Taino Heritage

Wayne's World. I do not allude to Mike Myers, Danah Carvey and party time (which is all I remember of the movie). Instead, I salute the late Wayne Brown, whose world I glimpsed for years through his column "In Our Time" and the Observer Creative Writing series, and whose world I had the opportunity to survey when I signed up for his poetry workshop.

I remember walking into the open aired den of his house, looking around at the books and art, and stepping down into the inner sactum of Wayne's world. I remember Saturday mornings held captive by a lilting Trinidadian rhythmn and the view of the hills and the Caribbean Sea. We studied Walcott, and I am proud of my ability to have reeled off "Verandah", "Egypt, Tobago", "The Highwayman", and Chapter 15 of "Another Life".

In that den, years of distaste for rigidity gave way to deference for and delight in the revelation of the sheer beauty of form. This once vehement proponet of free verse bowed before the power of well-written meter. I keystroked my first (and only) sonnet, widened my reading list, and dabbled in sestina, villanelle, haiku and rondeau. Wayne's World seemed to be like his bookcases - structured, orderly, slightly meticulous.


He was a severe taskmaster, throwing one leg over the arm of a chair and insisting we memorize Walcott. Opinionated, irrascible, irrevent are words that could be levied at him. He had an austere disinclination toward forced rhyme and 'bad poetry'. In our class, he seemed illiberal with praise. He was Wayne.

I prefaced this post by saying I was saluting. What manner of salute be this, you may wonder. It is perhaps the highest salute I can offer. I bear witness that he was honest. He believed in the power of good writing. The subtleties of life do require of tact and diplomacy indeed, but in choosing to err on the side of truth, he was simply Wayne. He did not seem interested in the hue, pitch or timbre of his point, only that you got his point. In that honesty and that commitment to getting you to look beyond where you presently stood, he got you to realize where you could be standing. By demanding more of you, he forced you to demand more of your ownself. Ask Kei, Sharon, Millicent, Raymond, Nicky and others. This is the honesty that made him the remarkable mentor and teacher to whom Geoffrey Philp's blog refers.

I was saddened to hear of his depature last year and I wish the best for his loved ones who remain. I have joined that community known as the diaspora, and see the need for deliberate activity to include Caribbean writing in the literary diet of the young readers in my house. And whether they wish to become writers or not, thanks to Wayne, I will introduce them to meter and structure and form, and they will have to memorize good Caribbean writing. I bear witness, Wayne.

Professor the Honorable Ralston Milton Nettleford, O.M. has gone the way all men must go. If you were ever blessed with the opportunity to sit in his presence and watch this arguably medium height, clean-shaven man with smooth dark chocolate skin and an impeccable sense for knowing when to go with the Nehru collared suit and when to choose to the dashiki, if you were ever blessed with the opportunity to sit in his presence and listen as the maestro selected one word over another, choosing unlikely companions and weaving them into an artful, symphonic display, a veritable oral and aural tapestry of metaphors, then you comprehend the profound loss to Jamaica.

For me this is not the loss of a choreographer par excellence, or the loss of a Rhodes scholar; this is bigger than losing the first graduate of the University to head the Caribbean region's premier tertiary institution or losing the co-founder of the National Dance Theatre Company. For me, this is the loss of an orator.

I recall the opening night of the inaugural International Conference on Publishing in the Caribbean, a night whose preceeding hours were fraught with stresses such as a near-death experience with a trailer on Mount Rosser on the way to the conference, the extreme time delay due to the circuitous route chosen by the bus driver (hence the Mount Rosser incident), the behind-the-scenes mayhem when we finally arrived as we scrambled to pull the final details together, (including being locked out of my suite by my roommate), and I recall when finally after pulling all the details together and getting halfway through the program without a hitch, (all our dignitaries accounted for, and all the entertainment on time), myself and the two other members of the working staff finally sank our weary behinds into Half Moon's extremely comfortable conference chairs and watched as the guest speaker moved to the podium.

