Willow Walk

Why We Fail

 

 

John Maxwell

Once upon a time, it seemed, we could do no wrong. These days, it seems we can do nothing right. Apart from the brilliant natural talent of our young men and women, everything we touch turns to lead. But wait! If our young people can do so well at athletic sports, at university and in competition with spellers and chess players from all over, how come we're not doing much better, overall? Why are so many of our kids killing themselves or being killed by other kids or getting into all kinds of bizarre trouble? Perhaps we should ask Mr Latibeaudiere, lately governor of the bank of Jamaica, who earns in a year more than most of us would earn in several lifetimes. Anyone paid as much as he must be very, very wise indeed. Or perhaps we should ask Mr Tony Hylton, head of the Port Authority, whose weight is enough to anchor US$200+ millions in debt – no questions asked about how we will pay back this money. On one side of our society are thousands of children who, given encouragement and the right leadership, will work like slaves to excel and do well for their country. On the other side are ladies and gentlemen of exalted degree whose mantra is development and who persistently ask a question so simple that it should be duck soup to answer: why can't the police reduce the crime rate? Such a simple question. Really? One of the good things about writing for the press is the feedback. You get it in the shops, in the newspaper columns and courtesy of some of the so-called talk-shows. I've got it from fishermen in Discovery Bay and Treasure Beach, from a 'limousine' driver in Ridgefield, Connecticut and from Rastas everywhere. In response to my column last week there were several of the standard responses, suggesting that I am simply wrongheaded and wondering why I didn't join the respectable classes.

They didn't quite put it that way. A few weeks ago an item in the Gleaner's historical highlights reminded me of a time when I provoked even more anger. The was an item about the introduction of the National Minimum Wage, (October 22, 1975) a fight begun and carried on Public Eye until it was eventually successful. But not before one stush chatelaine in her stush Benz took deliberate aim and spat at me as I walked on South Odeon Avenue.

October was a busy month for me in the Gleaner's highlights, recounting my close encounter years earlier (October 23, 1960) with the statue of Lewis Quier Bowerbank, one of George William Gordon's murderers. At about midnight on that October night 49 years ago, I unleashed my sledgehammer in protest against Bowerbank and the fact that Gordon was still considered a criminal. People noticed, although only a few knew who the midnight 'vandal' was. Memories like these amuse me when I read something like this

"Yawn!! Maxwell, sometimes I think you encourage slackness too much. Squatters and other so-called underprivileged are responsible for the uglification of Jamaica. What is it that you have against progress? Do you want Jamaica to continue in poverty and ugliness because people have to "scratch out a living"? "

There exists a whole phalanx of critics who have swallowed gallons of the Globalisation Kool-Aid and who believe that Jamaica would be well on the way to "Take-Off" if only we were more "competitive" These characters don't realise that we are competitive where it counts: Our interest rates are among the highest in the world, to try to persuade people to rinse their money here rather than in Cayman; We have more underemployed able-bodied skilled and unskilled. people than anywhere else. Our country, instead of being able to be in any way self-reliant,has forgotten how to cook and instead depends on junk-food and imported sugar water for sustenance. And then they wonder why people are so violent. Is there anyone in Jamaica who makes his/her own butter? I did at my Uncle Hugh Cork's small farm, first in Tollgate and then in Juno Gully, May Pen. I learned to manage honeybees, goats, cows, chickens, turkeys and rabbits. Our people having been driven off the land can't tell the difference between coco and dasheen or know what you mean when you speak of renta, St Vincent, Lucea or himba. The development of bauxite has obliterated enormous areas of Jamaican culture, devastating farmland, driving fathers abroad and mothers and their children to kraals in inhospitable cities. The sense of community is destroyed. The artisan skills of the elders is replaced by cheap shoes, cheap clothes, cheap furniture and cheap 'food' from abroad. Our people are adrift in the most extreme shopkeeper culture in the world, ignorant and incompetent to help themselves. Many of the apparently Jamaican products now merchandised here are imported. No Jamaican farmers are involved. Even some coconut water is imported from southeast Asia. The merchants see no need to foster Jamaican agriculture. After all, they are helping famers, in Thailand, Brazil and California. That's Development!

