Dancing on Margret Thatcher’s Grave: by Donovan Reynolds Blogger and Independent Writer

 

Dancing on Margret Thatcher’s Grave: by Donovan Reynolds Blogger and Independent Writer

The name Margret Thatcher is like a sorcerer’s curse to the ears of most left leaning working class British Citizen. She is like the rain- loved by some and loathe by others. The announcement of her death on Monday of this week sparked some of the biggest street party from her birthplace in Grantham to Brixton who lined up maliciously to dance on her grave. It’s not my style to dance on people’s grave so when the invite came for me to attend a central London Party this Saturday I politely declined.

The last time I did something vengeful to a dead person was at the age of 27 out of share unadulterated anger -let’s say for politeness sake -I became overwhelmed with alcohol and unresolved childhood anger when I foolishly emptied my bladder on my physically abusive dad’s grave. So as a rule ,feisty as I am I don’t to the murky business of dancing on my enemies grave-at least not anymore. The revelation of it in a burdensome confession to my family I have regretted to this day. As most of my first divorce I had to endure the emotional pain by sulking to myself in private without the emotional support of my avenging family members as pay-back. But let us offer a sober assessment of the late Baroness life and legacy before the lingering hatred for her boil over in the days leading up to her funeral.

Twenty three years after demitting office as Britain’s first woman Prime Minister demitted office at Number 10 Downing Street she died earlier on this week at the Ritz Hotel in London at the age of 87 yrs. from a stroke after a long period of illness. Born in Grantham England the daughter of a local grocer became the first woman leader in British politics. She took over the helm of the conservative led Government in Briton in 1979 when the United Kingdom was considered as the sick economic man in Europe and carried out a number of social and political reforms that were both decisive and divisive. By 1999 when she left office because of the introduction of a deeply unpopular implemented poll tax although she had left the economy in a much healthier position she had by then become the most conflict-ridden leader of post war British Politics. Thatcher’s claims to promote low inflation, the small state, and free markets through tight control of the money supply, privatisation and constraints on the labour movement has been both her success as a leader and her demise. She was loved by US President Ronald Regan at that time for her conviction capitalism and was his key ally with the US in the Cold War and earned her name as the Iron Lady by the Russian press following one of her speeches criticising the USSR.

The Iron Lady earned her hatred because of her determination to reduce the power of the trade unions over plans to close 20 state owned mines and cut 20,000 jobs .She won the dispute at a price tag of 1.5 billion pounds and the loss of thousand s of job in rural Britain leaving to untold hardship on a scale that was unimaginable and closed the door to future female British Prime Ministers. News of her death sparked a feeding frenzy of coal miners across Britain dancing unsympathetically in the streets to the music of Morrissey’s hate fuelled song about the Baroness. While all of this was happening Republicans on the other side of the Atlantic in the US led by Nancy Regan showered praise on her and worshiped at the altar of her macro-economic legacy.

At home in Britain she was accused by comedian Alexi Sayle of making a conscious decision to run down manufacturing and concentrating on selling arms and growing the financial services. Former Labour Prime minister called Lady Thatcher a towering figure while others cynically commented that he was the main success of her Legacy as she bequeathed her crony capitalism him to so much that it seem at times during his premiership he was reading joint right wing hawkish foreign policy document give to him by Gorge Bush.

Margret Thatcher was by far the most masculine Woman among men in British politics: with the exception of Baroness Young, no women were promoted to the Cabinet or to junior Minister. Novelist Lionel Shiver hailed her as a feminist not for what she said but what she did. That compliment coming from a man is hardly comforting when she did so much to undermine women such as freezing child benefits and accused women during her premiership of raising a “crèche Generation”.The only bold feminist statement that she made was by way of a gaffe in 1989 when she declared “we are a grandmother “shortly after the birth of her grandson Michael in 1989.She once disclosed to a personal adviser in private that she reviled the feminist movement yet she was admired by women for her steely determination and her astute and firmness as a leader and she had the beauty and aura of a Hollywood film star. She held a squeaky clean image in her public life yet her son Mark was charged in 2004 with an alleged plot to overthrow the Government of Equatorial Guinea in Africa and he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of f helping to finance the plot and was given a tap on the wrist in order to preserve his ailing mothers dignity. In 2009 her daughter attracted controversy when she was sacked from the BBC by describing a black tennis player as a ‘golliwog’.

