A Jamaican In Exile

 F  That is the grade Jamaica gets from me. https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/letters/20211110/jamaica-not-failed-state If you are rich, a politician, academically bright, gifted, creative, a singer or a great athlete, you can live well pretty much anywhere - including Jamaica. For those kinds of fortunate people, Jamaica is a great country. This fortunate elite lives well in Jamaica, have maids, gardeners, new cars, live in gated communities, partying and drinking Hennessey. These are the people that propagate the myth that if you just work hard, you can make it in Jamaica. That is not true for most of us in Jamaica. First of all, many cannot even get a wuk! Unfortunately, most of us, myself included, are just average people with average or as in my case, below average education, can't sing, not athletic and I am certainly not rich. In Jamaica, ordinary people from the shrinking middle class and the struggling poor suck salt facing the threat of robbery, rape and murder fro...

https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/commentary/20211112/peter-espeut-compulsory-sixth-form-declaration-war-or-profound Upvoted. Jamaicans need to stop being so naïve and stop blindly believing that everything a government does is in their interest. Learn from history. 'Government' is a necessary device but it is prone to abuse. You need to watch them keenly. Despite the rhetoric to the contrary, in the history of the world, there has NEVER been a political elite that has the interest of the poor, regular people at heart. We need to start from that position. It may sound cynical but that is reality. We need to start from the position that 'government' in our context actually means a political party - a corrupt political elite. A political party's purpose is to stay in power. In Jamaica, that means maintaining the financial support of the corporate elite and the dwindling voter support of the electorate mostly made up of poor, struggling people at the mercy of and exp...

https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/commentary/20211104/cb-peter-morgan-church-and-vaccination My response: Most of the leaders of mainstream religion have come out in favor of mandating vaccination. Religious people often struggle to differentiate between what their God wants them to do and what 'man' (authorities, family, friends, associates) want them to do. Bishop Dr. Peter Morgan is my former JC Head Boy and a biblical scholar so I hesitate to contradict him but what he has written here is so egregious that I must answer. For centuries, religion has been used by elites to control the rest of us and to maintain the status quo. That is why Jesus was so against the religious authorities like Peter Morgan who writes, 'The Scriptures are clear that everyone “be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God” (Roman 13:1-5). You either believe the Word of God, or otherwise treat it with the same mistrust as you do other earthly sources.   If ...