Is Jamaica a Failed State?

 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 from gangsters every day. The 'developments' the writer speaks about are for the elite and are way above the heads of most in Jamaica.
My friends and relatives in Canada are pretty ordinary people too and yet we are able to get fairly decent paying even if sometimes menial jobs, most buy houses, new cars, travel, go to university or college and generally live well - certainly much better than we ever could in Jamaica. We are the people Jamaica has failed - we the ordinary Joes and Janes.

We in the diaspora, with good reason, have abandoned the slowly sinking ship called Jamaica for cold racist places like Canada, the US and Britain. Cold and racist as those places are, very few return to Jamaica. The Jamaican diaspora is growing steadily as most leave Jamaica if they can. We need to get over ourselves and get over our national pride and admit that Jamaica is in a mess and a very dangerous country. After nearly 60 years, we have to admit that the grand experiment of JLP/PNP leadership which started with such fanfare in 1962 has been a total failure for most of us. Time for a change!

Raymond D. Grant

Immigrants, Migrant Workers and Refugees - Making the World a Better Place for All
“A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims, but accomplices”. George Orwell 1903-1950
“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”
His Imperial Majesty, The Lion of Judah, HAILE SELASSIE I, Jah Rastafari

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