A great column from today's Observer

I really appreciate and agree with the points made in this column.

Social mobility and social exclusion
We block the ghetto exit and we pay the price!
Franklin Johnston
Friday, January 30, 2009

The channels to social mobility are at a trickle and our promising youth now turn to mischief. In past decades, we turned back the programmes which enabled the poor to move up in large numbers. This crop of leaders in medicine, politics, management, law, etc, is the last large group to come through the upwardly mobile pipeline.
Franklin Johnston

This group is old school and can be shamed; those after have no shame. So too, old money is urbane and understated; new money (legal and illegal) is loud, ill-mannered, in-your-face, sets a bad example and has no sense of service. Most of today's leaders are the first in their family to attend university; the first to attend high school, to complete primary school or to read and write. Many mastered the knife and fork late in life and found out that a dry white wine is wet. But they are the product of a healthy, orderly social process. We learn, advance and replenish all classes.

Today, the upwardly mobile channels are blocked as that great host of escapees from the ghetto (now aged 45 to 60 plus), by their policies and rhetoric, broke the ladders they climbed and slashed the social fabric. Trainable people are few and have no jobs; new workers are not replenishing the middle class and the top people - our repository of experience and financial security, not intimidated by politicians, is depleted. This group upholds our principles, defends the rule of law, are benefactors of the poor and the gatekeepers of our democracy. This group is passing, silenced, migrated or marginalised. Politicians want to supplant this group by using our taxes to curry favour with poor people for them to depend on politics instead. Most poor people make no progress, but they are ambitious, and sadly are leaching into the dark side in order to "make it".

Many no longer aspire to work; as one said when asked to cut a lawn, " I not lookin' slavery, I want cash." Workers are not revivifying the middle class which is also stagnant and the top class is no longer our vigorous arbiter and defence against corrosive people and policies. Our social contract is in breach.

The most feared people today are gunmen and corrupt politicians. Take your life or take your livelihood; both wreak havoc on the society. Citizens are destroyed or neutered; starved of work, lose their savings and driven to exile. We are afraid to speak so as not to upset powerful people. Some, poor and rich alike, see no evil, hear no evil. They don't want to be involved as they have families, jobs, contracts, permits and licences which depend on politics. they are involved already as our democracy is threatened. Victimisation (real or imagined) is rife. People don't buck the going orthodoxy, we are losing our freedom and don't care because we make money or hope to do so. We "bite our tongues", say nothing, but we have consciences, and at home we vent and bitch. Our family and our nation suffer. Our silence makes us ill. Stress kills. Our friends (men) die prematurely in their 60s and 70s. We are a nation on the edge! Some years ago we won a public contract. Soon after, there was a change of government and the new PM took away the job and gave it to "his consultant". That consultant, a professional colleague who did not have the expertise, gave us a sub-contract to do the work, with one change; the reports were to be printed on their letterhead. and some wonder why we don't work much at home; mind free, man free!

Independent opinion is not valued. The upper class used to keep the rapacious in check by ostracising them as the law couldn't touch them. Today, raptors savage the mores of our land. They don't care for principle or decorum; they were never habilitated and cannot be rehabilitated. The rich support the status quo; most made their money honestly, against all odds and deserve every penny. My mentor, the incomparable, late Abe Issa would say "business must always be in power". support all parties, give extra to the one you like. The rich are immune from victimisation and need to get active in protecting our values; the clergy, university teachers and those who by vocation and tenure cannot be victimised, should speak up for the speechless. Their silence is deafening.

Entry-level jobs are so scarce, they are bequeathed to worker's children by collusion with employers. Poor people without contacts cannot get a job. Sadly, in the past three decades few workers made it into the middle class. The nouveau riche went from poor to rich in one jump (even the taxman can't fathom it). They live in the right areas, but as they did not progress via the social conduit and don't have the values. They are visible, loud, gaudy, have more money than sense, no work ethic or community spirit. They can donate more; their chariots are bigger; their children are walking brands with the latest gadgets; but they don't write, are not missed at civic meetings and do not drive a social change agenda. They are tolerated; what they think is respect, is fear.

