People loathe politicians and for the most part, refuse to take part in any political process, proof of this can be seen in our last two elections (local government and parliamentary) with both having record low turnouts. Many reasons have been given for why the people are so turned off and almost all of the reasons given are correct. The people withdraw because they see corruption, they see liars, they see persons who talk about belt-tightening and yet live the high life and they see people who know the answers, speak the answers but refuse to implement them.
More than anything though, the people are turned off because the politicians in this land are nothing but hypocrites who constantly seek to put point scoring and party cred above nation building. The most perfect example I think would the recent utterances from Sen Samuda, a member of the young generation which is supposed to rescue us from the politics of the bad old days. He recently made pronouncements that politicians have been hugging up criminals (colour me shocked) and that at the appropriate time they will be exposed.
Lovely words and a policy the people can get behind, but he then goes on to lose everyone by exposing his true agenda by saying that he is solely talking about the opposition and that they must clean up their house. This man and that statement typify why Jamaicans do not take the political process or politicians seriously. Has he forgotten about the criminal friend of his Government MP who was just killed? Did it slip his mind that that majority of the cabinet (PM included) were leading government officials during the Dudus saga?
No, rather than forgetting about his party’s sordid past (and tainted present) he chooses to point his righteous anger towards the equally sordid and tainted opposition as if the people in the country genuinely believe that if one of the two corrupted parties is cleaned up then the nation will prosper. Sen Samuda is a hypocrite, his words have exposed him as such. He is no nation builder, he is simply a man after the trappings of power and in order to maintain his current status (and elevate it) he must act in the same manner as politicians before him, in the same manner, these young politicians said made them sick and ashamed.
We all know that politicians hug up criminals, we have eyes, ears and a modicum of common sense, his statements are neither new, ground-breaking or even the first-time statements to that effect have been made. The public knows that politicians are in criminals back pockets and the public also know that whenever they hear a politician talking about the link between politics and crime, they always know that the person speaking means the other. That the other must change and that the other is the worst thing on earth.
Mr Samuda (and his ilk) can continue to make his stupid hypocritical statements, and they can watch as the people both retreat further from politics and eventually away from the two hypocritical criminal parties. The people don’t ask for much, simply honesty (as all else flows from that in the end) and taking them seriously. To stand up and (rightly) condemn one party for the same thing your party is also doing is neither honest nor is it taking the people seriously, it tells us you think we are a bunch of rubes and that you are more than happy for a 48% turnout in a GE.
Every garrison in this country was founded by and remains politically aligned to one of the two major parties. Both parties at events such as conference or leadership meetings have in their entourage known criminals (drugs, guns, sex trafficking, money laundering) and both parties even after the dust settled from the Dudus fiasco still accept donations from the criminal underground.
Nothing serious will come from this, no change will be made and that is already evident in the way the argument has been framed. Either we acknowledge that both parties are rotten to the core and must be dealt with, or we leave it as is and let the corrupt dogs lie. Either we totally clean up the political system and re-think our blind allegiance to the PNP/JLP or we accept it for what it is and work around it. There is no point in destroying one corrupt political party and leaving an equally corrupt one in existence, especially in a country like Jamaica where new parties (even with big names and oodles of cash) haven’t even made a dent. That scenario does not end well, that scenario ends with a kleptocracy (see Ukraine) and social upheaval and nobody in their right mind should be pushing it.
Both parties with their as you were attitudes should be ashamed of themselves, and the young politicians in whom so much hope has been entrusted (if only because there is no one else) must be called out. Infrastructure is meaningless if the land is stalked by corruption and crime, a booming economy means little if profits are syphoned off and people are left to suffer. To pin criminality on simply one party is something that will not work (that is, solve our problems) and will simply result in the status-quo remaining as both parties begin to hurl accusations and draw up the ramparts. In the end, it just becomes another 9-day wonder soon to be forgotten as both parties continue on their merry way.
Those statements and that mindset is a mirror reflection of the same warped mindset which afflicts may Jamaican citizens. This mindset which has us believe that if we clean up the act of others then our bad actions won’t matter must end. The belief that it is the other who has the major issues in need of fixing, or that my crimes are smaller in comparison must be put to an end. The hypocritical politicians understand that it must change on a societal level and such preach that (even though they themselves don’t change), they are then surprised when the people don’t change (and why should they if their leaders don’t).
When an aeroplane or a boat experiences issues, regulations state secure yourself before attempting a rescue. It sounds selfish until one understands that a drowned person can’t save a drowning person, just as a person passed out due to lack of oxygen can’t save the person about to pass out. The PNP won’t change because the equally bad JLP wants it to or threatens to expose it and vice versa. They will only change, and the nation will only be saved, when the JLP and PNP individually acknowledge their links and other issues publicly and deal with them. Until that day, we continue to live like persons in a doomed vessel, vainly trying to save the other before we even have the life vest on thus dooming us all.
jamaicachange 