i live in Jamaica and u don't

[Tuff Gong]

Re: i live in Jamaica and u don't

Diaspora wants to vote
published: Sunday | April 16, 2006

THE EDITOR, Sir:

AS ELECTION fever is in the air, the diaspora sits on the side waiting for its turn to have a direct voice in the system. Last week in Italy, the Italian diaspora's voice was heard.

Renato Turano, a baker in the tri-state region of the United States, was elected to Parliament to represent Italians in North and Central America, while Salvatore Ferrigio from Philadelphia and Gino Bucchino from Vancouver, Canada, were elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

The world is changing as globalism redefines borders. Countries, such as Israel, U.S. Italy, even Iraq, are giving their citizens in the diasporas the right to vote in home elections via a representative in their Parliament.

Are we going to sit by and watch as others move ahead in their political evolution? It is time for the diaspora to raise its voice and be heard on the key issues that affect the country.

I want my constitutional right to vote, and I am sure that a large portion of the diaspora have been silently saying it.

But alas! I must concede that the Government will not give us these rights that are written in our constitution because of the fear that we the diaspora can swing an election, as is currently the situation in Italy.

I am, etc.,

CAROL MANLEY LAWTON Jr.

[email protected]

teaneck, New Jersey

[Tuff Gong]

Re: i live in Jamaica and u don't

Emigrés with water guns
published: Sunday | April 16, 2006

Dawn Ritch, Contributor

TWO REVEREND gentlemen, Jamaican exiles overseas, it seems, have written to the editor chastising me for saying overseas Jamaicans should keep themselves quiet.

Rev. Dr. Ralston Nembhard can barely whisper the word 'remittances' in his letter, as though I should be in thrall because émigrés support their families in Jamaica. Maybe their families have to do as they say, but I certainly don't, and there's nothing 'mean-spirited' or 'facetious' about that. I am also singularly unimpressed by the fact that overseas Jamaicans have mastered email and insist upon abusing it.

Some letters ought not to be written and, if so, ought not to be sent. Donkey, bicycle and airplanes are infinitely better ways of carrying a message, because the sender has a chance to give things a second thought. Now they just press a button and spray the world with their opinions. They have all the impact of a water gun. One is amused to see it done at all, but too much of it is annoying.

NO SUCH RIGHT

Rev. Stoddart boldly and wrongly asserts in his letter that overseas Jamaicans "not only have the right to comment on our nation's affairs, but also to vote in our nation's affairs." They have no such right, not to vote anyway, and that rather invalidates their opinions.

None of them can vote in our elections unless they are registered here, and the enumerators found them living at their Jamaican place of abode. This seems perfectly fair to me, because any other circumstance would be to reduce the resident Jamaican population to a form of disenfranchisement where only the votes of propertied gentlemen are valid.

There are more of them out there in the diaspora than there are of us in this vale of tears. If they voted, Jamaica would become even more of a nonsense than it already is.

Overseas Jamaicans believe that reading Jamaican newspapers and listening to our radio call-in shows streamed over the Internet give them an informed view of the island.

Chief among them is Sir Bill Morris, Jamaican-born former general secretary of Britain's Transport and General Workers Union. He recently told the Jamaica U.K. Diaspora conference in Birmingham that Jamaica's politicians are damaging the country's international image through the unending labelling of each other as corrupt.

He said: "We have to think and speak up for our country. As (interested) diaspora, it means all of us become custodians of our country's image and it is not enough just to be in charge but we have to take personal responsibilities."

NONE IN CHARGE

Well, none of them is in charge, regardless of what they think, including him. Simply because the value of remittance exceeds our annual earnings from tourism or bauxite, does not place them in charge of us, nor make us their prostitute no matter how many opinions, or how much money they have.

Most of them don't even own a home in Jamaica much less bother to come here any more. And when they do, a public scolding and a failing grade are never far behind.

We have no tradition of listening to Jamaicans over-seas.

Our tradition is to go overseas and make others listen to us. And then repeat what we tell them. The exercise in which this lot is engaged is like tilting at windmills. The overseas Jamaican will always remain a slight figure of fun to us.

Now their ludicrous opinions under guise of remittance responsibility is sure to confirm it.