"Come on, let development proceed and we will have more people getting employment. I don't know about you but I don't want to live in a country where we have all these underdeveloped establishments"

The 'underdeveloped establishment' would be a community owned beach, run by the community with minimal assistance, perhaps, from state agencies. That was the aim. But there were and are forces in this country determined that poor people should have no autonomy and for nearly forty years they have sabotaged, corrupted and tried to destroy that dream of Hellshire and a productive, autonomous community.

man o’war hill

we chose at last the path out of deep night

through tangled vines and withes into clean air

nothing we gained came to us just by right

 

what we'd been told was that the facts would bite

each normal mind and send us to despair

we chose at last the path out of deep night

 

not with relief but knowing that a fight

would have to come and that no one would care

nothing we gained came to us just by right

 

instead we seemed the victims of some spite

from distant past inheritors of fear

we chose at last the path out of deep night

 

although each thought that hope was truly slight

the only thing we had to do was dare

nothing we gained came to us just by right

 

we were the folk throughout bereft of light

who never thought the process could be fair

we chose at last the path out of deep night

nothing we gained came to us just by right

The Rape of the Public Interest

John Maxwell

In 1973, nearly forty years ago,I was one of the journalists on the new JBCTV public affairs programme, Press Conference – later renamed Firing Line. One of the first guests on the programme was Moses Matalon, the first chairman of the UDC – the Urban Development Corporation.

Mr Matalon was then – as we say in Jamaica 'in him ackee'. He had been installed in 1968 by the JLP Finance and Development Minister Edward Seaga and confirmed by the new, PNP Prime Minister, Michael Manley when he took office in 1972. Someone of course had to invent the aphorism: 'JLP or PNP in office, no matter, Matalon in power!' The UDC was then at the height of its public relations prowess, spinning out brochure after brochure detailing how the corporation was going to give Jamaica an extreme makeover and convert it into the Miami of the Caribbean. At that time, Hellshire had only recently been rediscovered. The rugged geology conspired with the harsh climate to keep Hellshire out of sight to all but a few Jamaicans, mainly bird-shooters and crocodile hunters like James Gore, father and son, hog hunters and fishermen. The UDC decided to change all that. It was going to build another Kingston across the water – eclipsing Portmore whose prospects were pretty dim at that time. Some of us who knew something about Hellshire would drive out on the new UDC road to swim and eat some fish with the fishermen. It was even possible to skinny dip on the deserted white sand beach with 20-ft dunes walling off parts of the beach from easy view. It was paradise, whether you inhaled or imbibed or simply lay about in blissful, peaceful idleness. About two or three weeks before Mr Matalon's appearance on Press Conference a few of us found an enormous gully cut across the road to Hellshire – between Fort Clarence and Halfmoon Bay.

On Press Conference Mr Matalon expatiated on his plans to remodel Jamaica, always skirting delicately round Hellshire. In response to a direct question he admitted, yes, there was a plan to develop Hellshire as a tourist resort . I asked him whether he realised that Halfmoon Bay was the only good beach within reach of Kingston's sweltering multitudes. He said there was Gunboat Beach. I said Gunboat was now too dirty for swimming and even with its neighbour, Buccaneer Beach there was not enough space for Kingston's people.

Since he didn't reply to that I asked him why had the UDC cut the road to Hellshire preventing people going to the beach? Matalon said he didn't know the road had been cut. I told him it had been done, when and by whom. Would he make inquiries and ensure that the road was back in operation say, by the weekend? Somewhat sheepishly, he agreed. Matalon regarded me, as a journalist, as a damned nuisance. In 1977, when I became Chairman of the Natural Resources Conservation Authority, he became really upset with me.