Having chosen the timeless Nehru-collared suit for the occasion, he began to deftly maneuvre nouns and verbs, adjectives and adverbs, choosing bold and unlikely companions, as he inspired us toward a release of our differences and an embrace of those common threads that make us all, whether anglophonic, francophonic, or hispanophonic, Caribbean, West Indian, human.

I can't speak for the others, but for me the mayhem melted away, and the drumroll in my stomach disappeared. I was lost in the symphony of his words and mesmerized by the searing effect on memory by simply selecting one word over another. Whether in patois or in English, his choice of words left you shaking your head in amazement. I feel the loss of an amazing orator.

So the Professor Rex Nettleford has gone on. What does that have to do with the Page? Not the printed page, but the web page. The internet has it uses, and the speed of information which can be received has its merits. Mind you, I have concerns over the transcience of the information and the power to edit and even remove that with which a person does not agree, and in that respect, would choose a book anyday over a website; but nonetheless I appreciate and enjoy the speed with which I can access information.

Try googling Rex Nettleford and you may come across the JIS' website. On February 6th, the webpage's article speaks of this famous Jamaican in the present tense, with no mention of his transition two days earlier. Now understandably in certain economic climates wherein the printed news media are laying off copyeditors and printing even more factual, grammatical and typographical errors as a result, I understand that there may not be enough staff at the JIS to deal with the radio, tv and print media needs, much less to update their webpages in a timely manner, but I cannot help feeling disappointed that a site to whom many may turn for reliable (Jamaican) information has perhaps let down the public.

Of course the Jamaican news media sites are on top of things if you wish to be consoled. But I cannot help but feel that tiny bit of disappointment that the JIS Page let down both the public and the Professor.

The Gleaner reported this week that the divestment of Air Jamaica (or rather the lack thereof) has been the sticking point in negotiations between the Government of Jamaica and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The heart of the delay in divesting Air Jamaica I suspect is found in this quote from the Minister of Tourism:

A JIS release cited the tourism minister while he addressed a community meeting, shortly after attending the World Travel Market in the British city.

"We are working now to see if we can get partnerships to share in the cost of operating Air Jamaica. We have had some discussions but I think that those discussions have not quite materialised, so I think Air Jamaica is back on the market. We are still seeking to find a partner. We are not interested in selling off Air Jamaica in full. Jamaica will always maintain a significant interest in Air Jamaica but we need partnerships to keep the airline alive," he told the gathering.

Mr. Minister it is time to sell Air Jamaica in full. Too late for 'partnerships;' no more holding 30% ownership stake, no more insisting that the Air Jamaica name be kept; no more national airline. It's over. We had a great run having a national airline, but now its time to let go.

...the out of control Tourism Enhancement Fund:

THE JAMAICAN Government could be called on to pay more than J$133 million to American Airlines as part of a revenue-guarantee airlift agreement signed last November.

American Airlines inked the deal with Jamaican authorities to service the Miami, Dallas and Chicago routes to Montego Bay.

As part of the accord, the United States carrier would transport thousands of passengers to Jamaica.

However, there was a decline in bookings and the airline recorded a shortfall of US$1.5 million up to July 31 this year.

This was confirmed by Lionel Reid, executive director of Jamaica Vacations Limited (JAMVAC), at a meeting of Parliament's Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) on Wednesday.

"It can be called (on)," he told committee members. The Tourism En-hancement Fund had provided letters of credit to secure the agreement with the US carrier on behalf of JAMVAC. The total guarantee was set at US$3 million.

A document provided by the Ministry of Tourism highlighted a deficit of over US$1 million (more than J$94 million) for the Dallas operation while the financial out-turn for Miami showed a loss of just over US$570,000 (approximately J$51 million).

However, the airline had a surplus of US$181,107 (J$16.1 million) for its Chicago operation.

Who didn't see this coming.

