orator, the white, the finance genius, the beloved of the masses and black like me; none of them m ade us sustainable in food, education, jobs, health care, peace, or housing; not even in one. We are still at ground zero - 1962.
Michael Manley was best of the lot for three reasons: first we learnt to love ourselves and be ourselves; black, bastard, white, poor, rich, maid, doctor; second, that we could speak up, demand more and better, not take just what was doled out; third, he served the poor and died poor. PM Golding can top him by delivering the goods; but there is a cost. President Johnson signed into law the civil rights of black Americans, knowing that the South would not vote for his party for decades to come. He did the right thing for country, at great cost to his party. Our PM should match this. He should explain to the nation why we must focus resources on food, basic and primary education and then act. He has two good ministers in the portfolios, and these areas lay the foundation for all our other needs to be met. Tacius would approve and Jamaica would ever call him blessed.
Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston, currently on assignment in the UK.
franklinjohnston@hotmail.com
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