There are many tales, myths even, which we tell ourselves as individuals and as groups of people. Many of these things are as a result of an ‘education’ system which drills into us from an early age the habit of not asking questions, playing devil’s advocate and absence of critical thinking. This is not something however, which is simply the issue of Jamaica or the Jamaican education system. It is an issue which we see worldwide and which is readily present in people supposedly listed as the ‘best and brightest’.
This lack of critical thinking continues to harm us and does us no good when, for example, we continue to believe that leaders sprout from nowhere and that the ideas they espouse originate in a vacuum .
This idea, this myth which was long ago exposed, has again cropped up and can be seen in the letters and articles lamenting the fact that we have no politician or civil society member who can impose order. This begging (no other word can describe it) of someone, anyone, to come forth with a grand workable plan for corruption and crime should by now be seen as a hopeless endeavour, but instead we put so much hope in the big man and leader as we still buy the line that our leaders are above us, and that the ideas (and solutions) they come up with are from a bag of tricks to which they alone have access.
Where do leaders come from, where do the ideas and dreams they speak about find their origins? Where did, for example, Bustamante get the idea to lead strikes and partake in the worker movement? Where did the idea of a political party agitating for independence come from? Was the idea really borne in the head solely of Mr Fairclough in a fit of inspiration like Saul on the way to Damascus after being denied rightful employment? Do we think Jesus just appeared from nowhere and just came up with these ideas and practices on the fly…
jamaicachange 