Dawn Ritch, ContributorI have a theory that I'd like to put to the test. It rests on a number of factors. Jamaica's social and economic recovery is going to depend upon meaningful foreign help. Our country and its people are all but bankrupt, and public order has collapsed. Another factor is that the developed world has now gone into economic recession. Life has changed for all its inhabitants, save the very rich who depend neither on stocks nor assets for an income. No one knows how deep or how long this recession will last.
The third element is that a reign of terror in plane crashes has been unleashed on New York and Washington, which has the world's sophisticated capitals all over Europe on red alert. How long that will last no one knows either. I believe therefore that over the next decade life will be hardest for those in the Pacific. While China is widely expected to experience continued economic growth, the outer islands including Japan, primarily reliant upon long-haul airline traffic, are going to suffer. Not least of all because Japan itself has been mired in economic recession for the last decade, and could by now have been the greatest contributor of economic development aid to Third World countries.
The Japanese focus on the restoration and re-development of fishing beaches throughout the world has been significant. More than anywhere else therefore, the island of Jamaica is ironically poised on the brink of a great renaissance. This because it is at the centre of the world's oldest and still most important shipping routes. The Jamaican Port Authority's decision virtually to cede control of Kingston's Port to Maersk is an enlightened piece of public policy from the Patterson administration. It ensures proper management and expansion at minimal cost to the country.
Our geographically strategic location has other positive implications. A hole was put in the side of the U.S.S. Cole, an American aircraft carrier, by a rubber dingy while at anchor in the Mid-East. The owners of European cruise ships still have not decided whether or not to keep their assets and exposure exclusively in the Mediterranean. The good thing about Jamaica's location is that its sea passages are easily policed. The transit of cocaine upon them may seem to give the lie to this, but collusion between Colombian drug smugglers, U.S. public and private interests, as well as our own, have long been suspected.
Safer passage
Terrorism is a different thing. Now safer shipping and safer passage for all vessels in the Caribbean, the backyard of the United States, will become a priority for both the US and its staunchest ally, the United Kingdom. Sea approaches to Jamaica, a major international transhipment port, are easily guarded. A by-product of the war on terrorism therefore should be a diminution in the cocaine traffic using our seas.
Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, arrives in Jamaica for three days next March, no doubt accompanied by the British Fleet. They will anchor in Kingston Harbour, which should have a salutary effect upon the cocaine drop-offs and cocaine dens of Eastern Kingston. The tall-ships finish their race from Aruba next June, at Port Antonio and Montego Bay. This is going to be a visual spectacle not only for us who live in Jamaica, but for the world's very rich who will come to Jamaica to witness it. Large private yachts will also come to moor at the mega-yacht marina in Port Antonio, which I believe Bobby Pickersgill, Minister of Transport and Works will complete by the June deadline.
The implementing agency is the Port Authority (P.A.) which has a record of on-time performance and fiscal integrity. I hadn't counted on the floods wiping out two bridges to the parish, but if Minister Pickersgill enlists the aid and advice of the able Mr. Tony Hylton, President of the P.A., even that too can be overcome in the short term. With two world events - the Queen celebrating 50 years of the British Commonwealth, and the prestigious and magnificent "America's Sail" - including Jamaica next year, we will get an altogether different class of tourist coming to Jamaica. These are tourists who own their own private jets on which there are no bombs. Tourists who own mega yachts, with full-time captains and crews, and who travel with guests in parties of 10 or 12. People with money to spend, and money to invest. As long as they fall in love with Jamaica and Jamaicans, and they will.
Their guests will be booked into only the most up-scale properties in Montego Bay and Port Antonio. And their guests will have money to spend, and money to invest.
The only way this will not happen is if "America's Sail" and the Queen's visit are cancelled, or the marinas here are not refurbished and expanded in time. It should be noted that never in the short history of "America's Sail" have so many yachts registered to participate. The organisers attribute this phenomenon to the fact that the race terminates in Montego Bay and Port Antonio, fabled ports to every yachtsman in the world.
I am sanguine about our development prospects because it was a wealthy Englishman lying in the sun on Doctor's Cave Beach in the 1950s who, in a consequent fit of good feeling subsequently created the cement company in Kingston. This led, along with bauxite, to the economic and social development of modern Jamaica.
With so much opportunity ahead of us next year, our vendors and craftsmen will be the first to descend upon these ports and resort areas. They will even come from the deepest inner-city communities of Kingston with art, souvenirs, T-Shirts and crafts.
Mrs. Portia Simpson Miller, Minister of Tourism, has great feeling for the common man. I hope that she will ensure that their accommodation is dignified, and behaviour dignified, because these kinds of tourists will be keen on meeting them and patronising their stalls.
The very rich are not interested in either business people or the middle class. They find them loutish and boring. They adore orderly school children in uniform, and love fresh produce and craft artfully displayed, and the people who make them. In this we excel. Jamaica will be on display next year to the most influential people in the world. We will not have had so much concentrated overseas attention since the late 1800s. Despite ourselves, we shall prosper.