The social circulation system is broken and social exclusion is growing. As legitimate expectations flounder, drugs, the antisocial and the criminal take their place. I spoke to some students at Jose Marti and found that their "get out of jail free" card was to cut a tune like Beenie Man and get rich; school was an obstacle, not an opportunity. To get our social mobility pipeline flowing again we must fix the broken education; the decline of ethics, values, aspiration and desire. Fix the postcode lottery which stigmatises the poor. If your postcode is not Kingston 6 or 8, "dog nyam yu suppa" for good schools and jobs. Next, government's failure to plan and regulate housing. We started in Jones Town; money and family grew so we moved above Torrington Bridge, then above Cross Roads and finally into peri-urbia. Our planners have no progressive housing model; there is no "starter home" - the one bedroom for the person or young couple - new workers. If you start across the causeway, when money or family grows, instead of selling up to a young couple and buying a bigger house, you keep adding blocks and steel until this modern, prized seaside town becomes a slum. Last, we are taught to work, not to make a job; new jobs are few, yet we reward existing jobs - teachers, nurses and security forces etc and ignore new entrants. We must reopen the conduits of social mobility, otherwise the seething magma in the bowels of our nation will erupt and destroy the dollyhouse. More anon!

Happy New Year to all!

I won't make any promises about blogging more, but I have become interested more in writing. What I need now is motivation and muses...

I randomly wrote this dialogue just to see what would happen, this is where I stopped. Would you be interested in learning more of the story?

“What do you think?”
“I think he’s wrong. I don’t believe that Martin would actually kill someone, y’know?”
“You never know…some people can and will surprise you. Martin always seemed kind of weird to me.”
“Weird? How?”
“Remember the time in 5th form when we found that baby’s skeleton in that abandoned house behind school?”
“how can I forget. What about it?”
“When we were walking away, I saw Martin hanging around a bit longer, gazing at the skeleton with a strange look…almost as if he were longing to touch it, or wondering what it felt like to leave the baby there…”
“Naw, that’s crazy man. You’re just reading your own feelings into the situation. I know you never liked Martin from he first came to our class, how would you know what he was wondering?”
“Yeah, well maybe I was right to not like him. You didn’t see that look on his face, and I hoped I’d never see it again.”

Yes, i've been offline a while...no excuses. A lot has been happening in my life, but right now I'm pretty cool. This post is to put up a very small sample of pictures of my recent trip to Japan, which was 7 kinds of awesome :)

I'm still alive...

and I still have thoughts to give. I'll give 'em soon...

it's been a busy year thus far, I'll tell you that.

gas prices a kill

I got these in a forwarded email, and...well, I laugh so that I won't cry :D


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Competent Communicator Geoff Marshall, whoo hoo!!

Finally!

After long last, I've accomplished my CC Award from Toastmasters International. 10 speeches from the Basic Manual, and I can finally call myself CC Geoff Marshall. No more ordinary "TM" for me, hehehe. I will kinda miss it though...Thanks be to God for His inspiration when I did that speech. Too bad the devil had to do his thing later that night by making my car break down...cho!

Anyways, onwards to the new manuals! I'm going to do "The Entertaining Speaker" and "The Professional Speaker" for the first manuals, and tackle my CL manual as well for the next year.

My number 10 speech is presented below.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Before God and All mankind.
I pledge the love and loyalty of my heart
The wisdom and courage of my mind,
The strength and vigour of my body
in the service of my fellow citizens.

I promise to stand up for justice,
Brotherhood and Peace, to work diligently and creatively,
To think generously and honestly, so that,
Jamaica may, under God, increase in beauty, fellowship
and prosperity, and play her part in advancing the welfare
of the whole human race.

Before comrade or showa, there was Jamaica. Before Trafigura or Tivoli, there were the Blue Mountains and Dunns River. Before the scourge of drugs and guns, there was still Lover's Leap and Fern Gully.. Before the English, before the Spanish, even before the Tainos, this green and fertile island existed, lying in wait for those who would be blessed to inhabit it.

Blessed? Yes, blessed. When last did you feel blessed to live in Jamaica?

Living in Jamaica is not for the faint of heart, and we must be realistic about the challenges that face us. Crime, corruption and social disorder are the main themes of the day. We as Jamaicans have begun to EXPECT corruption from our officials, and we have become quite numb to the situation; we may talk much about it when exposed, but not do much about it. A corrupt society cannot progress. Social order is more like social DISORDER. Standards are down, slackness is up. Children are fighting teachers, leaving school illiterate, it seems common decency has become uncommon. We are fed a steady diet of negative commentary and it seems that if we have not yet hit rock bottom, we are almost there. What can we do?

I know what we can do. We need to take our attentions from ourselves, and focus on a greater good.

I pledge my heart forever
To serve with humble pride
This shining homeland, ever
So long as earth abide.

I pledge my heart, this island
As God and faith shall live
My work, my strength, my love and
My loyalty to give.

O green isle of the Indies,
Jamaica, strong and free,
Our vows and loyal promises
O heartland, 'tis to Thee.

