An “un-jolly” old and Unjust Jamaican Saint Nicholas

 An “un-jolly” old and Unjust Jamaican Saint Nicholas

 Oh! Oh! Oh! It’s the season to be Jolly in Jamaica again we love the ho -ha of a good Jamaican Christmas we are a people religiously and materially punched drunk on a good old Christmas. By now the Portia Simpson -Miller led Government officials are unwrapping their 60 Million Jamaican dollars worth of high end SUV (JEEP).Jamaica’s idea of a Globalised Christmas is a woman dressed in a Brazilian wig, cheap false nails from Singapore, a tight cheap shiny dress from China, discounted underwear from Victoria secret in the USA,  a fake Gucci handbag from Hong Kong and a replicated Dolce & Gabbana slipper while dancing to misogynist background music- courtesy of "Vibes Cartel". Her spoof male counterpart is a man with his face bleached out by cheap Indian bleaching cream, studded gold earring bought in Panama, string vest from Thailand a tight pair of jeans from new York and a pair of Clark's extorted from his family in London-dancing to” Boom By Bye in a Batty Boy head”.

 I am self-disgusted to churn out this aggressive generalisation of my beloved country as most of us a humble, loving and decent people who are broadminded and generally modest. But running concurrently to our better selves is the dark side of our cultural equation bedevilled by debt riddled and morally bankrupt society where politicians run “amuck”.According to the debt Management Unit of the Ministry of Finance Jamaica has racked up $81.9billion of additional debt during the period January to September 2012. The nation ended 2011 with debt in excess of $1.63Trillion at the end of September 2012, calculations estimate the nation's debt has grown this year by about five per cent to $1.71Trillion. Jamaica has added debt at the rate of $299million per day or $12.5million per hour or $207,000 per minute or finally, almost $3,461 per second.

So while we shake our tambourines and sing Christmas songs to the backdrop of thieving oily mouthed rapture hungry evangelist waiting to steal our Christmas Sunday collection drop, just remember that our debt to GDP ratio is running at a whopping estimated 135%. And a new IMF deal is yet to see the light of day. Oh! By the way don’t forget to remind Dr Pieter Phillip about the Recommendations of the 2004 Matalan Report that has hovered over the head of four Jamaican prime minister that called for a reform of the tax system, a trimming of public sector wages and pension reform. So I would like to send a Message to Dr Peter Phillips our very clever Finance Minister via an entrenched "champagne Socialist".

Please tell him that he only growth this bad Santa has seen from my birth in Jamaica in the past 49years- is the increase of politician’s wages, their waist sizes, wallets and their walk-away retirement packages. And while conveying my message to Dr Phillips- if he is on speaking terms With Mama Portia-tell him to convey my regards to her for looking so young and stunning. The Brazilian wig that she bought in Miami on her recent shopping trip epitomises the incredulity of the spectre of globalisation it looks real to her poor constituents but it’s still fake like Usain Bolt’s American accent. Even I Santa could not get such a good deal from Brazil although I buy my presents at the pound shop in bulk.

  Dear Mr Politician you might believe that this Un -Jolly Old St Nicholas has an axe to grind because I have ran off to greener pastors in the UK and is ungrateful for bad mouthing Jamaica but this broke arse Santa became fed up because I wanted a better life for my Children. I wanted my children- like the thieving politicians and corrupt business men in Jamaica- to escape the poverty trap and attend Ivy League Universities similar to the ones that your children attend. So I created my own version of equal opportunity by migrating with them to the United Kingdom.

It’s cold as hell up North and I miss the Sunshine but I can’t afford to return to live because of the murder rate as I know full well that I might get gunned down and robbed in my slay by those little shooters that you have created because of your corruption graft and mismanagement of the Jamaican economy. You can’t exactly regard me as ungrateful as I help my relatives and friends with remittances with my slay full of Christmas barrels. By the Way, I am coming to The Jamaica Jazz and Blues festival and me and my family will be staying in an undisclosed all inclusive own by a rich Jamaican. My only hope is that he pays his fair share of tax and is not benefiting from the waivers that the Matalan report omitted to mention.

