"I AM Jamaican!" was the catch line in one campaign ad, which for me, resonated. As the campaign fervour wound down, a thought kept playing around the edges of my mind. I'd like to share it.
Had either of the front-running parties done a "What If" analysis, to deal meaningfully with tomorrow and its successor days, if the unutterable occurred? That is, that it lost the election contest. If neither did, and I fear, that's not unthinkable, then deflation, devastation, denial, denunciation, perhaps even detestation for the "unthinking, ungrateful and unenlightened voter who voted wrong or not at all" might be mild public characterisations, uttered by the losing party leadership. What they were likely to utter privately would doubtless be unfit for print or airwave.
Whatever the result tonight, I am Jamaican! And that, not because "I want!"
Last night, just before my bedtime, I watched the President of the PNP deliver a largely reflective, almost homiletic view of where his party had taken us these past years and a view, if not a vision of our future as a people. As my wife listened, she remarked, "That sounds like a victory speech." I thought, "It sounds more Prime Ministerial, than a speech from the hustings."
But back to that "What if" and "I am Jamaican" thought. One of these parties will win in all likelihood. They both have MPs that we have seen a bit of. If either loses, will it share its MPs with the other? Preposterous! I hear you chorus. But I'm not talking about those MPs , I'm talking about the ones in their Manifestos, i.e., Millennium Projects and Mega Projects. These thirty-some sure-fire concepts will obliterate from the Jamaican landscape poverty, unemployment, crime and waiting in traffic, even potholes.
Yes. that's what I have been thinking. I am Jamaican, how Jamaican are they? Think about it; these ideas are so good, so sound, so bankable. Either party could run with them. And here's the clincher. They could accept the other's ideas via an MOU and that at a Press Conference. That way all Jamaica would know who to give the credit. After all, there will be another election. Won't there? Imagine contesting a Jamaican election on issues of who had the best ideas and how these made Jamaica prosperous. OK, maybe I didn't wake up!
