With reports of closure in the bauxite industry, the collapsed sugar divestment deal with Infinity Bio-Energy, heavy retrenchment at Air Jamaica, layoffs across various sectors, a ballooning trade deficit and rapidly sliding dollar, there's no doubt the crisis is upon us.

The Opposition is still saying the Government is not coming clean with the facts surrounding Jamaica's economic crisis, but the people don't need the Government to tell them that things are bad and getting worse - it is their everyday reality. The interpretation that they put on it is what is up for grabs, and both the Government and the Opposition would like their own interpretation to stick.

But the fact is that our crisis is too severe and our prospects too daunting to be left to the mercy of political gamesmanship. Opposition backbencher Dr Peter Phillips, in his short but substantial contribution to the debate on the supplementary estimates in Parliament on Tuesday, made an important point, that while it would be tempting for both sides to engage in blame-placing and selective historical recounting, Jamaica's problems are too serious to be treated in that way.

Phillips, demonstrating his own stature and grasp of issues, pointed to the severe economic and financial crisis that the world is experiencing, with its consequential impact on Jamaica.

He spoke about the limits of the traditional adversarial politics, saying the crisis is not just one facing the Government but "facing all of us". This is going to be our biggest challenge as a nation at this time of crisis: how to summon the collective resolve and will to overcome our tribalist instincts and proclivities in order to forge a common front in the face of this economic meltdown.

Supplementary Estimates

Tremendous leadership will be required on all sides, but the Government has to take the lead. Minister of Finance and the Public Service Audley Shaw was commended by his Opposition counterpart, Omar Davies, as well as Robert Pickersgill, for his sober and moderate tone in presenting the supplementary estimates. Omar noted that this was a welcome change from Shaw's previous posture as Opposition spokesman on finance.

That simple act of humility and sobriety positively influenced the tone of the debate, though there was the usual heckling and rowdy behaviour. Grandstanding, chest-beating and triumphalist behaviour does nothing to engender rational engagement, but rather it repels.

If there is one thing we can ill-afford in this financial crisis and should drop from our menu, it is arrogance.

Sober discussion

We need a sober, rational and intellectually engaging discussion on our economic options. It will be very tempting for the Opposition People's National Party to exploit this crisis for cheap political gain, capitalising on the ignorance of some to push the 'It's Golding's fault' line. The prime minister on Tuesday seemed visibly disturbed that enough recognition was not paid to the severity and enormity of the global financial meltdown and the effects it was having on the country's budget.

The Opposition knows that when people are losing their jobs, homes, and are seeing prices accelerate because of the falling value of the Jamaican dollar, they are hardly in any mood for intellectual arguments about world crisis. True, more people than ever, because of their exposure to international news and relatives and friends abroad, know what is happening in America and Britain, but hungry stomachs and frustrated hearts tend to do something to rational thinking.

People become very susceptible to the suggestion that it's really the fault of the politicians in power, or at least they could do more to mitigate the problems. The Opposition knows this fully well and its temptation will be to exploit this.

The Government is also increasingly being pushed by partisans to 'talk up the things dem' and to tell the people the state in which they found the country; tell the people how he PNP wrecked the country, how they ran off with a lot of the money, how they were irredeemably corrupt when they were not incompetent.

They blame Prime Minister Golding for not levelling with the people and telling them what a mess the PNP really left the country in. That is why some people are blaming the present administration because the Government is failing to communicate and tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

As the crisis deepens and the PNP's PR machinery picks up gear, the Government and the JLP will be increasingly tempted to go back to 'history' and tell how much of our present problems really go back to '18 years of PNP mismanagement and corruption'.

Non-partisan civil society

In my view, both the Government and the Opposition would neither serve themselves nor the country well by succumbing to these temptations. The tribalists in both parties will simply dismiss me as an idealist, saying that raw politics demands otherwise. This is why we need a strong, vocal and non-partisan civil society.