Sir Bill, soon to take the ermine in the House of Lords, needs to accept that politicians accuse each other of corruption because it's true.

There is abundant evidence in Jamaica to that effect. Since he seems to believe it untrue, I'm delighted it's impossible for him to take "personal responsibilities" in the matter from way over there.

Sir Bill suggested Jamaica's problems were due more to a failure by individuals to follow due process than a result of corruption.

This man clearly has forgotten about 'tief'. This is a country in which the only 'due process' such a person can expect, or even hope for, is in a court of law. Any other 'due process' is a legal fiction people use, usually in committees, to conceal the ugly truth. So we know a lot about those too.

Sir Bill spoke about "the process of patronage" as being at the root of our evils. Yet he finds in this no corruption. He doesn't surprise me in the least bit.

In the year 2000, he was a member of the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords. This is the hereditary House of peers who are unelected and have a legal oversight on what the government does. Most recently, it stopped legislation that would have infringed upon and curtailed the rights of the British people.

Nevertheless, instead of being hereditary, the commission recommended that the House of Lords should be elected or selected. British Prime Minister Lloyd George in the 19th century, was the first to win an election by promising to launch an assault upon the Lords and hereditary privilege. Once in office he created more peers to award his cronies than all other British prime ministers before him combined.

CASH-FOR-HONOURS SCANDAL

Tony Blair, the current Labour Prime Minister, also made reform of the lords one of his campaign promises. By the end of his second term, not only had he thrown out most of the hereditary lords, but he had packed it full of his own cronies. He has made more peers even than Lloyd George.

Now Blair is embroiled in a bitter cash-for-honours scandal. It seems the British Prime Minister has been ennobling at a rapid rate the donors of secret multimillions to his own political party.

Eventually the commission responsible for reviewing the list has had to go public on the names they were refusing. Some may be innocently embarrassed, but others were a dodgy lot.

This is why Sir Bill's name appears "on a denuded list of appointees compiled by the Labour Party." His reforms have effectively ensured that only a union man with no cash could ever be selected to sit in the House of Lords. Anything else would be, and is, a scandal.

REFUSING ENNOBLEMENT

According to the Voice News, Sir Bill "would have liked the title of Lord Morris of Manchester to symbolise the parish of his birth. Other suitable titles like Hanover and Portland have also been used." It seems to me that he forgets that these were the names of historical figures, and that is why they were, as he says "used." He arrives rather late in the game.

What's more, British citizens have been refusing ennoblement because it's become such a public scandal. In light of Sir Bill's own intellectual contribution to this sad state of affairs, it shows rather poor judgment on his part to have accepted a peerage at this time.

In this, he's like every other Jamaican, whether here or overseas. There is no appointment we would refuse, no honour, no matter how tarnished, we would not accept.

[JM1]

Re: i live in Jamaica and u don't

"We have no tradition of listening to Jamaicans over-seas."

Unless, of course, your name is Michael Lee-Chin.

[RichD]

Re: i live in Jamaica and u don't

[ QUOTE ]
"We have no tradition of listening to Jamaicans over-seas."

Unless, of course, your name is Michael Lee-Chin.

[/ QUOTE ]

dem nah listen to him...when him come down deh wid him mney dem pretend to pay attention..as him gone dem figet him

wonda if him deh pan di voters list

[JM1]

Re: i live in Jamaica and u don't

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
"We have no tradition of listening to Jamaicans over-seas."

Unless, of course, your name is Michael Lee-Chin.

[/ QUOTE ]

dem nah listen to him...when him come down deh wid him mney dem pretend to pay attention..as him gone dem figet him


[/ QUOTE ]

Doubt that. Money talks, b.s...
Plus, tuh much licky licky..

[Q3210]

Re: i live in Jamaica and u don't

What interest, what right is there for those who do not reside in Jamaica to vote?
The outcome of elections, the party elected to form a new govt. in Jamaica has no bearing on the lives you live in the host country you now occupy, does it?
According to the set up, which constituency will you vote in and which MP would you be selecting to rep you in parliament?
The process of elections would have to be radically changed to facilitate your participation in local and general elections.
If serious, that is where you will have to suggest change and not just wish lip service.