Jamaicans are today marking the 44th anniversary of the country's independence with, we suspect, mixed emotions about the achievements of the past and the prospects for the future.
Of course, development is not a linear process and fluctuating public attitudes are not peculiar to Jamaica. But it does often seem that the national mood swing in this incredibly beautiful and seemingly contradictory country can be a wild roller-coaster, swinging between extremes of confidence and despair. Often, too, perceptions of national achievements are coloured by political affiliations, painted in exaggerated shades of good or bad.
So, we can expect in the messages to be released today by the political leaders either rose-tainted scenarios about the country's advance over these near four and a half decades or analyses suggesting utter stagnation and privation; a country deeply entangled in an economic and social miasma, with little or no prospect of escape under existing leadership. The hues of the portrait will be exacerbated and exaggerated by the imminence of the political season, as the contestants for leadership jockey for traction.
Of course, the political analyses will lean pro and con, although there will be elements of truth in both. For we have not been entirely bad or good, even if, all things considered, we have not been good enough. Indeed, we have not achieved the sustained economic growth to deliver the standard of living expected by most Jamaicans and there remains pockets of extreme poverty in Jamaica. Yet, we have a life expectancy approaching first world standards and material achievements that, in many respects, belie our status as a middle-tier developing country. We rightly bemoan under-achievement in education and the inadequate returns we receive for national expenditure in the sector. But it was not so long ago that a mere handful of Jamaicans could expect anything beyond a primary education; today about 15 per cent of the population have some form of tertiary education.
In this mixed bag, our biggest, and most obvious, under-achievement has been in the social sphere, particularly our failure to come to terms with, and defeat the problem of criminal violence. Over 1,600 murders a year and a homicide rate of 57 per 100,000 population, is socially unsustainable for it does not, in the long run, make for viable communities. Violence ignites fear and people will not invest and lay down roots in the absence of security.
The solution to this problem is, perhaps, the biggest challenge to those who will today engage in the debate about the achievements, or lack thereof, of the past and of what is to come. Even if the discourse is hyperbolic, the fact that we can, and have continuously had it, is perhaps the biggest achievement of independent Jamaica.
Over these 44 years, our institutions have fallen under severe stress and have often been strained, but for the most part, unlike many countries that achieved their independence at the same time as Jamaica, have not buckled. The most resilient of these institutions has been our democracy. We go to elections with reasonable assurance that the government that emerges reflects the will of the majority. That is not a faith that too many people can have or enjoy. It is an achievement that independent Jamaica must cherish and protect.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY RELECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