We need groups which are truly independent of the political parties and which are not afraid not to offend them. In a small society in which people can be easily victimised and shut out of the 'blighs' going around, you need a strong dose of integrity and moral courage to speak the truth.

We need most desperately a civic culture that is respectful of ideological diversity, tolerant, indeed, encouraging of dissent. We need a civic culture in which it is honourable to disagree, to dissent, to diverge. A culture which does not punish people for their thoughts and a culture which does not foster the view that to differ from someone is to be against him or to hate her. We need to open a serious dialogue on the implications of this global crisis on our country.

Serious implications

When bauxite plants close, whole communities suffer way beyond the loss of income to individual families. Infrastructure suffers. Youth and community projects suffer, senior citizens suffer, as social spending by bauxite companies dry up. CVM TV's Michael Pryce did an excellent story on the impact that the closure of Windalco would have on Ewarton in St Catherine, for example.

Government's coming out of the sugar industry also has serious implications for whole parishes. The Government is, understandably, going about this very carefully and the agriculture minister, Chris Tufton, is to be highly commended for how he has worked closely with the stakeholders in the industry.

When our traditional foreign exchange earners experience massive declines, with no replacement and the world facing a new round of protectionism, what will hold us together?

Tourists are still coming here but at significantly discounted rates and with a high overseas advertising budget. The arguments have always been made for the importance of a national airline to our tourism industry, but that argument is not strong enough for the Government to keep subsidising Air Jamaica. Foreign investors are not coming here in this global economic meltdown and there are no prospects for any significant ramping up of exports. So if we are not earning our way out of our crisis and we still have to pay our debts, what shall we do apart from raising more taxes, furthering burdening the people? Government revenue is falling and will continue to fall as production and consumption decline.

The way out

Small business is the way out, we say, but when consumer spending is necessarily depressed, to whom will all these new small businesses people be selling their goods and services, even if they manage to access Government loans? We can't be pessimistic and say 'we dead already' surely, but we can't be unrealistic either. We have to face the hard, cold facts rather than live in fantasyland.

When Food for the Poor, on whom thousands of poor people depend for a little house, has to lay off its senior people and publicly say they don't know how they will manage for the year, that is deeply worrying.

Many people have depended on them for food, beds and some board houses to shelter them from the rain and sun. Middle-class people who are losing their jobs, cars and homes can't help their struggling friends as they would like.

Crime is our biggest problem and the consistent talk among those who don't like hard policing measures is for massive spending for social intervention. I had warned even before this global economic crisis that Government had limited resources for such social interventions, so if that is what we were depending on to solve our crime problem, more of us are going to end up dead. It is as stark as that.

Scoff at values and attitudes campaigns and hard, tough policing all you like, you have nothing else in the short term.

With factory closures, housing foreclosures, layoffs, a sliding dollar, high inflation etc; with whole communities affected by the decline in the sugar and bauxite industries - think of high-crime St Catherine alone, which house Bernard Lodge and Windalco - what is really gong to happen?

Money for massive social intervention programmes don't exist. And our social capital is weak. We have a bling culture; a culture where deejays glorify money and possessions and in which self-worth and identity are wrapped up in bling. That is what Reggae Month should be dealing with.

Things to come

Shocked about Rampin' Shop? You haven't see anything yet. When our young girls can't get jobs, they will have to 'keep man' to survive, while the boys will reach for the gun. Look for a rise in AIDS, adding to our disease burden in Jamaica. We are likely to be faced with more incest, more carnal abuse, and more spousal abuse as out-of-work men vent their frustrations.

We need to have a national, non-partisan debate on the consequences of the global economic crisis for our culture and country - now. We can't afford to politicise this critical issue.

The Press Association of Jamaica should be organising debates between the Government and the Opposition for all the issues to be ventilated. Don't just hide behind press releases or rabble-rouse on the political platform. Face hard questions. As the crisis deepens, I say more dialogue, less propaganda.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.