red leaves

down south you forget the ripening leaves

and chilly mornings of bright october

no matter for redly a dying time grieves

 

sunlight on water fair smiling deceives

at dawn the frost shone hard on grass and clover

down south you forget the ripening leaves

 

yet clock there remains the swiftest of thieves

treating the same way both stayer and rover

no matter for redly a dying time grieves

 

telling each young one that what he believes

is false never true and patience is over

down south you forget the ripening leaves

 

slowly to slaughter we marched off the beeves

a suitable task for the youthful drrover

no matter how redly a dying time grieves

 

the adult must measure how much he achieves

in calm acquiescence knowingly sober

down south you forget the ripening leaves

no matter how redly a dying time grieves

villager

forbear to throw more weight upon the ass

since longer journey we must soon begin

the copper coin that the lone guide shall spin

no better guide through the hardest impasse

since at the end there may be but rough grass

and all our commons could turn out most thin

still none of that our better hope's to win

leaving our enemies in the morass

the hardest victory is still the first

when no experience is on our side

but suffering so all we know is pain

so we must say this has to be the worst

in largest part just to protect our pride

but also to account for your huge gain

franking privilege

a single miss enough to count as grave

no one to note but you and you are sly

might grant yourself a pardon and know why

it is an easy thing to grant or save

no man or woman dares to be too brave

and nothing is less honest than the eye

or ear while happy mouth has just to lie

no one need argue they need but behave

the politic approach is what we take

in angry time when nothing matches might

and everyone needs bow before the claw

while honest people lie for hours awake

not knowing what disasters wait in night

but certain that silenced has been the law

In Defence of Life

John Maxwell

Freedom and Liberty are properties of a free society. A free society is one which is able to govern itself because all its members have equal right to take part in making the rules by which it is governed All of us are equal and no one is more 'Equal' than any other. Mr Anthony Hylton has no more right to decide the fate of Falmouth than does the most miserable homeless person on the streets of Yallahs or Heartease. All sorts of far-reaching decisions affecting work, health, security and welfare are being taken by people who believe that their temporary authority gives them the right to change the rules under which we operate – usually to their advantage. Obviously, governments must be able to change the ordinary rules to fit them better to public satisfaction, but there are some rules that are so important that they should always require a special mandate from the society – a certification that the people have discussed the question and agree how it should be resolved. In modern democracies, particularly those who take their cues from the US, there has arisen a tendency to employ hysteria and expensive public relations campaigns to change laws to accommodate some private interest with the excuse that such change will benefit the public. The snow job of the 20th century was the eventually successful campaign to neuter the Glass-Steagall Act, of which you have probably never heard. What you may have observed, however, is the catastrophic human suffering and financial carnage which were consequences of the dismantling of the Act. The Glass-Steagall Act was the last constraint preventing US banks from turning themselves into casinoes, bucket shops and high class financial brothels, evading tax, breaking laws left, right and centre while pauperising millions of working and middleclass people all over the world. This week, a personage as august and unlikely as the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, launched his campaign for the breaking up of the big banks, plus tough new regulations to force them to behave more like banks and less like the Mafia. In his drive to break up the banks Mr King joins a distinguished assemblage on this side of the Atlantic. They include, mirabile dictu, Alan Greenspan, the single major factor in the recent lunacy; Mr Paul Volcker, Greenspan's predecessor; the former eminence grise of the IMF, Stanley Fischer; Nobel prizewinning economists including Joe Stiglitz and Ed Prescott, MIT professor and former Chief Economist at the World Bank Don Johnson, the president of the Independent Community Bankers of America (5,000 members); the head of the FDIC (Bank regulator) Sheila Bair; the leading monetary economist and co-author with Milton Friedman of the leading treatise on the Great Depression, Anna Schwartz; Profs. Nouriel Roubini and Prem Sikka and a whole galaxy of economists of greater or lesser magnitude. Eliot Spitzer, former Attorney General and Governor of New York says that the only people who don't seem to understand what's necessary are President Obama and his advisers, Geithner, Summers and Bernanke – and, of course, Goldman Sachs. Whatever happens, whether the banks are rationally re-sectioned or simply collapse from the weight of their criminal incompetence and corruption, it should be obvious to all of us that the cost of snow jobs may be catastrophic and may engulf entire societies.

