Are we a beautiful dream come true?

Are we a beautiful dream come true?

Thoughts set down here are refined over time.

 

Jamaica is a respectable state which can be depended on to contribute meaningfully on international issues, and which is frequently called upon to even lead initiatives. At this time, the Minster of Finance is the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Inter American Development Bank; the Prime Minister is a co-chair of the UN Climate Change Financing Initiative; our sports administrators have chaired the Commonwealth Games Federation and been the President of the International Netball Federation. A Jamaican is currently the Chef de Cabinet for the General Secretary of the United Nations.

The country has developed a respected and well-known global brand in food and agro products like the jerk flavours and marijuana products; travel and tourism such as the all-inclusive hotel concept, and attractions like Dunns River Falls and even in holidays from the edge in Trench Town. In popular music of note is ska, reggae and dancehall. Our athletics and leadership in winter sports is legendary. This is separate from other achievements by individuals who are performing without a brand being wrapped around them such as Jamaicans abroad like the mariners, agricultural workers, fashion models; commercial airline pilots, health care workers and teachers and writers across genres.

These achievements can be connected to the Throne Speech of Wednesday March 31, 1965. I select that one as the Gleaner’s Parliamentary Reporter did not have much in content of the throne speeches of 1962 to 1964. The year of 1965 is when the speech delivered the government’s clear intent.

It declared that citizens will occupy officer ranks in the Jamaica Defence Force. I am willing to believe that this has been true for a lifetime and in 2021, the chief holding the baton is a Jamaican woman.  

Governor General Clifford Campbell read that a Jamaica Stock Exchange would be established, and certainly one has been in operation since 1968.

A clear need, the throne speech read, was financial and technical assistance for the development of all kinds of industry in Jamaica. The years before independence experienced growth of the mining industry and start of the decline of plantation agriculture had not yet had an impact.

In 1967 The Jamaica Development Bank assumed the development responsibilities, and this caused the eight-year-old Development Financial Corporation to be closed. In 1982, the Jamaica Development Bank was subsumed under the National Development Bank of Jamaica and in 2000 the Development Bank of Jamaica took over the role of that bank and also the Agricultural Credit Bank. These were all state-owned institutions focused on delivering loans and grants to industries. The existence of such an institution or others within the government is a fulfilment of the leaders of the newly independent Jamaica.

At one of the April 2022 promotional events to launch his latest book, “How Britain Underdeveloped the Caribbean”, Vice Chancellor of the UWI Sir Hilary Beckles, noted that the UK took the plan that the West Indian leaders developed for itself and used it to help to formulate the Colombo Plan, which promoted economic and social initiatives in the Pacific starting in 1951. This grouping has expanded over the years to include most countries in Asia, Iran and Oceana. It provides academic scholarships and professional learning activities to advance social development. The Colombo Plan seems to have evolved into a global multilateral, which was and is not the West Indian (Caribbean) preference.

The Development Financial Corporation was established by the Jamaican legislature in 1959. It was a response to the conclusion that the Colonial Development Corporation that was established in 1947 - two years after the world war (1939-1945) - was not going to support the development needs of the region. An article that was republished by the Gleaner blankly said that the West Indies believed that the Dominions and UK should send more resources to support the dire situation in the colonies, specifically the West Indies rather than to other foreign affairs imperatives of the UK. An article like that would have been seen as an insult.

Having indigenous financial institutions was a priority of the independence cadre and, as pointed out earlier in this note, the original institution has given way to updated models at least three times.

Back to the other points in the throne speech: Jamaica needed to seek additional export markets. This was done but became manifest in 1988 with the establishment of the Jamaica Promotions Company (JAMPRO) which is the torch bearer around the world for Jamaica for all areas of commerce outside of tourism and hospitality.

Bauxite was first shipped commercially from Jamaica in 1952 and its expansion had not yet reached peak at independence. The leaders of the country said in the 1965 throne speech that it was a priority of government to democratize ownership of industry and expand cooperatives. At that time, agricultural lands were still largely in the hands of private plantation style estates. What is the status today? Bauxite has become nationalized. Sugar cane agriculture is in the control of large scale owners, a lot of farm land has gone under concrete; some of it for urban developments and others as resorts. Tourism, which was important at the time of independence is also today mostly in the ownership of corporations and not in as a cooperative. Many of these tourism interests are owned by overseas investors.

The general ideas of ownership of production was always alive in Jamaica, but the dream of owning a small piece of something bigger than yourself through a cooperative has not happened.

The population participates in cooperatives through credit unions but not through industry. Cooperatives do well for promoting a social good but perhaps not so much for shareholder value. The writers of the 1965 throne speech will be disappointed by this.

If it were up to them in 1965, Flat Bridge would be a relic as the legislators were determined to replace it with an all-weather roadway. We still have that thoroughfare with us and it is known more for scenes of sadness and fear and trepidation and frustration than anything else. No disrespect to its marvellous builders who set those volcanic stones wisely.

 So, from the items raised by the Parliamentary reporter, it would seem that the dream of 1965 has come true. The setting up of institutions was done by the inspired and the trained and talented. What the country needed was an educated citizenry to keep up, but full literacy was not on the 1965 throne speech and that idea may not have emerged until 1971.

Would the leaders of 1962 be satisfied? Based on what they wrote down as things to do, I think that they would not be dismayed.