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The Great Debate
Tamara Scott-Williams
Sunday, December 25, 2011
An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come — Victor Hugo
I couldn't understand what Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller meant when she answered a question about the Westminster system of government by suggesting that we need a Jamaican queen. I don't know why the audience laughed, but it caused her no discomfort. I only figured it out a day later after learning that Portia Simpson Miller would allow gays in her Cabinet just as long as they could deliver.
She came out strong at the start of the leadership debate promising to delve into matters of JEEP, corruption and other programmes. She cited figures: that Jamaica's debt has grown from $950 billion to $1.6 trillion under the management of a Jamaica Labour Party Government, and unemployment, which now hovers around the 12.3 per cent mark, was under 10 per cent during her reign.
In defence of his Government the prime minister suggested that there should be some comfort in Jamaica's poverty rate at 17 per cent being quite close to the poverty rate in the United States where it is at 16 per cent. Never mind that in Jamaica you're considered poor if you make less than the minimum wage (J$378,000 a year), while in the US that figure is US$22,350 (total yearly income) for a family of four — or J$1.9 million.
Andrew Holness started out smoothly — calmed by the deep prayer he appeared to be in while being introduced by moderator Derval Malcolm — after which the prime minister launched into a zen-like opening statement about Jamaica producing a post-independence leader on the eve of its 50th year being a "providential alignment" of opportunities and challenges.
But soon after Holness declared that he was "on the periphery" of the events which led to the commission of enquiry into the extradition request for Christopher Coke — without any sentiment paid towards the 70-150 who lay dead as a result, and Portia Simpson Miller's painful early stumbling through an IMF question — I fell fast asleep.
The great debate, with its lengthy questions and slim chance of the prime minister or the leader of the opposition providing full responses in the 90 seconds allowed, was a snore. If you have moved beyond the notion that you must vote for a particular party because your parents voted for that party and you thought the debates would offer some insight into, and guide as to who would be the better leader, then you might have been disappointed.
Yes, we worried about both of them being out of their intellectual depth. But Holness so obfuscated that he appeared vague, and while we love that she has admitted to not having the 'gift of gab', we would have preferred to see Simpson Miller's delivery lie somewhere comfortably and energetically between a too carefully treaded presentation and "don' draa mi tongue" .
We appear to miss the honey-dripping timbre of the former prime minister, but I think by now we should know that statesmanship and elocution should not be confused with the ability to run a country. And what do we want, really? I recall the rallying cry of the 2007 elections as being "Action. Not a bag of words". These days the bigger the bag of pretty words, the happier some of the electorate would be.
Let us be clear. Nothing will change in Jamaica unless we educate our citizens to a level where they recognise and seek to change the fact that our problems are mainly due to the corruption that surrounds the political system.
Let us be equally clear that neither the Jamaica Labour Party nor the People's National Party has been left untainted by the scourge of corruption. Trafigura, NetServ and Cuban lightbulbs do not trump the JDIP, NWA, UDC and the Montego Bay Convention Centre scandals. Added to which, both parties have blood on their hands from the 2001 and 2009 massacre of residents of Tivoli Gardens.
The fact of the matter is that come election day, we're caught between a rock and a hard place. So after the gifts have been exchanged and all the eating's done and the talk around the table turns to who you're voting for on Thursday, there is one question you must ask: are you better off today than you were five years ago?
Now back to that bit about buggery. I commend Portia Simpson Miller's promise to review Jamaica's buggery law and her expressed opinion that the opportunity to serve in her Cabinet would come on the basis of competence, not sexuality. At a point in time when the world seeks to eschew many forms of discrimination — colour, creed, gender, physical and mental challenges and sexuality — it is an important step towards mitigating the problem of homophobia in Jamaica.
Merry Christmas.
scowicomm@gmail.com
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1heNPl4JE
Tamara Scott-Williams
Sunday, December 25, 2011
An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come — Victor Hugo
I couldn't understand what Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller meant when she answered a question about the Westminster system of government by suggesting that we need a Jamaican queen. I don't know why the audience laughed, but it caused her no discomfort. I only figured it out a day later after learning that Portia Simpson Miller would allow gays in her Cabinet just as long as they could deliver.
She came out strong at the start of the leadership debate promising to delve into matters of JEEP, corruption and other programmes. She cited figures: that Jamaica's debt has grown from $950 billion to $1.6 trillion under the management of a Jamaica Labour Party Government, and unemployment, which now hovers around the 12.3 per cent mark, was under 10 per cent during her reign.
In defence of his Government the prime minister suggested that there should be some comfort in Jamaica's poverty rate at 17 per cent being quite close to the poverty rate in the United States where it is at 16 per cent. Never mind that in Jamaica you're considered poor if you make less than the minimum wage (J$378,000 a year), while in the US that figure is US$22,350 (total yearly income) for a family of four — or J$1.9 million.
Andrew Holness started out smoothly — calmed by the deep prayer he appeared to be in while being introduced by moderator Derval Malcolm — after which the prime minister launched into a zen-like opening statement about Jamaica producing a post-independence leader on the eve of its 50th year being a "providential alignment" of opportunities and challenges.
But soon after Holness declared that he was "on the periphery" of the events which led to the commission of enquiry into the extradition request for Christopher Coke — without any sentiment paid towards the 70-150 who lay dead as a result, and Portia Simpson Miller's painful early stumbling through an IMF question — I fell fast asleep.
The great debate, with its lengthy questions and slim chance of the prime minister or the leader of the opposition providing full responses in the 90 seconds allowed, was a snore. If you have moved beyond the notion that you must vote for a particular party because your parents voted for that party and you thought the debates would offer some insight into, and guide as to who would be the better leader, then you might have been disappointed.
Yes, we worried about both of them being out of their intellectual depth. But Holness so obfuscated that he appeared vague, and while we love that she has admitted to not having the 'gift of gab', we would have preferred to see Simpson Miller's delivery lie somewhere comfortably and energetically between a too carefully treaded presentation and "don' draa mi tongue" .
We appear to miss the honey-dripping timbre of the former prime minister, but I think by now we should know that statesmanship and elocution should not be confused with the ability to run a country. And what do we want, really? I recall the rallying cry of the 2007 elections as being "Action. Not a bag of words". These days the bigger the bag of pretty words, the happier some of the electorate would be.
Let us be clear. Nothing will change in Jamaica unless we educate our citizens to a level where they recognise and seek to change the fact that our problems are mainly due to the corruption that surrounds the political system.
Let us be equally clear that neither the Jamaica Labour Party nor the People's National Party has been left untainted by the scourge of corruption. Trafigura, NetServ and Cuban lightbulbs do not trump the JDIP, NWA, UDC and the Montego Bay Convention Centre scandals. Added to which, both parties have blood on their hands from the 2001 and 2009 massacre of residents of Tivoli Gardens.
The fact of the matter is that come election day, we're caught between a rock and a hard place. So after the gifts have been exchanged and all the eating's done and the talk around the table turns to who you're voting for on Thursday, there is one question you must ask: are you better off today than you were five years ago?
Now back to that bit about buggery. I commend Portia Simpson Miller's promise to review Jamaica's buggery law and her expressed opinion that the opportunity to serve in her Cabinet would come on the basis of competence, not sexuality. At a point in time when the world seeks to eschew many forms of discrimination — colour, creed, gender, physical and mental challenges and sexuality — it is an important step towards mitigating the problem of homophobia in Jamaica.
Merry Christmas.
scowicomm@gmail.com
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1heNPl4JE