R u offended?....at what r why not, depending on ur take?

[andronian2]

Re: R u offended?....at what r why not, depending on ur take?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
this 'sir' trevor guy is firmly indoctrinated in that old mentality that the caribbean would be better off under british rule
</div></div>

Jah yout, you hit the nail on the head.
This seems to be the strong implication.

See Bahamas and Barbados how they are peaceful and prosperous with all these nice rich white people obtaining prime land in a neo-colonial manner!
See Jamaica, with all this directionless ex-slaves running around getting in trouble; why don't they just go work on a coffee plantation?
Maybe I'm too perceptive but from what I've understood of the broadcast at least a part of it is a propaganda piece for the superiority of white European influence in the Caribbean.
To this end Barbados/Bahamas are your typical colonies where whites (Williams/Branson) own the land (not a single black face in the Barbados episode, I've read) while Jamaica is an example of the folly of free blacks.
Even if the viewer cannot articulate what they get from this juxtaposition I feel that this is the subconscious impression they will be left with and it might very well be the intended message.

[mountaingal]

Re: R u offended?....at what r why not, depending on ur take?

dang, now i want to see them videos.

[andronian2]

Re: R u offended?....at what r why not, depending on ur take?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
No you have given a very comprehensive answer and I can't fault it.
I would urge you though to look deeper 99% of all the books, film and other publication about Jamaica I have ever seen paint it as an idyllic paradise, even as they acknowledge poverty, urban slums, income disparity, violence in certain areas and high migration rate.
In fact one National Geographic article I have somewhere mentioned the high migration out of Jamaica set against the background of paradise.

If we are getting more negative press now, we must ask ourselves is it that the journalist have turned on us or have we regressed to the point where it has become noticeable?
My guess is the changing attitude towards Jamaica and the unwillingness of others to overlook or gloss over our problems has to do with our increasingly high crime rates, lower expectations of advancement and high migration rate.
</div></div>

Yes, I think those are fair.
Jamaica does have problems and if a documentary sees fit to cover those in the proper context I can't complain.

However, our islands were broken societies to begin with.
They got their starts in genocide, slavery and economic exploitation initiated by the now august and fit to judge Europeans who also almost blew up the world twice.
While we cannot be absolved of all responsibility for our problems there are mitigating factors in play.
Thus, I still think the Brits are the least justified in criticizing our state with a certain self-righteous contempt since if the 300 (!) long years of their rule had been in our interest we would have found it difficult to undo in 47.

[evanovitch]

Re: R u offended?....at what r why not, depending on ur take?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Thus, I still think the Brits are the least justified in criticizing our state with a certain self-righteous contempt since if the 300 (!) years of their rule had been in our interest we would have found it difficult to undo in 47</div></div>

wich begs the ?...given dat most Independence era fighters either sojurned in Britain in exile r were educated and socialised in Britain and went home to fight di good fight fi Independence from Britain, how free of British thinking and sensibilities were they really, and did they have any real ideas of independence from Britain r juss independence from dere direct rule

[andronian2]

Re: R u offended?....at what r why not, depending on ur take?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: evanovitch</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Thus, I still think the Brits are the least justified in criticizing our state with a certain self-righteous contempt since if the 300 (!) years of their rule had been in our interest we would have found it difficult to undo in 47</div></div>

wich begs the ?...given dat most Independence era fighters either sojurned in Britain in exile r were educated and socialised in Britain and went home to fight di good fight fi Independence from Britain, how free of British thinking and sensibilities were they really, and did they have any real ideas of independence from Britain r juss independence from dere direct rule </div></div>

Interesting question indeed.
Maybe some wanted to maintain the status quo of British rule just with themselves sitting in the high seat instead.
After all, queen is still head of state and we have all the trappings and honorifics and wigs...lol

[evanovitch]

Re: R u offended?....at what r why not, depending on ur take?

u know Malcolm always said one of his points of departure wid MLK was the notion of having those who kept u out, now dictate how u will be entertained, fi entry....

sort of like wid dem Independence fighters....reading a lot of the literature that 'sprang' up during that time, gives insight into wat was really wat....

[evanovitch]

&quot;Stella&quot; chimes een wid fi har say

WHEN SIR TREVOR MCDONALD, intrepid broadcaster of Independent Television of the United Kingdom, set out on a fact-finding mission to the far-flung Caribbean, he had one problem... the island of Jamaica. The Bahamas was afloat with lots of the rich and famous.
Trinidad (his place of birth), was swimming in oil (no trans-fat). Barbados was a delightful reminder of &quot;oh to be in England&quot;, but that Jamaica, goodness, gracious me!