In all of this she was extremely successful in government. A historical sweep of Margret thatcher life in politics reads like the story of an extremely successful but reckless male formula one driver who has won the grand prix. However in doing so- have wreaked a lot of havoc along the way and made a few friends and many enemies on his way to pole position. In all of this the honourable Baroness deserves a measured and dignified state funeral with her family, friends and foes sobbing over her casket. Not the ugly spectre a few right wing zealots ready to snort her ashes or vengeful left-wingers waiting to dance on her grave to the wizard of Oz song “Ding Dong! The witch is dead”.

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, and Human Rights. Readers may comment on this blog or email feedback at dannygerm63@hotmail.co.uk

Debunking the Myth of Creationism-Does god really exist?

Debunking the Myth of Creationism-Does god really exist?

An explanation for the origin of the world man and other creatures is found in all human cultures. Traditionally all three Abrahamic religions such as Christianity, Muslims and Judaism- all explain the origin of man and the universe as the handiwork of an omniscient god. When the Secular Rastafarian and Poet Mutabaruka did a Poem” Is God schizophrenic” it plunged religion in an existential crisis. Central to the poem was a scathing request for god in the sky to come down and die. Mutabaruka a clever outspoken humanist trough his poem appealed to religious addicts high on the god delusion to think outside of the box of religious myths.

The promise of a god in the sky is misleading and fancy fairy tale dreamt up and believed by religious theorist. The religious hatemongers were infuriated by this cleverly crafted dialectic that is indeed radical and thought provoking. But on the positive side of the equation it created a quiet revolution unnoticed by the Oxford and Princeton brigade who claimed responsibility for the second wave of Secularism and the contemporary post -religious philosophy. History is replete with records of many secularists who have been persecuted by religious fanatics for not believing in creationism. Their Punishment often range from being burnt at the stake, torture or long periods of imprisonment.

But let us examine the historical trajectory that led to the discovery of evolutionary biology. Even Ancient Greece who staked it claim in Western Civilization was bogged down with the myth of an intelligent designer. Anaximander a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus btween610 – 546 BC proposed that animals could be transformed from one kind to another. It seem wholly unusual that the roots of evolution had its early groundings in religious thought as Christian theologians such as Gregory of Naizahus and Augustine maintained that not all species of such was created by god and that some species must have come into existence after the flood as it would have been imposable for Noah ark a single vessel could hold all the species of the world in that time.

Charles Darwin the founder of modern evolution theory: owes a debt of gratitude to his forerunners French naturalist Jean Baptise- Lamark who published a seminal writing’ Philosophical zoology’. The work of the Reverent Thomas Malthus became widely known for his theories about population and its increase or decrease in response to various factors. The six editions of his An Essay on the Principle of Population, published from 1798 to 1826, observed that sooner or later population gets checked by famine and disease. Charles Darwin attributed his seminal theory of the original species to Malthus influence. I hate to admit this but atheist like myself owe a debt of gratitude to early Christian theologian’s for handing us evolutionary biology on a platter.

So let’s get to the meat of the matter -that is -to lay bare the ludicrous idea of creationism. We know from palaeontologists and molecular biologist that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. The oldest know rocks, dated at 3.96 billion years are found in north western Canada. Most professionals in the scientific community that is worth their grain of salt all widely believe that the universe started about 15 billion years ago in the ‘Big Bang’. It was a monumental explosion that sent matter and energy exploding in all directions. As the universe expanded, matter collected into clouds that condensed into galaxies such as our own milky way. Gravitational attracted materials that in many ways condensed into stars where nuclear reaction took place forming small planets like the earth and the sun. This is more comforting than the Adam and Eve and “Yaccubs theory “of Creationism as most of it is scientifically validated and the gaps in understand are emerging continuously.

