Ronald Thwaites | Managed decline

Robert is a member in the downtown church where I serve. His quality of life is being progressively diminished by cataracts. He has already had to give up his job as a driver. If untreated, blindness and poverty are his future. Until we cowardly kicked out the Cuban doctors, Robert had hope and trust that his condition could be relieved.  That's gone now.

He has been referred to a private clinic for the relatively simple surgery. The cost is $250,000. Impossible. Money up front and Robert pocket “8s on E”. He is begging the church to help pay for what was freely available until our ‘friends’ told us to stop the service. We complied with the servility of a vassal.

Family members are beginning to see this man as a burden rather than a contributing member.

There are thousands like Robert. I saw scores more in worse predicaments while ministering at the Accident & Emergency section of the University Hospital. No beds elsewhere so staff trying their best to cope with very sick patients crammed in walkways, on stretchers and chairs, struggling for life while ‘money can’t done’ is saved up for election advantage or spent corruptly or ineffectively.

We kicked out the Cubans to curry favor with Rubio. We leave ourselves careless with a system which cannot fill the gap. What kind of friend obliges you to deprive and hurt your own people? We are managing decline and calling it progress, stabilizing hunger and calling it transformation. Check yu owna supermarket or gas station bill – if you bad.

No wonder MP’s are bawling that the $20 million CDF money cyan’ do nuttin’.  Poor Alando Terrelonge, trying hard to satisfy his constituents legitimate need for good roads, has to be publicly begging his own administration’s NWA for little relief. His complaint is the same as that of Zuleika Jess regarding St. Elizabeth roads. Same for all the others. But instead of being powerful collaborators to change a system which unnecessarily deprives, they glare at each other as antagonists in the Gordon House bull-ring. And the potholes remain.

RESPECT FOR LIFE

Eight hundred dollars, a quarter of her daily minimum wage, for the bowl of soup which my girl wanted to carry for her sick mother last Friday. Soup never reach. Mama hug up the hungry. MP swish past with blue lights flashing hurrying to paint the nearby school and sidewalk in bright green.

 Sterilize more money, give police the right to kill anyone who they think is fleeing (Delroy have you lost your conscience? Remember when you used to defend human rights in this space?), hide export decline and “manage inflation” by bankrupting the taxi industry while giving JUTC a blank check.

I am convinced that the scope and depth of national problems make them impossible of solution by a single political entity.  Whether it is chronic inequality, crime and violence, illiteracy, low labor productivity, stagnant growth or spiritual depression, (all of which are connected of course); national joined-up effort is required for meaningful progress.

SOLID ARGUMENTS

Consider the range of constructive criticisms and useful suggestions offered in the often pointless sectoral debate by MPs Jess and Bunting last week. To overcome the contradictions between the formal judicial system and the massive informal underbelly of order and enforcement where dons and policemen preside, Chuck needs Jess’ raw base experience. Equally, she deserves access to state power to achieve the urgent reforms she proposes.

 Similarly, bogged down in just keeping things going and coping with post-Hurricane Melissa pressures, the ministries and agencies responsible for production, would benefit from Bunting’s sharp insights to avoid the costly and demoralizing path of managed decline. 

But that’s impossible given our arrogant proclivity for chronic divisiveness. A political system which is supposed to protect us from autocracy has now become an agent of the very malady it was designed to prevent.

If you disagree, tell me what are the tangible benefits resulting from the time, effort and expense of the sectoral debate. And please say how inclusive growth will happen when we can’t spend the ‘mawga’ capital budget year after year nor distribute welfare assistance instead of returning 70% of the funds to the consolidated fund.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

The leader in The Gleaner got it right last week in recognizing that there will be no great advance in much-touted STEM capabilities without competence in mathematics.  Further, that literacy is the precursor to mathematical reasoning. Dr. Dixon and the government know all that but are incapable of galvanizing the national effort to reverse this area of managed decline. We know what needs to be done but pride and one-upmanship prevents the required united focus.

This is June month, programmed idleness and cognitive regression are already on the cards for thousands of non-readers who will be promoted to higher grades of futility, personal distress and national detriment on September morning at high cost and low return.

NOW WE KNOW

As was obvious, the government wanted to hide the slackness at the Firearms Agency uncovered by the Integrity Commission. The defaults of those who control the hardware of death are (should be?) a grave embarrassment to the Board who presided over the relevant period and the administration.  Their own consciences and sense of shame should tell them to “pack their bags and go”. Instead they get a vote of confidence from those sworn to protect us! Let that sink in. Those who imperil us are congratulated. That’s our value system on full display. 

How many lives will those missing bullets claim?  Whoever it was who slaughtered ‘Buju’ was emboldened by those leaders who implicitly and explicitly have given permission to kill with impunity.

Dennis Minott is right about institutions decomposing into the stink of autocracy. We need to re-think our relationships. We need a telos, a direction broader and deeper than the bankrupt visions of selfishness and reductive materialism. What form should that take?

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.