SIR TREVOR... not the first British journalist to gain fame with a hatchet job on this country
In his own words, Sir Trevor reveals that he approached the place with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. This attack of &quot;anti-trepidity&quot; began from his arrival &quot;at the Kingston airport&quot; to quote him and apparently followed him, like a bad outbreak of Montezuma's Revenge right through his visit. This included a visit to a penal institution, a place of detention to which he seemed inexorably drawn, impelled no doubt by the fact that some of his fellow Brits like to indulge in a spot of drugs when they come to visit these shores, thus ending up testing the hospitality in a lodging place not advertised in tourist brochures.
Whatever he saw in the course of his travels here, confirmed the dreaded trepidation. After scouting around, he shook the dust of this benighted former colony from off his feet and went home to educate fellow natives on the perfidy and treachery and poverty and other &quot;ities&quot; that lurk in Jamaica. When his exposé made its way to the TV screens of the people of his beloved Britain, outrage was expressed by Jamaicans who have laid claim to the Motherland but still feel bound to Back a Yard, and why not? The way things are here now, they could come and compete if they wish in a &quot;buy-election&quot; (an important new designation coined by the immortal Lloyd B Governor Smith of Montego Bay).
Our knight Trevor could hardly be accused of being a stranger to the Caribbean. After all, he saw the light of day in the Twin State of Trinidad and Tobago.
Having made his way, like countless other former colonials, into Mother England's embrace, he proceeded to bring fame to the Caribbean by gaining a knighthood, no less. As a man of such elevation, we can understand why he was impelled to share with fellow Brits his mixed emotions of anticipation and trepidation.
Like others before him, he made the usual judgements... all that poverty (there's none in Trinidad?) drugs (none in Barbados?) and assorted anti-social behaviour (none in The Bahamas and other places where he made landfall, except Jamaica of course?)
It would be enlightening to know what is Sir Trevor's response now to the vehement reaction of the Jamaican Brits who have been &quot;most wrought-ed&quot; and have taken to dispatching vehement electronic messages to the Jamaican media, expressing their outrage at Sir Trev's lack of respect for this land we love.
Our High Commission in London has expressed its disfavour at how our nation's image has been tarnished yet again. The Tourist Board is not amused either. Already one can hear the horses of public relations being saddled to ride forth into Sir Trev's territory, to defend our precious tourist trade from the slings and arrows of trepidatious smearing of our holiday trade. We already have that iniquitous ticket tax business to deal with.
Sir Trev-aw of Britain via Trinidad, is not the first British journalist to gain fame with a hatchet job on this country. It has become de rigueur to unmask Jamaica's dark side. It goes with the territory, but what can we do to make them stop &quot;tekking liberty wid we&quot;? We should know the answer by now, don't you think? Could it be that they're reading the headlines we create every day?
WHO'S HAPPY NOW? A curious item made the news this week. It said that our Jamaica has been voted third in the Top Ten of 143 countries adjudged to be the happiest places in the world. Huh? That was the reaction of almost everybody within hearing range. Happy 'bout what? The next big question was how was this happiness measured and by whom?
The happiness survey is said to have been conducted by an independent research group in Britain which bases its assessment on a &quot;Happy Planet Index&quot;. This seeks to find countries with the most contented people.
(Hear that JTB? How's that for bragging rights?)
The happiest country, according to the Index reckoning, is Costa Rica, extolled for &quot;its lush rain forests and pristine beaches&quot;. It also helps that its President Oscar Arias Sanchez won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for trying to end civil wars in Central America. Now there is something to be happy about...
In second place comes the Dominican Republic followed by... ta-daa! Jamaica, then Guatemala and Vietnam. In the latter, anyone would be bound to be happy after surviving endless war. The report also says that most developed nations lagged in happiness. Britain was rated 74, the US came in at 114. Critical to the &quot;happy&quot; profile is each country's &quot;ecological footprint&quot;. Did you know we have one?
The ecological rating surprises me. It's become such a habit for environmentalists to tell us what a lousy job we're doing taking care of our &quot;green treasures&quot; that the last thing I'd have expected is to get a positive rating from anybody. It would be really helpful if we could get detailed results of the Happiness Survey so that we can understand more clearly just what Jamaica did (or did not do) to earn this unexpected approval.
Meanwhile, all the usual suspects - the grouches and the grinches, those who've lost faith and those who never had it, are almost offended at the thought that happiness could possibly be here. How? With no money, no work, nuff corruption and plenty wickedness... happy? Who? It is a real surprise to hear that with all the troubles, there actually ARE people here who are happy enough to impress others.
MICHAEL IN JAMAICA: Exactly when did Michael Jackson visit Jamaica?
Newspaper archives accessed through the National Library, Kingston, record that it was in March 1975 that the Jackson family made the trip here for the performance of their talented boys at the National Stadium. Although the Five were the headliners, in a show involving other artistes, they were put on early in the concert in order to keep bedtime deadlines.
This didn't please everyone. The Five did well, but the real impact was made by Bob Marley and the Wailers and Third World among others who ruled the stage from the late hours of Saturday night into Sunday morning. The fans paid all of $10 to sit in the bleachers!
The Jackson Five, still new to the world then and not yet the show-stopping celebrities they would become, went around Kingston with little formality, playing basketball with some Kingston College boys, being honoured at a ball at the Sheraton Hotel (now the Hilton Kingston) and visiting the home of Edward Seaga who kept an aviary of birds which fascinated Michael.
WHY THE SILENCE? Questions are being raised about the incident in which a group of uptown teenage males, in a testosterone-inspired dispute over &quot;who diss &quot; a girl at a Bembe session (Thursday night on Constant Spring Road) sent for &quot;back-up&quot; in the form of thugs with connections.
Reports are that three young men got &quot;machete chop&quot; from the back-up enforcers resulting in hospitalisation and intense anguish for the father of two youths and uncle to the third boy. People are saying if it was downtown boys who were in such a brawl it would get headlines. It is believed that because one of the protagonists (who sent for the reinforcement) is related to someone in the higher echelons of power, silence reigns.
[email protected]

