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Lowering the bar
Published: Friday | May 10, 2013 5 Comments
Peter Espeut, Contributor
In the high jump, the athlete improves by constantly raising the bar. At some point, the high jumper will fail to clear the bar, but at no point will he say, "Lower the bar; I am going to aim to jump lower." It is by raising the bar that performance at a higher level is possible. Lowering the bar is to give up - to be satisfied with less, to accept mediocrity.
In so many ways, we here in [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]Jamaica[/COLOR][/COLOR] have lowered the bar and accepted mediocrity, especially since Independence. We said nothing when the government took that first World [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]Bank[/COLOR][/COLOR] loan to build junior secondary schools. Instead of building more grammar schools like Wolmer's Boys and Girls (thereby increasing the number of quality high-school spaces), they built eighty schools where to get in, the young person had to fail the Common Entrance Examination. Then, they stopped at grade 10, preventing their students from sitting the Cambridge GCE O'Levels. This was planned mediocrity.
Politicians planned it, and the middle class accepted it, because it did not affect their children getting the best education at deCarteret or Hampton. It created different classes of secondary education, which matched the class system of Jamaican society. We reap the fruit of this decision today in our high crime rates and high rates of teenage pregnancy.
Generally speaking, [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]Jamaicans[/COLOR][/COLOR] have bought into the political system we have, which is all about the distribution of scarce benefits and spoils. In colonial Jamaica, the plum jobs and the rich contracts went to British firms; locals who did well were from [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]families[/COLOR][/COLOR] with large tracts of land and/or [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]overseas[/COLOR][/COLOR] professional training. Along come the PNP and the JLP, which sought to give out plum jobs and rich contracts to Jamaicans - especially those from the 'grass roots', qualified or not.
And everyone thought that was great! And people rushed to join one party or the other, and our tribal political system was born. People got roadworks contracts with no experience in road building, and catering contracts with no catering experience; and so on. All of this is about lowering the bar so that 'man can eat a food', and, of course, in return they 'let off' a money on their patron as a sign of appreciation. People who go into politics poor quickly grow rich, far beyond reason.
Lowering of the bar is not only about politicians; they have willing co-conspirators in the private sector, which use government contracts, waivers, etc., to themselves grow wealthy. One hand willingly washes the other.
The provision of public housing was an opportunity to lower the bar, to create political enclaves where every resident is from the party in power. Built, of course, by contractors of the same political stripe. Integrated corruption.
Lowering the bar is a euphemism for lowering moral standards, and we have done it across the board. We expect taxis to overload, so the law does not require taxi passengers to wear seat belts. The law prevents policemen and political activists who commit murder from facing the death penalty (maybe because politicians expect them to kill in the name of the party or the State).
Trucks which haul sand and gravel calculate their rate of profit based on overloading their vehicles. Minibuses plying rural routes have no schedules to follow because they rush around trying to make more money from an extra trip. We do not expect our young people to be disciplined in sexual matters, so we plan to give them condoms.
When a politician is exposed distributing largesse to his friends, he is not expected to resign, for he is only playing the game they all play. Everyone knows the system is corrupt, but no one wants to raise the bar.
Who is going to raise the bar? Politicians won't, and neither will the private sector. No politician will agree to declare his assets in public, nor make public the political donations he receives from the private sector. The private sector hides their political donations within their audited accounts.
It is civil society and the press which must raise the bar for politicians, private sector, and private citizens. The level of tolerance of public and private corruption should be so low that persons caught in impropriety must be forced to step down by public clamour! Let secret funding for political parties dry up and we will soon see a raising of the bar.
And we must raise the bar for our young people by challenging them to higher academic achievement and higher sexual discipline. If we expect less from each other, we will get less.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and Roman Catholic deacon. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.
Published: Friday | May 10, 2013 5 Comments
Peter Espeut, Contributor
In the high jump, the athlete improves by constantly raising the bar. At some point, the high jumper will fail to clear the bar, but at no point will he say, "Lower the bar; I am going to aim to jump lower." It is by raising the bar that performance at a higher level is possible. Lowering the bar is to give up - to be satisfied with less, to accept mediocrity.
In so many ways, we here in [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]Jamaica[/COLOR][/COLOR] have lowered the bar and accepted mediocrity, especially since Independence. We said nothing when the government took that first World [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]Bank[/COLOR][/COLOR] loan to build junior secondary schools. Instead of building more grammar schools like Wolmer's Boys and Girls (thereby increasing the number of quality high-school spaces), they built eighty schools where to get in, the young person had to fail the Common Entrance Examination. Then, they stopped at grade 10, preventing their students from sitting the Cambridge GCE O'Levels. This was planned mediocrity.
Politicians planned it, and the middle class accepted it, because it did not affect their children getting the best education at deCarteret or Hampton. It created different classes of secondary education, which matched the class system of Jamaican society. We reap the fruit of this decision today in our high crime rates and high rates of teenage pregnancy.
Generally speaking, [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]Jamaicans[/COLOR][/COLOR] have bought into the political system we have, which is all about the distribution of scarce benefits and spoils. In colonial Jamaica, the plum jobs and the rich contracts went to British firms; locals who did well were from [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]families[/COLOR][/COLOR] with large tracts of land and/or [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]overseas[/COLOR][/COLOR] professional training. Along come the PNP and the JLP, which sought to give out plum jobs and rich contracts to Jamaicans - especially those from the 'grass roots', qualified or not.
And everyone thought that was great! And people rushed to join one party or the other, and our tribal political system was born. People got roadworks contracts with no experience in road building, and catering contracts with no catering experience; and so on. All of this is about lowering the bar so that 'man can eat a food', and, of course, in return they 'let off' a money on their patron as a sign of appreciation. People who go into politics poor quickly grow rich, far beyond reason.
Lowering of the bar is not only about politicians; they have willing co-conspirators in the private sector, which use government contracts, waivers, etc., to themselves grow wealthy. One hand willingly washes the other.
The provision of public housing was an opportunity to lower the bar, to create political enclaves where every resident is from the party in power. Built, of course, by contractors of the same political stripe. Integrated corruption.
Lowering the bar is a euphemism for lowering moral standards, and we have done it across the board. We expect taxis to overload, so the law does not require taxi passengers to wear seat belts. The law prevents policemen and political activists who commit murder from facing the death penalty (maybe because politicians expect them to kill in the name of the party or the State).
Trucks which haul sand and gravel calculate their rate of profit based on overloading their vehicles. Minibuses plying rural routes have no schedules to follow because they rush around trying to make more money from an extra trip. We do not expect our young people to be disciplined in sexual matters, so we plan to give them condoms.
When a politician is exposed distributing largesse to his friends, he is not expected to resign, for he is only playing the game they all play. Everyone knows the system is corrupt, but no one wants to raise the bar.
Who is going to raise the bar? Politicians won't, and neither will the private sector. No politician will agree to declare his assets in public, nor make public the political donations he receives from the private sector. The private sector hides their political donations within their audited accounts.
It is civil society and the press which must raise the bar for politicians, private sector, and private citizens. The level of tolerance of public and private corruption should be so low that persons caught in impropriety must be forced to step down by public clamour! Let secret funding for political parties dry up and we will soon see a raising of the bar.
And we must raise the bar for our young people by challenging them to higher academic achievement and higher sexual discipline. If we expect less from each other, we will get less.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and Roman Catholic deacon. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.