Ronald Thwaites | Of truth and trust

I sincerely hope that Andrew Wheatley is able to rebut the charges laid against him by the Integrity Commission.  And soon.  The trust in our leaders, already diminished, will decline catastrophically if suspicion festers for months and years as in other unresolved cases.  

 Continuing scepticism about NaARA, the Firearms Authority, the scandal at Stocks and Securities, the inadequate health sector, and the unspent “Rebuild” money, all work against the virtuous cultural revolution that the prime minister proposed to the diaspora last week.

Dr Wheatley must step aside from public office until he is vindicated. He does his repute no favour by bluffing it out. Doing so implies no admission or inference of guilt. It is an act of decency: a respect for the principles and traditions of parliamentary governance. He should not wait to be asked or pushed.   Jamaica is not a banana republic. Or are we?

RESPECT

Respect is obligatory for anti-corruption institutions. The Integrity Commission must not be treated as a face-card, like how INDECOM is fast being relegated. Civic, social, and religious institutions define, protect, and change culture. Ignoring the gravamen of IC reports, dragging out court cases for years, intimidating witnesses, disturbing crime scenes, installing lackeys, all these ravish trust and embolden tyrants, murderers, and thieves.

CONVINCING THE DIASPORA

The prime minister’s encouragement of diaspora Jamaicans, people who have adjusted to the no-excuses, high-performance ethic of metropolitan societies, to share their experiences, invest more, and repatriate is good. But how convincing will such a call be when his own house is not in order?

 Basic services are routinely hamstrung by influence peddlers. Scorn is poured on transparency and constructive criticism. Diaspora folk can’t solve those cultural defaults. We have to.

FIRST THINGS

Finally, for now, on the point of desperately needed improved attitudes to work and personal conduct – key to the Dubai and Singapore models which we are told to have red-eye for, is the issue of ideology. Why, and then how, must this culture change be pursued?  What ideals, which principles will propel us to emerge from behaving like serfs and move us to habits of service and cooperation?  Without such, self-gratification is all there is.  We become pawns to each other and to the highest bidder or bully.

COWARDICE

Isn’t that Jim-screechy approach exactly what is behind this Government’s groveling consent for our land to be the dumping ground for those humans who a rich and racist government wants to deny due process? First the Cuban doctors were ordered to be thrown out and now the mascara-daubed deportation programme, shoved on us by those who were once lodged at Massa’s kitchen door.

The bottom line is that to curry favour with the Empire, we send home the doctors who were healing us while receiving foreign deportees. Why?

Rubio says they are getting rid of “despicable” persons to places like Jamaica. The US memorandum says a Cabinet minister is behind of the deal. Horace tells a completely different tale. Lying is something to be ashamed of.  Once more, an agreement that can affect us all is to be kept secret. Clearly, there is plenty to hide.

 MORALS

 What is left of our moral compass? It is being raped by the architects of selfish policies who could care less about our interests, threaten the visa prize, offer no quid pro quo and will spit us out if we but ‘quint’. 

Roger Mais, Marcus Mosiah, Walter Rodney, Miss Lou, they are fouling your spirits!

Tufton and Chang want us to accept our garbage-can status as evidence of friendship.  Delusion! Just like the frightening drivel about there being no crisis of human rights. Truth is the worst casualty of moral expediency. Blood flows and a disappointing Delroy cries victory.  

Culture is being debauched. They say it is enhancement. We must call disease prosperity!  Can there be a better manifestation of mental slavery?

 But listen: when the deportees arrive, let us not match the insult already done them. We must treat them as the worthwhile human persons they truly are. 

 The Jamaican economy, already marasmic, recently dealt a ‘bitch-lick’ by Hurricane Melissa, is further weakened by the massive increase in oil prices caused by America and Israel’s pointless and losing war against Iran and Lebanon. 

More billions than even Musk’s fortune have been wasted to destroy thousands of lives and livelihoods all over the world – including ours. Ask the taxi owners and their passengers; check the food prices inflated by higher trucking costs. What has been gained? What kind of friend does that?

We are caught up in a spree of arrogant power. And there are the mimic men and women among us who, in our materially small but once spiritually strong nation, show the same craven face and lurch us towards an authoritarian state.

Please note that from now on we are not to be allowed to choose our own friends either. We must divorce Cuba and China – or else. 

“Look what wi come to!”

ALL IS NOT LOST

Give thanks for the signs of hope last week.  The appeal by the prime minister to the business community to help improve the productive skills of the labour market is timely. Widespread supervised apprenticeship is the way forward. And please, Sir, make sure that all entrants to the labor force can read, compute, and have manners. Those are non-negotiable foundations of total-factor productivity.

Then there was the exciting explanation at the Maurice Facey Memorial lecture of the Uruguayan model of renewable power generation which, if we were serious and united, could, in half a generation, remove from our necks the noose of imported fuel dependency and liberate scarce foreign exchange for real development. 

Whoever wants to be our real friend rather than a new-age coloniser should help us find capital and technology for the transfer to renewables.

Lastly, could we heed the fiscal commissioner who points to the misalignment of public sector wage outcomes with Budget provisions. And worse, no mention of greater productivity in exchange for more money in that equation. 

Anybody listening?

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.