[Tuff Gong]

Re: &quot;Stella&quot; chimes een wid fi har say

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: evanovitch</div><div class="ubbcode-body">SIR TREVOR... not the first British journalist to gain fame with a hatchet job on this country................WHY THE SILENCE? Questions are being raised about the incident in which a group of uptown teenage males, in a testosterone-inspired dispute over &quot;who diss &quot; a girl at a Bembe session (Thursday night on Constant Spring Road) sent for &quot;back-up&quot; in the form of thugs with connections.
Reports are that three young men got &quot;machete chop&quot; from the back-up enforcers resulting in hospitalisation and intense anguish for the father of two youths and uncle to the third boy. People are saying if it was downtown boys who were in such a brawl it would get headlines. It is believed that because one of the protagonists (who sent for the reinforcement) is related to someone in the higher echelons of power, silence reigns.
[email protected]
</div></div>

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'">LOL </span>this is a woman who have zero creditability who sat on her fat a*zz shilling for the corrupt Government for years and when members of the Diaspora and others would occasionally make a comment she would published snide remarks about her cousin in the Diaspora.

Now she is going to take Sir McDonald to task but observe the act of barbarity she slipped into her piece at the end. For all we know it maybe be total gossip designed to make Jamaica look like a barbaric hellhole at worst and at best. a place where a night out can end in blood and confusion if you past your place and diss the wrong patrons.

[uswe]

Re: &quot;Stella&quot; chimes een wid fi har say

Has anyone actually seen the programme?

[julie*mango]

Re: &quot;Stella&quot; chimes een wid fi har say

I disdain your reference to Miss B in that manner

[Blackstar*]

Re: R u offended?....at what r why not, depending on ur take?

Good discussion, peeps.

[Yvonne N.]

Re: R u offended?....at what r why not, depending on ur take?

<span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-style: italic">An aside: the sections in bold apply to Jamaica and other nations in the region also.</span> </span>


<span style="font-style: italic">Why I love my country...Costa Rica</span>
<span style="font-size: 8pt"> Simon Briscoe in London</span>

Costa Rica, the country of fewer than 5m people sandwiched between Panama and Nicaragua, tops a new global ranking for combining a happy and long life with limited environmental degradation.

The country blends beautiful countryside, a great diversity of species and has long since got rid of its army. The merger of its energy and environment ministries has reversed deforestation and helped it produce 99 per cent of its energy from renewable sources. It has also scored highly, relative to other developing countries, in surveys of poverty, press freedom and democracy.

The Happy Planet Index, “Why good lives don’t have to cost the earth”, published on Saturday by the UK-based new economics foundation, combines measures of life expectancy, happiness and ecological footprint to assess the sustainability of growth in 143 countries.

That the top 10 in the list of “greenest and happiest” nations is dominated by Latin America might raise a few eyebrows, as the region is better known in the western imagination for its slums, inequality and coups. Zimbabwe languishes at the bottom along with a dozen other south, east and central African countries.

<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="font-weight: bold">But the Latin Americans score highly, the report suggests, due to non-material aspirations and strong social capital among friends and relatives. The grim performance of the developed world might also prompt some westerners to cast doubt over the value of the report.</span></span> Among the rich nations, the highest placed country is the Netherlands – but it manages only 43rd.

