Daniel ThwaitesSOME MIGHTY blunders have been committed with the enthusiastic reception that greeted the mistaken UNDP study ranking Jamaica at the bottom of the pile of countries with respect to income maldistribution. The UNDP has admitted its error and made adjustments accordingly. Do we even expect the same from the gloomy commentators who rushed to attribute crime and violence and all manner of unspeakable evil to the erroneous data? We do not, and that is because we have grown completely accustomed to the idea that our commentators have no desire whatsoever to be confused by the facts.
The monumental faux pas was compounded. Many who gleefully rushed to heap condemnation upon Mr. Patterson's government because of the wrong data are the same people who hold that economic equality should not be a goal of government. All the same, they took the opportunity to make damned fools of themselves.
Modern mass communication media are powerful, unelected, largely unaccountable influences on society. There are some excellent reasons for keeping it just this way. A solemn feature of our political heritage is that the state should have very limited intrusive powers into the media. But this makes the sophistication and critical involvement of the citizenry even more important in this domain of social life. Especially when there is as much misinformation as information, and especially when, in general, the government has a serious, debilitating failure to understand that communication is not an adjunct activity to governing, but an essential part of the responsibility.
In this connection, The Gleaner's Saturday Mailbox is a fine idea, making the newspaper an interactive medium where people can avail themselves of the opportunity to write in their views. It is socially healthy for people to talk back to the news, think critically about how stories and issues are handled, and address the public with their own ideas and suggestions. The Mailbox is also a useful forum to give information and correct misunderstandings.
One recent fine example of an illuminating response came from Dr. Jaslin Salmon of the Poverty Eradication Programme in the Office of the Prime Minister to some comments made by Mr. Delroy Chuck in his column. Nobody ought to be relaxed about the levels of poverty in Jamaica, and as someone on the front lines in the fight against it, Dr. Salmon clearly is not. But the facts need to be told.
Last year, the Survey of Living Conditions (SLC) reported that there was a 4 per cent drop in poverty over the previous year. This year, the same study indicates that there is a one per cent increase in poverty over last year. Last year's statistic did not comport with the orthodox line that everyone was visibly poorer than the year previously. Therefore, the report got an icy reception. Every man and his pet parrot turned into instant statisticians so as to discredit the Survey. Compare that to the response this year, where nods of approval were instantly forthcoming because the Survey indicated a slight increase in poverty or put otherwise a slight decrease in consumption.
Overall, the figures point to facts that are difficult for many to deal with. Dr. Salmon's words need no embellishment: "In reality, if one examines the SLC data from 1991-1999 inclusively, one will observe that over the period there has been an overall decline of poverty from 44.6 per cent to 17 per cent; this reflects a decline of 27.6 per cent points. In effect, despite the slight increase in 1999, the consistent trend since 1992 has been a significant decline in the incidence of poverty".
The question begs to be asked: why is it that these facts are so dissonant? Why do they jar with so much else that we hear and see? I think there are a number of factors at work. One is that there is a major cloud of depression that has settled on the country because of the unrelenting crime, and that adversely affects people's quality of life in ways that are unquantifiable by any statistician.
Furthermore, the situation is exacerbated by the employment of manic depressives and various political "has beens" as the primary social commentators on the airwaves. Take any discussion between Wilmot Perkins and Basil Buck as exemplary in this respect.
There is another aspect of the disbelief in what the raw stats would tell us. We hear the loud complaints and we all feel frustration that we are ourselves unable to consume more. This has to do with expectations, another unquantifiable. As cable and satellite television stream into peoples' homes, they learn to expect more. As more and more Jamaicans leave high school whether or not they can read and write they also expect more. A man whose grandfather couldn't afford a donkey is viciously angry that a pothole is destroying the front-end of his automobile. And when the issue is how to pay the mortgage on a house and the monthly payment on the car, the anger is greater, not less than when the issue was whether he could ever own a home or a car.
Yes, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. But in the same way that our expectations and concerns have, in general, moved to another level, we need to move our discussions to another level, way past the tomfoolery and the snide politics that allowed so many to uncritically swallow the UNDP study with such mindless ease.
Daniel Thwaites is involved in teaching and writing.