I'm a big sports fan, always have been. So you can imagine that I was in heaven this summer when our sprinters and hurdlers dominated the World Athletic Championships. For those of us that keep close tabs on the news, it was great to have something positive and uplifting related to our homeland to focus on.

Whenever our athletes excel there is talk of taking advantage of the positive press to boost tourism. Undoubtedly, good press is better than bad press and might bring Jamaica to the consciousness of people who might have been thinking about a vacation. I think using sports as a way of attracting tourists has its limitations:

• The vast majority of Jamaican tourists come from North America. Jamaicans play sports that North Americans don't really care much about.
  
• The real big money to be made in sports come from television broadcast revenue and not so much from attendance at events.
  
• The best opportunity Jamaica has had at sports tourism was the 2007 Cricket World Cup. That was an unmitigated financial disaster which is still being paid for.

To the extent that sports helps to diversify the tourism product I am all for it. But don't expect it to be a magic elixir. Our athletes have done us proud and we should strengthen our sporting infrastructure to continue to support their success. Success we can enjoy together and be proud of.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding recently admitted that his administration had been tardy in forwarding its legislative agenda. He them promised:

"You are going to see a much more active legislation session up to Christmas, and then up to the end of the fiscal year ... . Part of our challenge is going to be able to sustain the level of participation in Parliament,"

So with this welcomed renewed focus, we now learn that first up on the legislative agenda is a bill to introduce Casino gambling to Jamaica. Really? Off all the things that were promised but not delivered, casino gambling tops the list? How about the 'framework for good governance'? Streamlining the public sector? Creating a mega-investment agency? Creating a business friendly environment? How about addressing Jamaica's role/status regarding CARICOM? Casino gambling? Oh well...

See CaPRI's analysis of the government's performance in relation to its manifesto in 2007 here.

So I've actually been thinking about my own reaction to the news of the Jamaican government reentering a borrowing relationship with IMF and just haven't had the time to put it together. Then I read this Gleaner Op-Ed piece by Joseph Matalon saying pretty much most of what I wanted to say... and saying it much better than I probably could.

Its deserving of extensive quotion:

It has become trite commentary to say that Jamaica's economy is at a crossroads. The truth is that we have passed through a series of crossroads along the road to our current circumstances, each of which has presented certain choices in terms of policy direction; choices that we, as a people, have made.

We made a choice to perpetuate the underlying disequilibrium in our current account balances, to the extent that building foreign-exchange earnings and promoting export led growth became unfashionable notions; facilitated by the growth in remittances and foreign-direct investment

that served only to mask our chronic underlying underperformance;

During the unprecedented international credit boom, in which the current global financial crisis has its roots, we made the choice to avoid those hard policy decisions necessary to curb our chronic fiscal deficits, facilitated by easy access to the international capital markets;

We made the choice to eschew comprehensive tax reform in favour of ad-hoc policy tinkering and uneven enforcement practices;

We have repeatedly made the choice to prefer cheap, very often heavily subsidised, imported food stuffs to the more difficult course of preserving and building upon our agricultural and manufacturing bases by pursuing economic policies designed to enhance the productivity and competitiveness of our local productive sectors.

The consequences of these choices, exacerbated by the effects of the current global economic downturn, now stand in stark relief for us all to see. But, make no mistake; long before the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, the cumulative effect of these past policy choices have been propelling us inexorably towards our very own home-grown economic crisis.

If you want to read any of these articles I've highlighted about the IMF and Jamaica, let this be the one.

Al Edwards sites a number of recent examples of IMF programs around the World. Turns out they don't eat your young anymore!

Dennis Chung writes the most nuanced article I've seen so far on the topic of the IMF and the way forward for Jamaica. Kinda wonky but I recommend it. Here's a quote:

So while we fall at the feet of the IMF, let us remember that it is nothing more than a bank intent on being repaid, and just like a bridging loan for personal use, is no cure for a relative shortage of income. If we do not implement the necessary policies to transition during the period of IMF support we will only end up with more debt and the same problems.