We owe an infinite amount of gratitude to the work of several evolutionary biologist, palaeontologist archaeologist and genealogist to our understanding of the origin of species most importantly Charles Darwin. We know know that women have their pace in the evolutionary process than the subservient belief that they share a rib from man given to them by god. Evolution is the process of decent with modification. The virtual infinite variation of life are the fruit of evolution and not a designer of a god in a back room call heaven knocking and fitting bones and flesh together with an hammer and an anvil.

There is such too much to say about the evolutionary process that cannot be done in a single blog. Except to end by saying god and creationism is as real as the cow jump over the moon. People accuse me of being self-centred but that accusation is wide of the mark. I owe no apology for being knowledge centred if gods exist- show me the evidence.

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, and Human Rights. Readers may comment on this blog or email feedback at dannygerm63@hotmail.co.uk

Demar Robinson, ISSA , Calabar High School and the Jamaica Athletic Contradiction By :Donovan Reynolds Independent Writer.

Demar Robinson, ISSA , Calabar High School and the Jamaica Athletic Contradiction By :Donovan Reynolds Independent Writer.

There are countless myths and realities associated with the daily lives of Jamaican high school student-athletes with which most persons may be unaware. For example, many individuals perceive that student-athletes in Jamaica have all their needs met in their academic and personal environments, such as having preferential treatment in class scheduling, access to funding streams that is unavailable to typical students and a broad base of support from athletic supporters in the Business in community in Jamaica.

Demar Robinson of Calabar high -a former tripel jump champion and Odean Skeen of Wolmers Boys School must be a broken young men today- failed by ISSA and the schools and country that they once represented. Skeen was disqualified for a false start in the Class One 100m final at last year's ISSA/Grace Kennedy Boys' and Girls' Athletics Championships at the National Stadium was to be his final individual appearance at the over a century old event. According to ISSA rules, student athletes must maintain a 45 per cent average in at least four subjects and an attendance record of 80 per cent in the school year to be eligible to represent the school in any sports under the ISSA umbrella. Skeen, who was a surprise third in the boys' 100m at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Barcelona, Spain, last year, was expected to feature in what is expected to be a mouth-watering Class One boys' 100m final against defending champion Delano Williams of Munro College, and Odail Todd of Green Island High. The Inter-Secondary Schools Boys and Girls Championships (better known as the Champs) is an annual Jamaican multi-sport high school athletics meet held by Jamaica’s Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association. The four day event, held during the last week before Easter every year in Kingston, is considered a proving ground for many successful Jamaican athletes most of them from poor backgrounds who see the championships as a way to becoming professional athletes.

 The last athletic championship held in 2012 was won by Calabar the boys from Red Hills Road who have a proud record of winning those championships and the Jamaican School challenge Quiz in one scoop. The road to Champs is now even more of a proving ground in preparation for world-class competition, but there is no guarantee that talented teens will shine through immediately. Triple Olympic/World gold medallist and world record holder Usain Bolt, for example, first came to the fore in 2002, after failing to win any events in the Class 3 age group. Olympic champions Veronica Campbell-Brown, and Shelly-Ann Fraser suffered crushing defeats in the lower age groups at the meet before finally winning for their school teams. Three-time 100m world record-holder and World/Olympic gold medallist (4x100m) Asafa Powell competed, but never became a household name at the high school level because he was disqualified in the Class 1 100m final. So Maybe and I say “maybe”- Odean Skeen has a flicker of hope- if the dust settles in his favour. Other top performers at Champs who have gone on to excel on the world stage include Michael Frater, Bert Cameron, Melaine Walker, Winthrop Graham, Beverly McDonald, Maurice Wignall, Juliet Cuthbert, Sandie Richards and Raymond Stewart. All of these successful athletes have paid the price for mixing academic life with the rigours of academic work is a difficult balancing act. Let’s face it  making the transition from High school athletic prodigy to a successful professional athlete is a a cat herding exercise.

