Ronald Thwaites | Giving thanks

Usually I write about the things we could and should do better to attain a just and flourishing society. This approach is born of a conviction that our gifts far exceed our stewardship of them. We are truly an underperforming “God-Bless people”!

There is much more to challenge ourselves about now this election is over. The new government, which they better know will fall into swift disfavour if they are not humble and generous of spirit, mustn’t waste a day in tackling the insidious corrosion of illiteracy and its consequences which are holding back our national dreams.

This is the time for copying the best from each party’s manifesto and giving ministers and boards strict timeliness and objectives for implementation.

However yesterday has spun, it behoves the new administration to stop hugging up real and perceived corruption in their midst and so begin the long march to regain the trust of the populace. Without this nothing works. Suspicion and cynicism can’t parent love and sacrifice.

Outside of the diehards (and even some of them when they recover from election fever) realize in their hearts that our one-party triumph and over-dominant -prime minister system of government, cannot take us along the profound path of change needed to make all Jamaica “great”.

POINT AND MODEL THE WAY

New leadership must point and model the way to collaborative constitutional change, broad economic growth and reform of social institutions like family. The good thing is that strategies and plans are not lacking. They await political will. What exciting synergies can we not craft when brilliant green and orange are blended? The obstacle is our pride and the inherited delusion that tribalism guarantees freedom and that progress can emerge from cultured disunity.

Today is an occasion to give thanks for our genuine democratic processes and our implicit reverence for individual worth and human rights underlying the universal franchise.

We really have to start teaching civics and history better so that those who decided not to vote can better be persuaded of how crucial is their participation to their future and the rest of us.

Yesterday’s vote, whether the outcome pleases you or not, deserves every cherish and defence. Just compare the countries around us who either are denied a choice, cannot vote because of violence and intimidation or are ruled by demi-despots who have tried to overthrow their people’s clear choice.

In our recent past, some government leaders have wobbled in their commitment to all constitutional rights. Re-elected or not, persons holding those sentiments must be repudiated.

This period then has to be one of intense citizen involvement. We have a goodly heritage to give thanks for and to zealously protect and advance.

Give thanks!

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. He is former member of parliament for Kingston Central and was the minister of education. He is the principal of St Michael’s College at The UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com