Ronald Thwaites | Avoiding Trumpism

November 3 US midterm elections were so important to them and to us that I was prepared to replace a night’s sleep with successive bouts of anxiety, growing hopefulness, then relief and brief elation.

All that because the contest was a critical occasion to test resistance to the peevish, self-obsessed, racist disease afflicting large swaths of the blessed American people. Trump himself is only the main avatar of the MAGA epidemic.

We Jamaicans run the risk of inoculating ourselves with our own mutation of that leprosy. Purposely mixing metaphors but correctly keeping to the pathology theme, it’s the same cancer which has our leaders soiling themselves with fear of Trump, stabbing good friends in the back and ‘lampsing’ us about our own reality while enriching their cronies.

PREDICTABLE

The bust-up in Parliament was the predictable outcome of our version of Trumpism, which the bully-boy conduct of the chamber has been incubating every week. It was bound to boil over.

“We won the election. You lost. We rule. Cabinet bigger than Parliament. Who tell you fi bring censure motion? Cut off dem microphone, yes!” Use democracy to promote autocracy rather than tolerance and consensus.

The Trump playbook exactly. How does this public react? Are local government elections our version of midterms?

The infection from Hades at the heart of MAGA had begun to feel normal and inevitable.

Then, last Tuesday, millions of people like us braved ICE, ignored incessant propaganda and did what sensate humans with consciences and compassion are entitled to do: they voted to repudiate autocracy, lawlessness and the hegemony of big money.

No demonstrations, no destruction or deaths this time. One crucial battle won by democratic choice. The bigger struggle to restore the soul of the Americas will continue with better prospects. Will subservience continue to stalk us?

CONSCIENCE SPEAKS

Notice the more activist and gospel-faithful role of Christians both in America and here. Last week in the USA, Protestants swung from right-wing Christian Nationalism to the message of Talarico, Warnock and Hamilton. Half of Catholic voters honoured the social teaching of their church to repudiate the corruption and cruelty of the ruling fascists.

Here, the Baptists called out the forked-tongued governors in defence of truth and against the escalating crime against humanity being waged on the Cuban people. Note also that, even as the Government limps in restoring western Jamaica, the United Church sets the highest moral example by prioritising rebuilding individual lives and family economies rather than reconstructing churches. And Sister Benedict, through whom God multiplied loaves and fishes for 50 years to feed those neglected by family and the state, was revered at her passing.

Trumpishly, an increasingly thin-skinned and defensive administration, already wrong-footed in cussing Beenie and his clan for perfectly legitimate comments, had best draw back on any proposed regulation to complicate churches’ fundraising or to diminish their influence in their schools.

This country has so much going for it, if only we would abandon the springes of divisiveness and mimicry which we have set for ourselves.

BACK TO BASICS

In last Tuesday’s leader, this newspaper concluded its response to articles on education reform by professors Williams and Robotham by stating the fundamental, uncomfortable truth which all the elevated discourse on STEM ignores: “What, however, is not addressed is the crisis of literacy at the primary education level and whether that fundamental element of the system is getting the aggressive attention it deserves”.

It is not. Illiteracy, innumeracy and poor socialisation afflict close to half of our primary and secondary children. Government, the universities and the private sector talk about the superstructure of education, lionise the relatively few who succeed, without sufficiently attending to the foundations of national failure.

SHARED PROBLEM

We mimic the United States. Their National Literacy Institute estimates that, if all US adults could read at even sixth-grade level, it would add US$2.2 trillion to the economy each year. Right now, 56% function at or below that level. Worst of all, 28% read at the lowest literacy level, up from 19% in 2017.

While Musk, Thiel and the other billionaires waste massive sums on political advertisements and bribery and Trump gold-plates the White House, only 34% of Grade 4 students nationwide were reading at an appropriate standard.

America can afford underperformance because its military strength allows it to live on over US$40 trillion in credit from the rest of the world and to seize the wealth of other nations for a quattie.

But, even they are wising up, one of the poorest states, Mississippi, will no longer promote substandard students from Grade 3. They must undergo remedial upgrading. Other states are following.

We should too, instead of living in denial and mendicancy. Here is a great example. Last week, Pembroke High School could celebrate an average of three grades of reading improvement among its Grade 7 Academy students who had entered with severe reading challenges a year before. You should have heard the good-good reading by those students now. Look at their faces, watch their eyes brighten as they begin to believe in their worth; that they can achieve something after all. Check the pride of their parents.

This progress can be afforded with modest additional expenditure (far less than the cost of a year’s imprisonment or the expense of burial).

WHAT IT TAKES

It takes an inspired principal, zealous teachers and involved parents. Those are the characteristics which must be promoted by every school board. The Jamaica Teachers’ Association must be challenged and motivated by political and civic leadership to stop normalising underperformance. Enthusiasm and commitment must become non-negotiable criteria for entry and advancement in the teaching profession.

The revolution in education won’t be a top-down achievement. Creative destruction, experimentation and creative restoration can prevail. A national movement for educational transformation is needed.

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 retired principal of St Michael’s College at The UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.