Behind the glitter of an envious championship belies the usage and disappointments of a number of athletes who suffer from undiagnosed learning difficulties are overworked by pushy coaches and discarded when they don’t meet the eligibility criteria set by ISSA which is a 45 % academic average in at least four subjects and a 85% school attendance rate. These athletes come from a society where two third of the general population is living below the poverty line as stipulated by the United nation and a colonial standard  education system that is woefully underfunded due to the country high debt to GDP ratio which currently is estimated at a whopping 140%.In addition the countries children Services is lacking the investment needed to target and provide support young persons who are vulnerable to the difficulties associated with learning difficulties. There is an archaic understanding about young persons with learning difficulties in Jamaica they are seen as disruptive and lacking in ambition and are cruelly labelled as “a dunce”. This stigma is morally objectionable students likeDemar and Odean is expected on top of their hectic training schedule to achieve academically alongside students that are way above their average who shame them because they are unable to keep pace with their normal student peers without Learning support and psychology input. No wonder children with undiagnosed learning difficulties experience low self-esteem and are more vulnerable to truancy and the allure of maladaptive behaviours.

Learning disabilities, or learning disorders, are an umbrella term for a wide variety of learning problems. A learning disability is not a problem with intelligence or motivation. Young persons with learning disabilities aren’t lazy or dumb. In fact, most are just as smart as everyone else. Their brains are simply wired differently. This difference affects how they receive and process information. Simply put, children and adults with learning disabilities see, hear, and understand things differently. This can lead to trouble with learning new information and skills, and putting them to use. The most common types of learning disabilities involve problems with reading, writing, math, reasoning, listening, and speaking. Learning disabilities look very different from one child to another. One child may struggle with reading and spelling, while another loves books but can’t understand math. Still another child may have difficulty understanding what others are saying or communicating out loud. The problems are very different, but they are all learning disorders.

It can be tough to face the possibility that your child has a learning disorder. No parents want to see their children suffer. You may wonder what it could mean for your child’s future, or worry about how your child will make it through school. Perhaps you’re concerned that by calling attention to your child's learning problems he or she might be labelled "slow" or assigned to a less challenging class. I have two sons with learning difficulties so I understand the challenges faced by parents. I was maths dyslexic when I attended Calabar where Demar is attending and it was a frustrating and dehumanising experience for me. The important thing to remember is that most young persons like Demar with learning challenges are just as smart as everyone else. They just need to be taught in ways that are tailored to their unique learning styles. By learning more about learning disabilities in general, and your child’s learning difficulties in particular, you can help pave the way for success at school and beyond.

On my last visit to Calabar in February this raised the issue with the Guidance Counsellor and John Messam the hard working President of Calabar old boy association about the need to support young persons at risk of social exclusion as a result of attention deficit disorder, learning difficulties poverty and social exclusion .I was very lucky to have a supportive mother who had the patience to nurture me through the disappointments of struggling with learning difficulty. Today I have a successful career and mentor a number of University and college students in the UK that I shepherded trough the difficult but necessary terrain of learning difficulties. I have raised this issue to shed the spotlight on ISSA to positively discriminate in favour of athletes with learning difficulties. So that they may receive support with diagnosis, extra support and practical assistance that will enable them to meet a reasonable set an academic criterion which is a well-accepted welfare principle that needs to be applied.

  To conclude ,we have to collectively advise ourselves as parents and professionals in the Health and Education sector -that a joined up approach is necessary to save young persons at risk of scuppering their hope and dreams due to a lack of proper assessment, intervention and planning for the future of young people with learning difficulties. Let’s put an end to the “worthless dunce myth”. This writer in principle is in favour of a good support system for student-athletes in Jamaican Highschools .While also, endorsing an educational experience that is integrated across a range of activities, and such experiences should ideally facilitate effective transitions into academic and community life for the student.

