Romaine Chang – Yaadinfo Contributor
I went to see the movie “Inception” recently, and aside from leaving me completely bewildered, it made me wonder if our elected officials are also caught in a 4-layer dream. Or are we the ones dreaming? Maybe we are all dreaming, but on different levels. Dear Lord! I either need to go sleep or to wake up! I am tired and confused, but apparently I am not the only one.
Most Jamaicans are tired of the scandals and resultant finger-pointing that seem to have overwhelmed us recently. Some of us have gotten lost in the maze of accountability. It would seem though, the time that should be spent addressing the principles at the heart of the scandal is spent nominating and electing scapegoats. How many of those found guilty have done the honourable thing? Honour? What am I talking about? Clearly they don’t know either.
[Editor’s Note: And ironically, they expect us to refer to them as “Most Honourable”]
There are many among us who have always loved to talk and the minute you give them the opportunity, they pull out the dictionaries, jump up and down, and the talking begins…….“Make a difference!”, “We need to foster a paradigmatic approach to solving the nation’s problems!” Blah, blah, blah……yadda, yadda, yadda….yap, yap, yap!
To be perfectly honest I am getting a little tired of the rhetoric!
Now hear me out – I am not, for a second, suggesting that people should not speak out, but I think I’ve had just about enough of the “so-so chatting”. Let’s say you walk by a chair each day and it’s a bit out in the way. Every day you stub your toe on it, and you jump up and down and verbalize the stupidity of it being in the way. You point out how inconvenient it is for you to walk around it, and the fact that the persons who put it there in the first place are nincompoops! Tomorrow comes and you do it all over again. Next week you break your toe and end up spending thousands on X-rays, pain medications and specialist fees.
Why the hell didn’t you just move the chair!
Enter the excuses: “It was too heavy”, “I came and saw it there”, “It didn’t seem to bother anyone else”, “I wasn’t sure I could do it”, “I never had the time”.
The Jamaican Political System is the chair in our way. Many of us have already developed gangrene from the broken toes for which we could not afford to get treatment, and don’t bother get me started on the free health care business. That is another article all by itself.
[Editor’s Note: This is coming from someone IN Jamaica’s health care system folks, she know wha she a chat bout!]
I am tired of hearing the university lecturers, and financial analysts, and all the other analysts who can recite facts and figures and, in their estimation, the solutions to our problems mouthing off and then that’s it! They wait for the next scandal to pop open and then tan ta da daaaa!!! Its Super Analyst! They start picking out their suits to wear to the next interview. What do they really think? The PM and his team are waiting with their note pads for ‘Impact’ to start so they can jot down those valuable pontifications?
Guess again!!
Now I will concede that perhaps some good can come of their talking. The public is likely to get additional information and clarification on various issues. Who knows maybe one day a bright young mind will hear the discussion and become motivated to do something truly great! God I hope so.
In the mean time we have an “ol’ pap dung” chair over here that needs moving! Any volunteers?