To my fellow Jamaicans it may seem as if voting in and out the two major political parties has been a fool’s errand since independence in 1962.Together with the frequent hurricanes since 1988 they have made our lives a living hell at the root of our economic crisis lies a moral crisis that has nothing to do with god or the devil. It’s a long time we haven’t had a debt free Christmas. Our challenges lies not so much in our ability to be creative people but by our failure to demand a moral /ethical leadership in Governance. Our problem is rooted in our neglect as responsible citizens to demand that the two duopolies masquerading as two democratic parties to provide a stakeholder leadership culture that is responsible and just.

 On our part as citizens we are guilty of selfish “shortermism” and materialism. The two duopolies that have duped us will never own up to the fact that they have failed us. Instead, they distract and confuse us in a poker game of finger pointing and a cacophony of pre -election lies. Bad Santa or not let us demand a culture of honesty and responsibility. The sentiment that the Jamaican Government should borrow and repay our public debt and to help the poor and vulnerable has long evaporated.

Donovan Reynolds is a Blogger and Independent Writer. He is a British based Social Worker and Human rights Activist. He has an interest in Politics, Culture, Human Rights and International Development issues. Readers of this blog may add their comments or critique at the space provided on this blog .Or alternatively they may e-mail him at dannygerm63@hotmail.co.uk/ or dannygerm@twitter

Examining the Recent Political Crisis In Egypt: By Donovan Reynolds Blogger and Independent Writer.

Examining the Recent Political Crisis In Egypt: By Donovan Reynolds Blogger and Independent Writer.
Political scenarios for the future are hard to predict. Moreover when religion and politics intermingle it creates a toxic concoction. Long known for its pyramids and ancient civilisation, Egypt is the largest Arab country and has played a central role in Middle Eastern politics in modern times. In the 1950s President Gamal Abdul Nasser pioneered Arab nationalism and the non-aligned movement, while his successor Anwar Sadat made peace with Israel and turned back to the West. Egypt has been a key ally of the West; it has played a major role in the Israeli-Arab conflict no wonder President Obama intervened cautiously during the overthrowing of President Mubarak.

 But the protests that ousted President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 is putting Egypt at the crossroads once again. The process that led to an Islamist Muslim Brotherhood breakthrough at subsequently annulled parliamentary polls and a narrow win for the Brotherhood candidate in the presidential election of 2012 has turned sour.This has not made the situation better Mr Mohamed Morsi the Muslim Brotherhood candidate and president of Egypt, issued a decree giving him sweeping constitutional powers that has now backfired.
 
The move prompted his critics to accuse him of seeking to monopolise power creating widespread protest by the opposition parties. Egypt’s health ministry said late on Wednesday  the 5/12/12that at least 211 people had been injured in clashes between Morsi’s secular-leaning opponents and Islamist supporters, as riot police attempted to break up the violence. In addition three members of Mr. Morsi’s advisory team resigned over the crisis. They are Seif Abdel Fattah, Ayman al-Sayyad and Amr al-Leithy. They all tendered their resignations, bringing to six the number of presidential staff who have quit in the wake of a decree that has triggered countrywide violence and has drawn a negative international spotlight on Egypt.
So the Muslim Brotherhood led Victory at the polls should have been the solution to Egypt’s long history of dictatorship has suddenly shaped up to be a dictatorship regime in its own right. The aborted revolution of January 25, 2011, which succeeded in ridding the country of the decades-long rule of Hosni Mubarak, has failed to address the authoritarianism and corruption embedded within the state's institutions, from the military and the security agencies, to elements within the judiciary and state run bureaucratic institutions.
 