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

Towards a Philosophical Understanding of Black Human Secularism drawn from a West Indian Perspective: by Donavan Reynolds

Towards a Philosophical Understanding of Black Human Secularism drawn from a West Indian Perspective: by Donavan Reynolds

It’s quite embarrassing to wish my readers a happy New Year since we have almost completed two months into the New Year. I do apologise to all my valuable readers. I was unavoidably detained by organising a High School reunion and a much needed respite from work. My libido has dipping fast as I approach the 50th anniversary of my birth giving my brain an extra capacity for radical reflection. As I mulled over the blogs that I posted it occurred to me that a rich vein of secularism ran through most of them. Secondly, I embarrassingly discovered that the religious right was at the” fag end “of a lot of my deserved criticism-and rightly so. The evident self critique is that although I had provided an exciting form of writing that was at times informative it was done in an unstructured way and could have been more historically focused. I am always looking for ways to improve my work and to broaden my audience in a progressive and engaging way.

This year I am going to be more organized in my presentation as I intend to lay out my stall as a

black secular humanist in my blogs for this year. My writings in 2013 will include the embrace of

human reason, ethic, social justice and philosophical naturalism, whist specifically rejecting

religious dogma, supernaturalism, pseudoscience or superstition as the basis of morality,

decision making and public political discourse. Why is it that I emphasise my blackness in this dialectic space? It’s simply because identity culture and ethnicity is inextricable bound. Even if you are an avid deconstructionist you will always be associated with your biology more specifically the colour of your skin. My social consciousness and resentment towards religion arose out of awareness that I am a descendant of slaves brought from Africa to the Caribbean slavery and religion was the axis of evil that sustained the oppression that kept us chained to a capitalist system of forced unpaid labour for 300 years without reparation. While slavery in itself was a wicked and unjust physical act - a mental hoax called religion historically is used to dupe people of African descent mentally into submission and altered the notion within some of us that we were different but equal to our oppressors. ((CARICOM) The African Diaspora at its 2007 Global Conference held in Bridgetown, Barbados issued a call for CARICOM governments to collaborate with the African Union in developing appropriate mechanisms to ensure that Third States such as several European states, Canada and the United States expedite the implementation of reparations for their role in slavery.

Throughout my reading of Caribbean History I located a rich vein of black secularism

running the gamut of George Pad more, CLR James, Walter Rodney straight trough to the

late John Maxwell, Journalist Mark Wagnall and Dub poet and cultural icon Mutbaruka.

They have all embraced the post colonial era without getting into ideological bed with the

religious right. It is this rich vein of progressive thinking that I want promote. I believe that as

a people who have endured slavery and colonialism we can only find peace and true

liberation by rearranging our circumstances. Neither can we medicate away our poverty and

ignorance with religion. True confidence as a people must come from understanding our

history which can help us to heal, seek reparation and progress. The course of West Indian history is marked by appalling crimes. We need to take a fresh look at the black Christian evangelical movement and examined how they have betrayed our aspiration for a departure from mental slavery by chaining us to a social representation of the past.

Estimates vary, but somewhere between 20 million and 60 million people were captured, enslaved and brought to the Americas. Millions more died in the slave raids, in the dungeons and in the Middle Passage. The ship in which Hawkins commenced the trade was named The Jesus. Other ships of this pious Christian slave trader John Hawkins bore the names Solomon and John the Baptist. I have evidence to the slave-ship Thomas. Here is a copy of one of the bills of lading:--“Shipped by the grace of God in good order, and well conditioned by James Dodd, in and upon the good ship "Thomas," master under God for this present voyage, Captain Peter Roberts, and now at anchor at Calabar, and by God's grace bound for Jamaica, with 630 slaves, men and women, branded D.D., and numbered in the margin 31 D.D., and are to be delivered in good state, and well conditioned, at the port of Kingston (the dangers of the seas and mortality alone excepted) unto Messrs. Broughton & Smith. In witness whereof the master and purser of the ship "Thomas" hath affirmed to this bill of lading, and God send the good ship to her destined port in safety, Amen. October 31st, 1767.”