The Truth & the Public Interest

John Maxwell

On Monday, in this newspaper I made an astonishing and disconcerting discovery. The Don Anderson poll, on the basis of 535 interviews announced that 90% of Jamaicans agreed that a foetus is a human being. I knew that many Jamaicans were ignorant, but I had no idea that so many of us were so clueless. I then became extremely offended by this so called poll because I am almost certain that 90% of Jamaicans cannot give any sensible definition of the word 'foetus'. In addition the number of respondents is too small, we have no idea how they were selected (were they all churchgoers?) and the questions were unscientific and unbalanced.

My apprehension was confirmed on Wednesday, when the Observer, to my absolute incredulity published one of the most misleading news stories I have ever read. According to the Anderson poll, reported by the Observer

"Abortions being done without knowledge that foetus is real child, poll finds."

If the Observer can provide proof that a "foetus is a real child", that foetuses are 'real' children I will donate whatever the newspaper pays me over the next year to the Mustard Seed Community or to any charity of their choice. I would like to ask the sponsor of the poll – the Mustard Seed Community, the polltaker, Don Anderson and the Observer to publicly explain the process by which they have arrived at the determination that a foetus is a child.

This is extremely important, because if a foetus is a 'real child' – the rules of science will need urgent revision and the teaching of biology and sociology will be revolutionised. I believe that public discourse, particularly public discourse designed to influence public opinion and to change the laws by which we are governed, must be conducted ethically. That is to say all the participants must recognise the right of the public to be told the truth, so that when they make up their minds they do so rationally and not because they have been misinformed by lies or misled by hysteria. I define a fact as a statement susceptible to independent verification. Facts will turn out to be facts whoever is looking at them and wherever. They don't change whether the scientist is a Muslim, a Christian or an atheist. Different belief systems have their own attitude to certain facts but the attitude does not alter the fact. Scientists may be moral persons according to their lights, but neither their DNA nor the instruments they use have any moral status. To argue, as the so-called pro-life faction argues, that human life begins at conception is nonsense. Human life began a long time ago and conception is simply another link in a continuum which began long before human consciousness. There is an old joke about a young woman coming aboard a tram, looking a little exhausted. Seeing all seats filled she goes to a nice young man and asks for his seat, on the ground that she is pregnant. He yields his seat and, out of shameless curiosity asks– "And how long have you been pregnant?" "About fifteen minutes", she says.

refraction

have caught the missing moment of each day

taken it prisoner and won't release

a single second of our hope's increase

out of plain fear that golden light could stray

from warming hands that yet know how to play

the human game without harm or caprice

into cold air that would soon end all peace

sending the waiting watchers on their way

have known hard losses and much harder wins

on courses and on surfaces that yield

their gifts to those who have little to tell

though coldest nights save the long count of sins

serving as sustenance across the field

while each survivor wishes they could yell

Fantasies, Follies, and Frauds

John Maxwell

If all my email could be taken seriously I should by now be able to pay off a significant portion of Jamaica's public debt. Every day I get two or three emails such as this: "You have just been awarded, £750.000.00 GBP in the Toyota Online Promo, send us your Names,Address etc, etc., " and, if I were foolish enough to comply I WOULD have entered on a long walk to real penury and not be just habitually broke. If I ever won a really big lottery prize one thing is certain; I would immediately set up a small centre for the aggressive protection of the public interest.     Some scams are only slightly more subtle than the bogus letters I get. The one I am about to relate might have succeeded because it was premised on 1/ the idea that the Jamaican government has no scientific advice available to it and 2/ the belief that all Jamaicans have swallowed the Concrete=Development Kool-Aid. A little while ago, some con-man who must consider himself a genius, managed to get the Prime Minister to unwittingly embarrass himself in public.

According to the Gleaner: A new aluminium refinery plant is to be established on Jamaica's north coast to facilitate clean coal technology, Prime Minister Bruce Golding has revealed.

"There is a proposal before us for the establishment of a new alumina refinery that is under consideration. Inherent in that proposal is the idea of establishing a clean coal plant, which will have a capacity of 100 megawatts (MW), only 40 MW of which would be required for its processing facilities and the other 60MW would be available for sale to the national grid," he said. Mr Golding went on to speak about 'combined cycle gas turbine power generation' as if this was a brand new JPS invention, instead of a process employed in this country for forty years. I wish to suggest that Mr Golding immediately arm himself with a scientific adviser to prevent his being taken advantage of by unscrupulous Public Relations experts with more nerve than conscience.

