Dawn Ritch, Contributor
IN THE current Stone poll, 53 per cent of the country think we would have been better off today had we remained a British colony, and only 15 per cent think we would be worse off. This is bound to cause a great wailing and gnashing of teeth in certain quarters.
All the usual suspects are already saying that most Jamaicans are "too young to have fully absorbed the colonial experience", as though to suggest that, were they older, their opinion would be any different. And still others say that after 13 years of bad government by the People's National Party (PNP), most of the country is too young to remember good government by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), and therefore thinks nothing better can possibly be available locally.
It is ironic that the only political leader to express concern about this new sociological finding was Opposition Leader Edward Seaga.
Ironic because, although it was the JLP which led us into Independence, it's a rare Labourite who has a chip on his or her shoulder, or quarrels about white people and the British. Primarily I suppose because they are peasants, and black people expect to work for a living.
On the other hand, the party that has consistently criticized the legacy of colonialism is the PNP. They apparently believe that an attempt was made to programme every Jamaican into idleness and wickedness by a few hundred years of British rule.
That at least is what I understand this political philosophy's popularisers, Professor Rex Nettleford and Barbara Gloudon, to have been saying all these years.
Brainwashing
Michael "Joshua" Manley had come to lead us to the promised land where no bastard was illegitimate, and this had the effect of substituting social stigma for social confusion.
It was thought that the past was bad, and the future would be good if chaotic, not least because a father himself would have to attend the registrar personally in order to put his name on the birth certificate of his child. Nor could he be dragged there.
So there are more children born to bastards every day who are not prepared to acknowledge their paternity.
The fault we were told by the PNP was not our own, but lay with British colonialism and slavery. For example, even poor Anancy's reputation was further sullied when the culture vultures began to claim he was a bad folk hero, and we weren't to laugh at his stories anymore.
What a brainwashing it was in the 1970s! It produced a country of insecure people who put their hands up to their mouths whenever they laughed.
A people who believed that they should be ashamed of their past. And that the only way they could overcome this history of subjugation was to be loud and boisterous themselves.
The miracle was that anybody could believe such rubbish for a single instant, much less that a political philosophy could be born out of this nihilism. But it was born, absorbed, regurgitated and many still believe it.
The poll finding proves, however, that the majority of Jamaicans have come to an entirely opposite point of view, despite a long cultural policy of anti-colonialism by the PNP. Yet there it is... an example of failed social re-engineering.
The "White Man as Oppressor" in this country has, therefore, officially bitten the dust. Arise "White Man as Benefactor". The people of this country want a return to good order and a currency as a store of reliable value.
I doubt that we can become a British colony again, but after decades of verbal abuse against them, it seems the British record is being appreciated at last, at a time of great frustration here in Jamaica over governance. Morris Cargill didn't live to see it, but he must be happy.
What this means is that we as a people are neither idle nor wicked because of colonialism, which Morris and I always knew. And that anybody who is either or both of these things, can't blame it on slavery or colonialism and expect to remain relevant again when speaking to Jamaicans.
I used to worry a lot about a national creed which required that its believers all be victims. There's obviously no need to any longer.
The reception to the Queen's recent visit added fuel to the public perception that when she's around, things run well. All of a sudden there's somebody in charge and things are made to happen in Jamaica. Management skills the PNP don't possess, are suddenly everywhere in evidence.
Except in the black-out at Kings House.
Good order and justice
The visit last week from the head of Scotland Yard seems to offer this country some grounds for hope. The British Government is not as riven with drug interests influencing the holders of elective office as many fear happens in the American Government.
Nor are British nationals notable drug manufacturers of recreational narcotics such as Ecstasy, as obtains in continental Europe. These factors make them an altogether abler set of people with whom to work on reducing drug and gun crimes in Jamaica.
I hope, therefore, that our Government shares its information fully, so that the country gets maximum benefit from the support being offered by Scotland Yard and the British Constabulary.
No one can be satisfied with public governance in this country when a seven-year-old boy was shot to death last week in Lawrence Tavern, in his own yard behind a zinc fence, alledgedly by the police, who themselves could only describe it as "unfortunate". Not until the following day was the word "tragic" used by police.
That day the Police Commissioner himself visited the empty home, mother and father having both gone off to seek the necessary help of the Public Defender in Kingston on their great loss. For tragic it was, and utterly heart-breaking.
Jamaicans want good order and justice, and it seems we believe that it is more likely to come from the British, rather than the Colombians.
Above all it is the perception that conditions in Jamaica would be vastly improved had it remained a British colony. I'm just surprised, however, that someone finally thought to ask the question at last, and get it all out in the open. Jamaica is a "roast breadfruit", without identity problems.
As far as the tired old socialists go, I'm convinced that everyone of them is really a closet royalist. They're all highly educated, brown and accustomed to rank, and not above brainwashing others into believing what they do not believe themselves. Nor practice.
Now the charade is at an end. Jamaicans are not bothered by concerns of sovereignty, nationalism, or even ethnicity when it comes to the objective assessment of our own circumstances. I hope somebody sends the poll to No. 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace, because it gives them international validation. It certainly gives none to a PNP Government eager to turn Jamaica into a republic, ruled by a president.
