Jamaica at 50 - A Call for Equal Rights and Justice - Pambazuka News 9/12/12 Issue 597
Jamaica at 50
A call for equal rights and justice
David Cupples
2012-09-12, Issue 597
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/84057
After half-a-century of independence, life in Jamaica is marked by low wages, high prices, mass unemployment and depreciation of the national currency. The task of fulfilling the promise of independence lies with the Jamaican people.
This past 6 August, Jamaica celebrated its 50th birthday — 50 years since independence from Mother England came in 1962. Fifty years for the small Caribbean nation to redress the horrors of the past, the lingering legacy of colonialism, the crippling inequities, the inhuman injustice, the psychological scarring. Fifty years for Jamaica to get its act together. Following World War II, Japan and Germany rose from ashes to become economic powerhouses in less than 30 years. Surely five full decades have been enough for Jamaica to get on her feet and flourish. Time enough for Jamaicans to stop whining about the legacy of slavery and take responsibility for their failure or success. No one to blame but yourself, Jamaica, for the low wages, high prices, serious unemployment and continued depreciation of the Jamaican dollar that ravage your economy and the lives of your citizens. Looks like you blew it, little buddy. Similar judgments have been passed on South Africa, which, despite the world’s good wishes and sundry charitable organizations stepping up to help, hardly seems better off now — by the rubric of the living standards of her people, at least – than under apartheid, as abhorrent as that is to contemplate. Even South African blacks have begun accusing Mandela’s party, the African National Congress, of incompetence, of selling out, for whatever reason of failing the people who voted the ANC into office in such overwhelming numbers beginning with Mandela’s election in 1994. It would be easy for racist prejudices to be reinforced by the examples of Jamaica and South Africa, indeed by the plight of most former colonial states wallowing in “Third World” status. (The term “developing nations” is eschewed here as an egregious euphemism which falsely and perhaps deceitfully suggests progress is on schedule in places like Jamaica and South Africa and we may therefore wash our hands of it and go merrily on with our lives of self-interest.) But what is the real story? Naomi Klein’s magnificent opus ‘Shock Doctrine’ has in regard to South Africa totally put to the lie the accusations of incompetence and selling out. Klein makes it painfully clear how behind-the-scenes machinations by the outgoing regime preserved the status quo, continuing the old order of white privilege, by locking in the ANC government to the new world order of neo-liberal economics promulgated with messianic fervor by Milton Friedman and his Chicago School disciples. It is understood that the free flow of capital creates a virtual senate that effectively vetoes attempts by government to invest in social development projects — such profligate adventures as providing education, health care and other necessities of life to the nation’s people. Programs like these “create unfavorable conditions for business and investment” and are to be rejected out of hand. This is not a natural system but one rigged and manipulated every step of the way by the powers that be, which evidently feel no urgency to jeopardize their power and immense wealth by tending to the good of humanity. And Jamaica? The guilty finger of blame for the country’s plight tends to be pointed at one person in particular, one rotten egg among past leaders: Michael Manley, who between 1972 and 1980 headed a democratic socialist administration dedicated to bettering the lives of Jamaicans through improved health care, education, land reform, increased wages, women’s rights and more. Manley stood up against the US-dominated system, with arrogance, yes, but also with incredible bravery and dedication to his people, literally putting his life on the line to enact change that would benefit ordinary Jamaicans without imposing unnecessarily harsh discipline on the business elite and multinational corporations. Manley’s programs weren’t particularly extreme or radical — he was a Fabian socialist educated at London School of Economics, a reformer working within the system, not a revolutionary. Repatriated properties were acquired at fair market value and pains taken to ensure the security of foreign investment. Even these moderate innovations made Manley an enemy of the United States government and a target of the CIA. A destabilization program was implemented to “make the economy scream” and bring down the Manley government, utilizing all the devious methods of regime change seen so often before in Guatemala, Chile under Allende, Iran in the time of the Shah, virtually anywhere a rogue government put the needs of its own people above American business interests. “Divide and rule could only tear us apart,” Bob Marley sang, and that’s exactly what happened: the CIA enflaming tensions between the two main political parties into full-on tribal war. Jamaica was brought to its knees; neo-liberal economic policies and a burgeoning debt to the IMF and World Bank delivered the knockout punch. It’s a story that’s been told many times before in settings around the world. Jamaica deserves to have her story told too. Peter Tosh sang ‘Everyone is crying out for peace… ‘I need equal rights and justice’ Noam Chomsky has repeatedly warned that our leaders will not break with business as usual and “do the right thing” until the people push them to do it. It seems clear that equal rights and justice will not prevail in the Third World until we in the so-called First World “get up stand up” (Bob Marley) and demand human rights and needs be placed above the interests of greed and wealth. Praises to the Occupy/99% Movement for braving the billy clubs, pepper spray and rubber bullets and doing just that. Jamaicans (and South Africans) should feel proud of what they have accomplished in these short years of independence, especially given the obstacles and hardships placed before them. As we celebrate Jamaica’s incredible successes in the fields of athletics and music, may all of us, in First World or Third, heed the words of the great reggae artists and come together in unity to demand the system extend to Jamaicans, Africans and all formerly colonized peoples the equal rights and justice they so richly deserve. * BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS * Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News. * David Cupples is the author of ‘Stir It Up: The CIA Targets Jamaica, Bob Marley and the Progressive Manley Government’ (a novel). He can be contacted via his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/StirItUpCIAJamaica .
