Dynamic media supporting better leadership

by Jean Lowrie-Chin | Observer Column | MON 23 September 2013

As we look back on the past week’s events, we cannot be too grateful that Jamaica has a free press.  This has come at great price for those veterans who were subjected to death threats when they were less in number and thus easily singled out by those terrible thugs.  From a mere five media houses, Jamaica now boasts nearly 20 radio stations, about eight television stations including the free-to-air CVM and TVJ, and three dailies.  In addition to traditional media we have about 600,000 folks on Facebook, perhaps about a quarter of that on Twitter, thousands of YouTube postings, hundreds of websites and a couple thousand blogs. 

My dear goodly Jamaicans – through the expansion of traditional media, and the galloping social media, we have outnumbered those horrible, threatening thugs!  Free speech is now triumphant! Anyone who dares to disrespect our right to pronounce our truth or to ask questions of those we pay through our hard-earned taxes, will be humbled.  And so, dear FB friends and Twitter Fam, take a bow for helping former Junior Minister Richard Azan to do the right thing – to resign after the very sobering report from the Office of the Contractor General.

Let our political representatives know that this new, open environment will serve the genuine leader very well.  Since we are all human, we do not expect MPs, councilors and caretakers to be faultless, but we do expect them to be aware and humble enough to know when they are doing wrong, to admit to it, and to resign if the very body appointed by the Parliament, exposes questionable actions.

Although every square inch of Jamaica has two political representatives – MP and Councillor, the country is looking as unkempt as a long term street person, and alas, smelling likewise.  How are we going to manage the piles of garbage, the clogged gullies and drains and the increasingly chaotic cities and towns, if our paid servants are spending more time plotting, bickering and profiling rather than planning, building and producing?  As for the ‘better’ representatives: is the power so sweet, are the perks so enticing, that you will ‘see and blind, hear and deaf’? 

A new wave of brain-drain has been wracking Jamaica, and those of us who have watched this happen repeatedly over so many decades were almost giving up … until we listened to reports of the 50^th anniversary celebration of the historic March on Washington led by Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr on August 28, 1963.  Dr King, an intellectual and a Minister of Religion was repeatedly imprisoned, but refused to become embittered.  He believed that in order to fight evil, one had to purify one’s soul, and so he infused his writings and speeches with righteous challenges. 

In his famous “Letter from a Birmingham jail” written on April 16, 1963 to fellow clergymen who were wary of his tenacity, he said:

“Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”

A few months, later, on that Mall in Washington DC, we saw that God had firmly taken the hand stretched out to him by his co-worker Martin Luther King Jr.  How do we know this? MLK took the podium with a written script, but then the famous gospel singer Mahalia Jackson said, “Tell them about the dream Martin!”  At that point, MLK pushed his script aside, and, obviously filled with the Holy Spirit, proclaimed his Dream:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal’ …. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.” Please read the full script of the speech at http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf. Historians have observed that no one has ever been able to match the level of Dr King’s oratory that descended like a cleansing rain upon the people of all races who had travelled thousands of miles to support the cause. 

Clearly, our clergy must step up as Rev Dr King did, and join hands with our God of justice to halt this rapid slide of our nation into lawlessness, indiscipline and poverty.  Why have they not spoken up on the report from the OCG? Why are they not demanding not only a Tivoli enquiry, but also a garrison enquiry, so that our benighted sisters and brothers will finally be free of the reign of thugs over them?