There is no such thing as "clean coal" despite the Gleaner's glib attempt to pass off the expression thus: "Clean coal is an umbrella term used to describe methods that have been developed to reduce the environmental impact of coal-based electricity."

Goodbye, 'Goggle-eye'

That is in itself an idiotic explanation; coal-based electricity has no more environmental impact than any other electricity. The environmental impact comes from the power-plants that generate electricity and the impact depends on the fuels they use. Coal is by far the most environmentally dangerous fuel and the major contributor to global warming and climate change. GREENPEACE expresses the case succinctly: "Coal is a highly polluting energy source. It emits much more carbon per unit of energy than oil and natural gas. CO2 represents the major portion of greenhouse gases. It is, therefore, one of the leading contributors to climate change.…The huge environmental and social costs associated with coal usage make it an expensive option for developing countries. From acid drainage from coal mines, polluting rivers and streams, to the release of mercury and other toxins when it is burned, as well as climate-destroying gases and fine particulates that wreak havoc on human health, COAL is unquestionably, a DIRTY BUSINESS. "It is a major contributor to climate change – the biggest environmental threat we face. It is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, emitting 29% more carbon dioxide (CO2) than oil, 80% more … per unit of energy than gas." There are ways to make coal burning marginally less polluting but they are all expensive and some are dangerous. The most basic efforts at burning coal more 'cleanly' involve enormous amounts of fresh water. Where in Jamaica would we get that from, and what would happen to the used water? That water, if pumped into the ground would complete the poisoning of our groundwater now underway by the bauxite companies. If pumped into the sea it would acidify and poison the water and kill marine life. Goodbye goggle-eye. And the hotels would be on water-rationing. But the main challenge in 'clean coal' technology is not just sanitising the coal, it is to dispose safely of the carbon dioxide. So-called carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) involves extracting the CO2 from the smokestacks, and pressuring it until it freezes when, theoretically it will be pumped into secure salt domes and empty oil reservoirs deep underground. There are two small objections to this scenario: one is that here are no known vacant subterranean spaces in this geologic neighbourhood; and second: the elevated seismic profile of this area is, a priori, a veto on such a practice. While carbon dioxide may behave itself under pressure in sandstone, in limestone CO2 becomes chemically active and soon starts dissolving ways out of its subterranean confinement. This is probably what is meant by the expression: "All Hell breaks loose!" In this part of the world burning coal for any reason is an act of lunacy. There are a few more small problems with building a bauxite plant in the Cockpit Country. Above all is the naked threat to civilised values, the destruction of culture, the devastation of important, unique and irreplaceable biological resources, the irredeemable pollution of underground aquifers, the ethnic cleansing of history and tradition, the subversion of small farming and the eradication of our capacity to feed ourselves. From my point of view it looks a little like cultural genocide.

The Falmouth Fatuity

    A few months ago I told you about the enormous self-contained resort ships that are about to go into competition with the local tourist industry. These new Titanics, owned by the Royal Caribbean Lines, attempt to recreate a complete land based environment at sea. I wondered at the time at the wisdom of the Port Authority financing facilities designed to compete directly with our local hospitality industry. As I wrote six months ago:

"What RCCL is doing is to transform their ships into the seagoing equivalents of Montego Bay, Negril, Las Vegas or Miami Beach. On their newest ship, the oxymoronic Oasis of the Seas five thousand or so passengers will be housed in a floating resort town, with casinos, discos, nightclubs, dozens of restaurants, fitness centres, adventure playgrounds, bijou jungles, forests and beaches, parks, promenades, boardwalks, mini-golf courses, swimming pools, rock climbing walls, tennis courts, watersports, basketball courts, ice-skating rinks, jogging tracks, and of course, no importunate natives.

