Robert Buddan The Prime Minister wants Jamaicans at home and abroad to celebrate Emancipation and Independence as a united people and nation, suspending election politics until after. Seventy-four per cent of Jamaicans agree with the Prime Minister, according to The Gleaner/Bill Johnson polls. With this break, we can better concentrate on our national celebrations, our history and future objectives and the important lessons we need to learn to emancipate ourselves, such as through the civic values that create good citizenship.
Emancipation assumed that free people would automatically convert to free citizens. But the European idea of the citizen was based on preconditions that did not exist in the Caribbean. The European formula was that labour would lead to the acquisition of property. Property would support family. Family would provide education. Education would create good citizens. Good citizens would establish good government. But the plantation society did not permit the conditions for this formula to work for most people. It is only now that we are beginning to understand that, if people are to become good citizens, a deliberate culture of citizenship has to be nurtured.
Chairperson for Hanover Charities, Katrin Casserly, told 4-H Club members recently that good citizenship builds nationhood. It takes respect for land, self and the elderly. It means investing in the youth so that they can take responsibility for their future. It means changing the behaviour of people. Since May 1, the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) has issued 161 tickets to persons for urinating in public and another 137 tickets for littering public places. The NSWMA is being a good citizen organisation.
CITIZENSHIP INITIATIVES
Citizenship is more than just a legal status. A number of recommendations and programmes of the past few years reflect the importance being accorded to promoting the means by which people, especially young Jamaicans, can become the kinds of persons they need to be to emancipate themselves into good citizenship. Maybe we should measure the success of these programmes and present Emancipation Day awards to the best ones that promote good social governance as a companion to promoting good citizenship.
In 2004, Aloun Ndombet-Assamba proposed a producer-consumer memorandum of understanding to call producers to the highest standards of quality, customer service and corporate governance; and for consumers to 'buy Jamaican' to promote entrepreneurship, investment and production. This way, good producer and consumer citizenship would build Jamaica. The idea suggests that ethical and patriotic values are not to be merely taught in schools but practised in the economy, a critical sphere in which people should pursue better lives rather than just taking advantage of one another
In that year, the Jamaica Diaspora Foundation was launched to strengthen cooperation and collaboration between Jamaicans at home and abroad to the further development of the country. Jamaicans everywhere have a role to play in building nationhood, a goal of good citizenship. Migration from the Caribbean began right
after Emancipation and for many this has not undermined their identity with Jamaica and nationhood. The Diaspora Foundation, therefore, has an emancipatory role to play under the leadership of an emancipatory person such as Prof. Rex Nettleford.
EDUCATION AND YOUTH
The proposed Emancipation Day awards should also be considered for initiatives geared at youth and education. In 2005, the Government announced plans to transform the educational system in order to create viable citizens. In the election atmosphere of today there is much talk about 'free education'. What we need is education that frees people. The Education Transformation Plan, the first phase of which is to begin this month, is designed to make education more effective in making people free.
The values and attitudes in schools programme, launched in 2005 by the Minister of Education, will, in September, provide over 440 guidance counsellors to be placed in schools to teach respect for self, society, property, law and order, the environment and personal values of honesty, creativity, innovation and caring.
The Social Development Commission (formerly Jamaica Welfare) was established to promote community self-reliance and facilitate citizens at the community level to realise their common interests, including peace, public order and lawful behaviour.
The National Youth Service teaches good citizenship in preparing youth for economic opportunities, respect for authority, leadership, work ethic, discipline and the values of responsible citizenship for sustaining democracy.
The Human Rights Manual, launched in 2005 to be part of the curriculum in primary schools, seeks to reconcile citizenship and civic responsibility in the overall education of Jamaicans to produce democratic citizens. HEART/NTA launched a Values and Attitudes Manual for technical schools.
The National Youth Service in Secondary Schools (2006) aims to address anti-social behaviour by teaching proper dress, punctuality, extra-curricular activities, respect for self, peers, and authority, all to prepare young people for the world of work; and to promote self-development, interpersonal skills, conflict resolution and citizenship.
FAMILY AND COMMUNITY
The family and the community are also important in building the values of good citizenship. In 2006, the convener of the Values and Attitudes Secretariat, Dr. Heather Little-White, recommended the establishment of a family council system to inculcate proper values and attitudes, such as responsible citizenship, good parenting, healthy sexual practices and the sanctity of life. The Children's Advocate, Mary Clarke, has pointed to the need for proper parenting skills. Minister Maxine Henry-Wilson has called for better family values. The Safe Schools Programm awareness of the importance of safety to learning, making schools more secure, and extending mediation into the surrounding communities.
Other initiatives also support the family. The initiative of the Registrar General's Department in 2007 to issue birth certificates to children at the time of birth has secured our young citizens with their identity at the moment of birth and increased the number of fathers named on these certificates, making more responsible parenting possible.
The National Land Agency is issuing land titles and registering land (including to persons provided with land on settlement schemes over 80 years ago), through the Land Administration Management Programme. Land, housing, livelihood and family go together.
The Passport Citizenship Agency (which became an executive agency on June 1) is an important part of modernisation because the passport is an important symbol of our national identity. But more than that, like the visa, it is important to the freedom of the individual to travel, and travelling is important to the welfare of the family. Individual and family rights cannot be separated.
All of these are worthy initiatives to build better civic values. There are other agencies and programmes that merit consideration. What is striking about so many of these initiatives is that they centre on the quality of citizenship with emphasis on youth.
The youth problem is a global problem and it is especially important to assess the Jamaican solutions, many of which are novel, in comparison with the success of youth programmes in other countries. The youth problem is also a development problem. Any future government will have to address it in a serious way. Jamaica has made a start. Many of the programmes are fairly new. But we should assess them and recognise successes because they are vital in the historical process of building citizenship and building a nation.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, University of the West Indies, Mona. Email: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm.