In what is now Burkina Faso, Ghana's neighbour to the north, the population was nearly decimated by the slave trade. Most who survived the raids came to either Cape Coast or Elmina (Portuguese for "the mine"). The Dutch and Portuguese bought slaves from Elmina and shipped them via seagoing communal coffins to Brazil, Surinam and other colonies. Slaves from Cape Coast went to the Caribbean and the United States.In 1951, Israeli authorities made a claim to the four powers occupying post-war Germany regarding compensation and reimbursement, based on the fact that Israel had absorbed and resettled 500,000 Holocaust survivors. They calculated that since absorption had cost 3,000 dollars per person ($26,862 in today dollars), they were owed 1.5 billion dollars ($13,400,000,000 in today dollars) by Germany. They also figured that six billion dollars worth of Jewish property had been pillaged by the Nazis, but stressed that the Germans could never make up for what they did with any type of material recompense. Negotiations leading to the Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany began in March 1952, and were conducted between representatives of the government of the Federal Republic, the government of the State of Israel, and representatives of the World Jewish Congress, headed by Dr. Goldm. The agreement was signed by Adenauer and Moshe Sharett on September 10, 1952 in the town hall of Luxembourg.

Every time African descendants of slavery living in the Caribbean and the Americas make the argument that if the Jews were compensated for the Holocaust then our clam for compensation for the damages caused by slavery we are accused of being anti Semitic. Maulana Karenga an African-American professor of Africana Studies states that the effects of the African slave trade were "the morally monstrous destruction of human possibility involved redefining African humanity to the world, poisoning past, present and future relations with others who only know us through this stereotyping and thus damaging the truly human relations among people of today". He cites that it constituted the destruction of culture, language, religion and human possibility.  Perhaps the reason why reparation is a difficult is its historical links to the two major religions. Like most holy books, the Bible and the Quran can be used to support particular viewpoints, and slavery is no exception.

There are numerous references to slavery in the Bible and the Quran which can be interpreted to condemn or condone this practice, and even those verses which appear unambiguous, are far from clear when scrutinised. As we continue to assert our identity as Caribbean people it is important for us to begin to reshape our thinking about spirituality. One of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding. I am happy to be alive at time when humanity is pushing against the limits of understanding and thinking outside of the box. Voltaire got it right long ago when he opined: 'Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.' So did Bertrand Russell who said: 'Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do.”

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.Rreaders may comment on this blog or email feedback at dannygerm63@hotmail.co.uk. 

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

The Beleaguered JLP and a Farcical 67th Annual Conference

The Beleaguered JLP and a Farcical 67th Annual Conference

Sunday’s scaled-down public session at the JLP annual conference will be the first since the party suffered electoral defeats in both the General Election in December and the Local Government Elections in March 2011. However, the party says it is anticipating vibrant and vigorous sessions. The conference will be held under the theme, “Vision, Focus, Build, and Connect”. I would like to use my blog to critically discuss two statements that came out of the beleaguered labour party on the eve of its national conference.
 
First, a statement made by JLP Opposition Senator Dr Christopher Tufton last Thursday where he echoed former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson's comments ‘about the behaviour of politicians driving away bright minds from politics in Jamaica’. Speaking at a forum hosted by Generation 2000 (G2K) and its University of Technology chapter Dr Tufton hinted that the party was on a constant recruitment drive to attract what he regarded as Bright Minds to the Party. In his speech he also lambasted both political parties’ politicians for creating a credibility gap between their prospective followers and political Parties in Jamaica.