THe ship will be its own destination and its visits to places like Jamaica will be simply to dispose of waste, take on cheap water and give the staff some R&R and allow passengers to go molest some caged wildlife" (The Racehorse's Egg – April 30,2009)

The putative benefits of the Titanic visitations are supposedly that five thousand people a week will arrive to embark on frenzied tours of Jamaica, consuming local views, buying local goods, interacting with local people and distributing scarce benefits as they go. The reality is different

Paul Motter, editor of the enthusiast Web site Cruisemates, said. "I think it's going to be the first ship where people truly book just for the ship and hardly care where it goes." Tor Olsen, one of the ship's captains, quoted by the Washington Post said: "Our hope, of course, is that people don't get off, because this ship itself is the destination," Olsen said. "This is better than a lot of the islands."

And even if the passengers disembark in Falmouth they will be carefully shepherded into those shops and attractions which have paid the cruise line – under the table – for 'approved' status. The curio sellers can go peddle their papers somewhere else.

Human Roadblock

The Port Authority's scheme may have run into a small but significant roadblock. The PAJ, under some unknown authority, has decided to exercise its 'right' to clear the fishing village at Falmouth. The Beach Control Authority, now part of the NRCA/NEPA complex, has a prescribed duty to defend the prescriptive rights of fishermen and the public to the beach. I would advise the fishermen of Falmouth to get a lawyer to serve a writ of mandamus on the     NRCA to compel them to do their duty and to take the PAJ to court to establish and entrench the human rights and public interest in this matter. Which brings me to ask: what kind of Environmental Impact Assessment could have ignored those rights? And how could the NEPA approve such a fundamentally flawed development? Unlike some people I believe the law should be a shackle – at least to prevent the unscrupulous extinction of the public rights and the public interest. The media have not asked any serious questions about one of the largest single investments ever to be undertaken in this country – the transformation of our beautiful heirloom Falmouth into a gated them park for a specially invited clientele. Jamaica is borrowing more than it can afford to repay, to build an exclusive pleasure dome to please the billionaire owners of Royal Caribbean Lines. These people can get away with this only in Jamaica. In Port Everglades where the taxpayers are building an even bigger version of the Falmouth Fantasy, the authorities there have shown what responsible development is. In the first place, the Port Everglades facility will cost just half as much our Great Blue Elephant – US $75 million to US$140 million. In the second place Royal Caribbean is paying about half the cost of the Port Everglades facility: "As part of the agreement, Royal Caribbean will reimburse up to $37.4 million in capital expenditures for expansion and related infrastructure needs of Terminal 18, which is already one of the largest cruise passenger terminals worldwide. Along with sister brands Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Cruises, Royal Caribbean International will generate approximately 17 million in passenger volume (embarking and disembarking) at Port Everglades during the first 10-year term of the contract." And, an economic impact study (What's that?) conducted by Martin and Associates as part of the Port Everglades Master/Vision Plan, projects that homeporting the Genesis ships at Port Everglades will create more than 3,844 jobs, generate $172 million in personal income and $15.9 million state and local taxes. In addition, the analysis anticipates that more than 858 new construction jobs will be created during Terminal 18 expansion." What's really interesting about all this is that Port Everglades while spending one third of the money we are, is getting benefits worth more than twice as much – and they have a contract that says so and is enforceable. All this begs the question: Just what are the Jamaican people getting for their US$140 million investment? Do we have a contract? Do we have any guaranteed return on this enormous investment? Is the development in the public interest? If it is not, Shouldn't the investment be terminated? I believe the Contractor General and the Public Defender need to investigate this matter. Now. Copyright©2009 John Maxwell jankunnu@gmail.com

failure

this is the moment when the banner falls

into the dust we call the battle lost

let our swords rust and rue the total cost

repenting anger and regretting brawls

each of us back to our home cavern crawls

lacking all trust not seeing that the crossed

sigils of lust all marked now by hard frost

no longer point toward ancestral halls

no struggle that we win nor war we lose

has meaning now the season's not so ripe

as it was then in the full grip of youth

nor have we got the honest force to choose

but must it seems remain to carp and gripe

regarding what it means to speak the truth