I spent 8 years in the USA, from August 1998 to February 2006. I used to think that I'd work about 4 or 5 years there and then I'd consider coming back home with some money and work experience. Maybe I was saying that to salve my conscience, maybe I knew deep down that I wouldn't really return to stay if I had any say in the matter. Did I really want to be a part of the 2.5 million-strong Jamaican diaspora? Why would I want to go back home where all these problems abounded, where money was in short supply?

I left grad school in May 2005 and moved from New Mexico to California to begin a new job and start the process of getting my "green card". The job was a job, I wasn't PASSIONATE about it but it was something I could do and it paid decently. I decided to just watch the ride and see how life would turn out after I got some work experience and funds from this American job. Six weeks after I started working, I was fired from the job, and that's when the ride really started. Losing that job led me to an 8-month sojourn across the USA and an in-depth experience of living on the edge in the land of plenty. The sojourn culminated in my return to Jamaica in February 2006, and as I prepared to come back to Jamaica I felt humiliated, afraid and ashamed. I felt that I had been unable to "cut it" in the USA and that I would be returning to a life less than what I had expected for myself in the USA.

Coming back home to Jamaica was the best thing that ever happened to me. I came back home and just slotted into everything as if I had never left. I came back home to a job where I felt I could make a difference and where my skills were utilized. I came back home to my family and a society where I could be myself, as opposed to projecting fake sincerity and fake productivity. If I had not returned home, I would probably be stressed out in a job I was enduring for the money, I would probably be in more debt, and I would definitely have suffered in my spiritual life. Coming back home showed me that to be in Jamaica CAN be a blessing, and that there is hope for our country.

Crime, social disorder, politics, all these things taken into account, it is still a blessing to live in Jamaica. The audacity of hope still exists in this nation, as seen in our national pledge and national songs. The hope and vision that was so abundant at our nation's birth has not died, it has just been covered with despair and self-focus! We have taken our eyes from our country's upliftment and focused it on our own upliftment at the expense of Jamaica and our fellow man. "The difference between a helping hand and an outstretched palm is a twist of the wrist."

We are blessed to be a part of the nation that produced Sam Sharpe, Marcus Garvey, Norman Manley, Alexander Bustamante, Bob Marley, Louise Bennett and many other great human beings. Who here has not felt pride at the accomplishments of Merlene Ottey, Asafa Powell and Dion Hemmings? Who here still vividly remembers the Reggae Boyz as they played in France, and how they captured the hearts of the entire world?

We are blessed to live in a nation where our drinking water is not (yet) contaminated with chemicals, pharmaceuticals and other contaminants. People come from all over the world to enjoy our beaches and rivers, and we have ready access to them all the time!

We are blessed to have a rich heritage that inspires us. Even though our ancestors suffered many hardships, they perservered and instilled in our nation the fierce pride of being Jamaican. We are blessed to not be as wracked with racial conflict as other nations are.

We are blessed to be able to go to Dunns River Falls whenever we choose, to hike the Blue Mountains, to visit Lovers Leap, to see the sun set at Negril Point. My job takes me around the island, and every time I go out, I am filled with hope and reminded that I live in a beautiful country.

It is easy to criticize, and we must criticize when we see injustice and inequality. Yet, talk is cheap, and if we just complain without doing our part, what benefit is that? If we do not make the change, who will? If we do not care, who will? If we do not extend a helping hand and work for the betterment of our nation, who will do so? When we are able to put aside politics and getting ahead at others expenses, then our nation will rise to the greatness we are capable of. When we realize that WE are the government and those in power serve at OUR command, then we will elect our leaders based on their performance and not based on their handouts. When we realize that our children are our future and that all of us need to be involved in their education and upbringing, then we will see more productivity from them and less pornography. When we become less like crabs in a barrel and more like bees in a hive, then Jamaica will be vibrant and strong once again! We must realize that even though our nation will sink as far as we let it sink, the flip side is that it will rise as far as we are willing to take it. As Phillip Sherlock so aptly wrote:

Jamaica land of beauty, We promise faithfully
To serve thee with our talents and bring our gifts to thee
Jamaica we will always in honour of thy name
Work steadfastly and wisely and never bring thee shame

From riverside to mountain from cane-field to the sea
Our hearts salute Jamaica Triumphant, proud and free.

Life is good, even if you sometimes feel it ain't...

It's been a while since I posted, and I've been doing and experiencing a lot of things. I have a lot to do this month at work and church, as well as for next month...

Anyone been watching "The Wire"? Hurry up and catch it before it finishes forever, it's only the best TV show ever made. RIP Omar...

more lata, i suppose.

South Africa Pics!

Finally, Pics of South Africa. The car was actually at Heathrow Airport :D wish I could have won it...

St. Kitts photos

Various pictures from St. Kitts and Nevis, circa October 2007.