On the surface it is a reasonable comment to make one that is “populist” and will no doubt cast him as an honest broker an image that he normally portrays before the media. In my Opinion politicians need to begin to close the credibility gap within their organisation that they lead, way before they embark on a recruitment drive. In a blog posted just after the JLP had lost the general election I made a clarion call for a root and branch Reform of the Jamaica Labour Party. I had at that time hammered out 10 critical questions for the party to consider in its review of action for the party if they were to make any meaningful progress as an alternative to government.

Those questions are:
(1)What has caused the Party’s core to shift from its base?
(2) Is the method of selecting candidates and the monitoring of their conduct working?
(3)Why is the JLP the “ugly Betty “of Jamaican Politics and what can be done to improve its image and likability?
(4)What does the Party need to do to attract and retain new supporters and membership?
(5)Is the Party’s Ideology and core message at odds with the current politic and domestic climate?
(6)Is the JLP centralised way of structuring its organisation working?
(7) Is the current leadership adequately trained and motivated sufficiently to lead the changes that the organisation needs?
(8) Are the JLP delegates and Party functionaries sufficiently trained and motivated to attract new supporters?
(9) Is the party’s candidates and leaders selected fairly by their local delegates and are they representative of the general population?
(10) Is the Party serious about tackling corruption and has the determination to uproot corrupt official from its leadership and distance itself from criminal activity and garrison politics?

Question seven speaks directly to Mr Tufton: he is the Deputy Leader in charge of Area4- he did poorly in the Local and General election as a matter of fact on top of losing all the parish councils in Area 4 during the last Local Government Election to the PNP. In addition at the last General Election in 2011 he performed disastrously losing his own seat to the PNP’s Hugh Buchannan. Organisational Management and more specifically political progress are about results and taking responsibility for failures within organisations. But Jamaican has a flawed understanding of organisation behaviour built on a false misnomer of likability over performance credibility and effectiveness within organisations.

 I know this will rile up his supporters as he has cross-party appeal in Jamaica. Politics is not a beauty contest it is about effective communication of a party’s core message and getting people to buy into that narrative and cashing in on it at an election by demonstrating “win ability” at the polls. If you can’t win your own seat as a leader what credibility or moral mandate do you have to convince your aspiring candidates to? A good academic credential is an asset but political savvy is about your own track record of good leadership demonstrated by effective results. No wonder the JLP is the first one term government in the history of modern Jamaica -as its decision making process is flawed and needs an urgent review audit.

The second issue that I would like to address is the fact that Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) member Everald Warmington had filed an application in the Supreme Court seeking an injunction to bar the election of three front runners for the posts of deputy leader on Sunday. On Saturday the news came in that Mr Everald Warmington has withdrawn the injunction application against the election of three deputy leaders for the party. It is understood that one of the issues raised by Warmington is the failure of the branch network to meet and send in minutes of their meetings to the party’s headquarters on a timely basis.

Evrald Warmington seems to represent all that is symptomatic of the JLP as a dysfunctional organisation. While the party in its pre-conference nuances tried to present themselves as a cohesive unit on the eve of the conference he took out an injunction bring three aspiring deputy leaders who did not follow the party’s constitutional internal processes. You can’t help but to give him some kudus by bringing to light that its business as usual whereby the party functionaries at the grass roots are often by passed in order for the big wigs in the party to further their personal political ambitions. Totally oblivious to the fact that the JLP is a democratic organisation and that its delegates and the selection committee should be at the core of its decision making process. As it stands now in my opinion the party is being led by a set of Plutocrats who have their heads up their posteriors.

To conclude we expect it to be business as usual as it regards to infighting in the JLP. The JLP organisation is like an old computer used by the Russian cosmonauts during the latter stage of the cold war in Russia -it is useless and needs radical reform. On the back of two election losses it cuts a pathetic figure, it’s a limp organisation masquerading as a genuine political party. The JLP has certainly become “the ugly Betty of Jamaican politics”. When the delegated and supporters arrive in Kingston today for the Sunday public session of the JLP 67th National Conference- if they are discursive they will be pondering: how did such a progressive party funded by Sir Alexander Bustamante descend into such a farce of an organisation?

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