JamaicaArealplace รีทวีตแล้ว
They were the ones who were most clear, most principled, and most willing to be publicly disagreed with without reaching for the lowest available weapon.
What you practise, you become. And what the leaders of tomorrow become, Jamaica becomes. That is not sentiment. That is the most serious political fact I know.
An Emotional Plea, Given With Love
I am going to say something now that I have not said before in this letter, and I am going to say it without embarrassment, because I think we have spent too long being embarrassed about caring.
I am afraid for this country. Not of an external enemy. Not of a natural disaster. I am afraid of the version of Jamaica that is slowly being constructed by the accumulation of these moments, these incidents, these patterns of behaviour that we process and move past without ever truly reckoning with. I am afraid that we are building, brick by brick and laugh by laugh and snarl by snarl, a political culture that is fundamentally hostile to the best of what Jamaica can be.
And I am sad. I am sad that Nekeisha Burchell had to stand up at a press conference and explain that she is worth more than her body. I am sad that the language in which the majority of Jamaicans live their daily lives is still something that can be stopped in Parliament with a threat about speaking time. I am sad that the woman who later made cutting remarks about the Speaker, whatever drove her to that moment, had herself been taught by the culture of this political life that personal attacks are the language we speak when we are frustrated and cornered. I am sad that we have been having this exact conversation since 1989 and the Speaker of that era would recognise every single word of it.
I am sad because I know what Jamaica is capable of. I have seen it in the way our people rebuild after hurricanes, in the way our communities hold each other in grief, in the creativity that pours out of this island in quantities that have no rational explanation for a country this size. I know what we are. And I know that what is happening in the name of our governance is not it.
We deserve better. Not just from our politicians. From ourselves. From the way we engage in public discourse, the way we talk about women in political life, the way we choose what to laugh at and what to demand be taken seriously. This is not only about what happens in Gordon House. It is about what we have decided, as a people, is acceptable. And that decision is made not only by the people who sit in Parliament but by every Jamaican who has ever watched a clip of political nastiness and laughed, shared it, or stayed silent.
This letter is for all of us. The question it is asking is one that only all of us can answer together.
What kind of Jamaica are we building? What are we leaving behind? And is it, by any honest reckoning, worthy of what August 6, 1962 cost?
I believe it can be. I believe we have not yet become what the worst of these moments suggest we are becoming. I believe there is still time to interrupt the pattern. But time is not infinite. Children are watching right now and drawing their conclusions. History is recording right now and it does not grade on a curve.
We were trusted with something precious. Handle it accordingly.
With grief at what this country is risking, with love for what it can still become, and with a faith that refuses, despite everything, to be extinguished,
Janiel McEwan
This letter belongs to no party. It belongs to Jamaica. Share it freely.
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