The UK languishes midway down the table – 74th, behind Germany, Italy and France but ahead of Japan and Ireland. The US fares particularly poorly, in 114th place. The western countries have long life expectancy and people are reasonably happy, but the countries suffer in the rankings due to their ecological footprint, reflecting high levels of consumption.

<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="font-weight: bold">The challenge for the west, the report says, is not to keep increasing incomes but to aim for more meaningful lives and stronger social ties. </span></span>That might be a leap too far in the near term but the index is released when policymakers are exploring broader measures of progress rather than a desire to boost growth. French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s “Commission on the measurement of economic performance and social progress” is due to report soon.

Critics of such measures and summary indices say they are based on arbitrary data and calculations but most welcome their contribution to the policy debate.

“HPI is one of the several attempts to go ‘beyond GDP’ and to bring attention to important aspects of our life,” Enrico Giovannini, chief statistician at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, said. But, he added, “It is impossible to capture in a single indicator the complexity of our society.”

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

[evanovitch]

Tap diaspora's anger, strength

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: BlackStar</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Good discussion, peeps. </div></div>

Tap diaspora's anger, strength
Published: Friday | July 10, 2009


The Editor, Sir:
Your Letters page of July 8 was remarkable for the fact that almost all, if not all, the contributors writing to defend Jamaica's name in response to a television programme by a benighted United Kingdom-based Trinidad-born journalist were Jamaicans in the diaspora. Even though this could have been the result of editorial selection, it is still quite worthy of attention.

When the Jamaica Diaspora meets again on June 16, 2010, it will be six years since the first conference which began recognising the potential of Jamaicans in the diaspora. The thing is that up to now Jamaicans in the diaspora have still not grasped the potency of that potential, and have not realised that the way to power for Jamaica is through making an impact in the centres of power of their adopted countries, that is, in London, Ottawa and Washington.

Yet to understand

They are yet to understand and apply the lessons from the impact in the United States of the anti-Castro Cubans in Miami, or the even more profound impact of the diasporic Jews all over the US.

Without making any comments on the journalistic merits or demerits of the Trevor McDonald programme, I must say your letter writers of two days ago have lit a candle. As one of the inaugural participants of the Jamaica Diaspora Conference, I can only hope that this candle will grow into the raging flame that is needed.

[evanovitch]

misplaced indignation

Published: Friday | July 10, 2009


The Editor, Sir:
I'm a Jamaican who has seen Trevor McDonald's documentary and I simply cannot agree that he has defamed our country in any way. Of all the English-speaking Caribbean islands, it is a fact that we have the highest crime rate, the most widespread poverty and weakest economy.

Because of the vast numbers of Jamaicans seeking greener pastures abroad, our nationals are being actively harassed at many CARICOM ports of call.

Our political standing in the region is so badly weakened that Trinidad's Prime Mminister Patrick Manning didn't even bother consulting us before forming a political alliance with other Caribbean territories. Our Caribbean neighbours have become so wealthy that they can refuse our meagre exports without fear of any real economic or political retribution from Jamaica.

Visa waivers

The US has already waived visa requirements for citizens of The Bahamas and the European Union is about to do the same for those of Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados and St Kitts and Nevis.

We can huff and puff with all the righteous indignation in the world, but shooting the messenger won't make the message any less truthful.

[Dr.Dudd]

Re: misplaced indignation

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: evanovitch</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Published: Friday | July 10, 2009


The Editor, Sir:
I'm a Jamaican who has seen Trevor McDonald's documentary and I simply cannot agree that he has defamed our country in any way. Of all the English-speaking Caribbean islands, it is a fact that we have the highest crime rate, the most widespread poverty and weakest economy.

Because of the vast numbers of Jamaicans seeking greener pastures abroad, our nationals are being actively harassed at many CARICOM ports of call.

Our political standing in the region is so badly weakened that Trinidad's Prime Mminister Patrick Manning didn't even bother consulting us before forming a political alliance with other Caribbean territories. Our Caribbean neighbours have become so wealthy that they can refuse our meagre exports without fear of any real economic or political retribution from Jamaica.

Visa waivers

The US has already waived visa requirements for citizens of The Bahamas and the European Union is about to do the same for those of Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados and St Kitts and Nevis.

We can huff and puff with all the righteous indignation in the world, but shooting the messenger won't make the message any less truthful. </div></div>This lwetter is just another piece of the fraud they are carring out.It is done to justify the special treatment extended to these places to the citizens of the UK? The author may well be Jamaican, but ther are many who are also UK citizens that only see Jamaica as a means to amass wealth for themselves and the UK. Nothing more.