DEAR EDITOR – Wednesday, January 20, 2010. It is with great sadness, despair, shock, anger and helplessness that I watch what has happened in Haiti.
Haiti has already suffered so, so much and aside from dropping a nuclear bomb on the country, this could not have been worse.
As someone with family ties to the country, I have been directly affected.
Thankfully, our family has been extremely fortunate and everyone is accounted for, alive and safe.
Heartbreakingly, we are one of the fortunate few, and there are many, so many more families that have lost loved ones or have been completely vaporized.
As a Jamaican also, during these last 7 days I have asked myself “If Jamaica were hit by an earthquake of this scale, how would we fare?
How much of Kingston would be destroyed, Spanish Town, downtown, uptown, Halfway Tree, Papine, Red Hills, Portmore, Mona?
Mercifully, we do not have the degree of poverty which so many Haitians suffer, and we have enough of a basic infrastructure that I think we would be spared the degree of devastation that Haiti is now facing and will continue to face for months, and possibly years, to come.
But we would still suffer greatly, and those who would suffer most would be the poor and the vulnerable, the marginalised, the people who live in risk-prone areas such as hillsides, riverbeds and in makeshift and poorly-constructed houses.
I have been worrying about the general state and the future of Jamaica for some time, and in light of the earthquake in Haiti, it gives me further pause for reflection, and reason to worry even more about us as a country.
Friends and family here who know that I am part Haitian have sometimes asked me in the past whether I think Jamaica is heading in the same direction as Haiti before the earthquake.
I had always told them no; I did not believe that Jamaica could ever become the failed state that Haiti has been for so long.
But in the last year or so, long before the earthquake hit Haiti, I started worrying that perhaps I was wrong, and that Jamaica is sliding down a very slippery slope.
If we continue to have a corrupt and dysfunctional political system that, notwithstanding the official rhetoric, encourages the continuous downgrading of social values to the lowest common denominator, the pursuit and acquisition of short-term political and economic advantage, and the partisan distribution of scarce benefits, then an earthquake similar to Haiti’s just might obliterate Jamaica too.
If we continue to allow law and order to be continually broken or sidestepped and do not provide alternative, safe solutions, permitting inadequate and unsafe construction and people to live in riverbeds and on eroding hillsides, then we too, could face thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of wounded and dead.
If we continue to misuse the very limited financial and human resources we have on activities and projects that, in my view, are not a priority for the long term health and betterment of our country and its people, then we too, could face thousands of wounded who have nowhere to go for adequate medical treatment.
Like Haiti, we could face ever more poorly-stocked and poorly-staffed hospitals, clinics, schools, etc. as we continue to lose so many of our vital doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers and others to ‘foreign’ – those skilled and dedicated people who are the absolute foundation to the short and long-term development of our country.
If we continue to allow total destruction of our natural resources, removal of forests from our hillsides, government-sanctioned and government-driven destruction of our mangroves and coral reefs and do not properly manage these resources not merely for today and tomorrow but for 20, 50 and 100 years from now, then we too, could face a future where floods sweep thousands of children, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters away and earthquakes bury thousands more.
If we continue to value these same absolutely essential resources, not for ourselves and for our children, but for tourism and for people who fly in and fly out of our beautiful island, then we have wholly and entirely missed the point.
If we continue to allow and condone the unravelling of our value system and lose further respect and caring for ourselves and our fellow Jamaicans, female and male, adult and child, and continue to feel that we are entitled and that the world owes us, then we too, will become ever more irrelevant in the eyes of the world, dependent and handicapped.
We as Jamaicans must demand effective and genuine leadership and development for the long-term progress and security of the country.
We owe it to ourselves, our colleagues, our friends, our families and our nation. We owe it to those Jamaicans not yet born.
As a Jamaican and a Haitian, I am very, very touched by the outpouring of care, concern and generosity being shown by Jamaica to Haiti.
As Caribbean people, we are all different but we share many bonds and it is in this greatest time of need that we must come together to help our brothers and sisters as we would hope they would unite and mobilise for us.
Haiti needs help now, but it will need much more help in the months and years to come and I ask that we open our hearts and our home.
I ask too, that we think long and hard about the future of our country and make the difficult but right choices as individuals and as a country for the betterment of Jamaica.
We have much to learn from what Haiti is now suffering, and from the grace, the courage and the strength being shown by the Haitian people.
It would be yet another tragedy and a great dishonour to the Haitian people and ourselves if we do not take this lesson to heart.
I, for one, do not want to continue worrying that perhaps I was wrong, and that Jamaica is sliding down a very slippery slope.
Nathalie Zenny
Jamaica
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