In March 2011 voters widely approved a referendum to delay the passage of a new constitution, instead preferring first to elect a new parliament and head of state, resulting in one of the most dysfunctional transitions in modern political history. The lack of will to see the revolution through to its conclusion has yielded a unusual fusion government made up of a combination of the counter-revolutionary remnants of the old regime as well as the self-proclaimed protectors of the revolution, embodied in the group that has enjoyed the greatest electoral success of any political actor, the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood is the Arab world's most influential and one of the largest Islamic movements, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. Founded in Egypt in 1936 as a Pan-Islamic, religious, political, and social movement by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna, by the end of World War II the MB had an estimated two million members. Its ideas had gained supporters throughout the Arab world and influenced other Islamist groups with its "model of political activism combined with Islamic charity work”. The Brotherhood's credo was and is, "Allah is our objective; the Quran is our law, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations." Its most famous slogan, used worldwide, is "Islam is the solution."

On the foreign policy side of the equation the west historically has fostered a good political strategic partnership with Egypt mainly as a go between in defusing tensions between Israel and Palestine. But the New Egypt under President Morsi has yet to prove itself to key allies like the United States and other Western countries that he is an ally worth backing, especially after he failed to tackle the attack on the American embassy in Cairo last month by angry protesters denouncing an anti-Islam film. Other issues of concern to America and its European allies include freedom of speech, women's participation in politics and the future of Egypt's Copts who feel increasingly threatened by the rising power of Islamists in the country.

The conflict in Egypt squares with political theorist Samuel Huntington clash of civilization hypothesis. He believed that while the cold war had ended, the world had reverted to a normal state of affairs characterized by cultural conflict. In his thesis, he argued that the primary axis of conflict in the future will be along cultural and religious lines. Egypt is a prime example of a country where people’s cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of complex political conflict. According to Huntingdon Irreligious people like the opposing liberals in Egypt who violate the base principles of religious organizations like the Muslim brotherhood are perceived to be furthering their own pointless aims, and as a result will face violent action.

President Morsi’s use of his democratic legitimacy to shield himself from all accountability, the president has raised the stakes of political competition in Egypt. Given the intensity of the response, however, the unintended consequence of this overreach may be to force a rethinking on the part of the Muslim Brotherhood's political leadership. But as already stated when there is a mixture of politics and religion there is always a tension between religious cultural norms and the idea of political liberal reform agenda- religion always wins. Religious leadership is primarily rooted in adhering to a strict rule of law that cannot be negotiated away while western Liberalism has a modicum of flexibility whether real or pretentious.

 So it is my opinion that the fault line between the Muslim brotherhood and the liberal opposition parties and Christians in Egypt will become even more polarised in the coming months. Although we hope that there will be a breakthrough of the current political stalemate. Those of us who had hope that the Arab spring would have brought a rooting out of dictators in the Arab States have to manage our utopian expectations less we become embroiled in bitter disappointment.

Political, social and economic challenges are frequently articulated through the language of dialogue or conflict .Egypt is at a very delicate crossroads as it seeks to forge a new political identity. The dye is cast by the President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood narrow electoral win. Can the manifold crises of contemporary life in Egypt be made more intelligible through the frame of unauthorised political decrees by the Muslim Brotherhood with Islam at the core of its political philosophy? There is a current belief by political commentators that the New Egypt is flanked by the forces of religious conservatism and self-obsessed autocratic institutions who are unwilling to chart a new democratic pathway. While liberal and Christian and political oppositions lay angry on the periphery feeling as sense of being duped by a false revolution. The question is can the manifold crises of contemporary political life in Egypt be made more intelligible through the frame of the Muslim Brotherhood rule by decree? Political scenarios for the future are difficult to predict- so your guess is as good as mine.

Donovan Reynolds is a Blogger and Independent Writer. He is a British based Social Worker and Human rights Activist. He has an interest in Politics, Culture, Human Rights and International Development issues. Readers of this blog may add their comments or critique at the space provided on this blog .Or alternatively they may e-mail him at dannygerm63@hotmail.co.uk/ or dannygerm@twitter