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Jamaica at 50

EditorialJamaica at 50

A tiny Caribbean country much smaller than Belize, but with a population of just under three million persons, Jamaica on Monday, August 6, celebrated its 50th anniversary as an independent nation. Regardless of geography, it’s a “large” country. It “plays big,” on the regional and international stage. It always has.

Back in the early 1970s when Belize was still a colony of the British, and the Organization of American States (OAS) were showing their pro-Guatemala bias, Jamaica, albeit a newcomer to the OAS, led the charge inside the OAS and in the United Nations for recognition of our independence and territorial integrity. They’ve been our friends for damn near forever.

In the late 1970s, along with Barbados and Guyana, Jamaica agreed to take part in a “multilateral security arrangement” to defend Belize’s right to self-determination. In a sense it was almost reminiscent of 1798, when soldiers and ammunition were sent from Jamaica to defend the then settlement of Belize from the Spanish. Today, Jamaica is the only Caribbean nation in the so-called Group of Friends.

Originally a Spanish settlement, Jamaica was wrestled away by the British in 1655. For much of the ensuing two centuries, Jamaica was a depot for African slaves. West Africans were shipped as slaves there, and from there to the rest of the British Caribbean, including Belize. Black Belizeans, for all intents and purposes, are from the same stock as black Jamaicans.

Our ties go way, way back. The British, back in 1784, made the settlement of Belize “a dependency of Jamaica.” A Superintendent was appointed for Belize, but he had to report to the Governor of Jamaica. And although we became a colony in 1862, and our Superintendent became a Lieutenant Governor, we still remained under the charge of the Governor of Jamaica, until around 1884.

Jamaica, today, is supposedly a multicultural society, but the truth remains that it is still primarily a black nation – over 90 percent of the population is of African origin; the balance a smattering of mixed races, Chinese, Caucasian and East Indian. Its motto: “Out of many, one people.”

Its people are a confident bunch. Jamaicans come from a long line of defiant people. They resisted slavery at its every turn. Many slaves escaped and survived in maroon communities, against great odds, in the mountains of the island. There was many a slave revolt, culminating in the massive rebellion of 60,000 slaves in Jamaica late 1831 that caused damage to property said to be in excess of a million pounds, no doubt a tidy sum back then. Slavery would be abolished by the British two years later in 1834.

Respected, lionized, envied all over the world for its musical genius and athletic dominance, all is not so well in the birthplace of Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey, 50 years after the surrendering of the Union Jack.

Today, Jamaica remains in a perennial recession. Its debt-to-GDP-ratio is considered one of the worst in the world; for much of the last 40 years, its annual GDP growth has averaged roughly one percent. It remains in the clutches of the IMF.

With unemployment rampant, and some citing figures as high as 60 percent for youth unemployment, it’s the most violent nation in the Caribbean, averaging about 1,500 murders per year. At a clip of 45 murders per 100,000 persons, it is well beyond civil war benchmarks.

Yet, Jamaica performs — whether on the music stage or on the Olympic stage. It is the birthplace of the iconic global industry that is reggae music, and boasts the fastest man and woman in the world for the fourth straight year. Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce repeated their Beijing dominance at the London Olympic Games this past weekend, winning the 100 meters races in “style and fashion.” In fact, Jamaicans can boast the two fastest men and two of the three speediest women in the world.

They have shown the rest of us in the Caribbean just how to mold persons from modest backgrounds into world class athletes, just how to transform “the impossible into the possible.” With all the burdens Jamaica bears, she has unlocked doors for her athletes. The Jamaican athletes you see at the Olympics are not rich; they are poor, and they are black, but they were able to push the doors open to success and walk right in. The government didn’t curse the darkness; they lit a candle.

The Jamaicans have shown the rest of us in the Caribbean that the sky is the limit with our athletes – that is, if we support them with the right infrastructure and quality training programs all year round.

When Bolt and Fraser-Pryce bolted across the world stage in Beijing in 2008, a small Caribbean nation named Grenada paid attention. Four years later, 19-year-old Kirani James put his country of 110,000 people on the map with his gold medal in the 400 meters race, becoming the first non-US runner to break the 44-second barrier in the race. The government of Grenada declared Tuesday a national holiday in his honor.

In the meantime, in Belize we closed our eyes to the blueprint for success. Instead, we cry we don’t have money to hold a national primary school football tournament or to send our Under-19 female softball players to Nicaragua, but we find money to send government officials all the way to London for the Olympics. That’s how we do it. Jamaica shows us that when we fail in sports, the fault is “not in our stars, but in ourselves.” It is we who foul up. It is we who can’t get it right. We cannot continue to excuse the inexcusable, and make failure our wife.

Track and field people will tell you that our own Jaheed Smith, as a budding teenager, ran a close second to Usain Bolt in the Central American and Caribbean Junior Championships in Barbados in 2002. But when Bolt returned to Jamaica, he returned to a decent training track and government-supported programs. When Jaheed returned to Belize, all he had was grass to train on, and a prayer that government would come through some day. Jaheed suffered an injury and never really recovered. And Bolt? Well, you know the deal.

There is much we can learn from Jamaica at 50. We should ensure that we never practice the political tribalism and polarization they have for such a long, long time. We should make sure not to repeat their economic mistakes, and we should pray we never become as violent as they are.

But there is so much we could learn that can uplift us. We should support everything Belizean with a pride second to none. We should support our musicians with all the gusto they need, and we should set a goal for the 2016 Olympics. It’s about time we start winning some medals, Belize. Jamaica has the blueprint, and we are lifelong friends. All we need is the political will. We have the talent: we come from the same stock. It is written.

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