Every so often, especially when things get out of hand, someone says “A people gets the government it deserves” or some approximation of that. That every-so-often sometimes seems all too frequent.
Just before US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Jamaica for a meeting with select Caribbean leaders, the Prime Minister of Barbados, sounded an alarm about the implications for Caribbean unity. Among the many responses, the Prime Minister of Jamaica was reported to have said that if any other Caribbean leader wished to attend all they had to do was ask to be invited. HeartBun was not impressed. It seemed to him tantamount to asking his neighbour to turn down the volume on the music and having his neighbour snicker that if he wanted an invitation to the party it would have been okay to have asked. He also wants to know if anyone else was offended by the statement of a Government senator, in the midst of a debate about national affairs, that by the time they are done the headquarters of the current party in opposition would be nothing but a museum?
‘Museums exist not just to collect and preserve objects and materials of cultural, religious, scientific and historical importance, but to present them to the public for the purpose of education and enjoyment.’
KinTeet would like to know which museum? Could it be the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. which houses more than 137 million objects detailing America’s story and significant aspects of the cultural expressions of Caribbean people, including recordings of the Honourable Louise Bennett-Coverley, OJ? Could it be the British Museum in London which for decades has tried to justify why it should not return important artefacts representing the history and culture of Africa, stolen from them as spoils of war? How about the Marcus Garvey Museum at Liberty Hall, the responsibility of the Jamaica National Heritage Trust or the music museum held by the Institute of Jamaica, the oldest cultural institution of its kind in this part of the world and located in the heart of downtown Kingston, favoured with the UNESCO designation of City of Music?
Museums exist not just to collect and preserve objects and materials of cultural, religious, scientific and historical importance, but to present them to the public for the purpose of education and enjoyment. Through them, we learn about what was valued that enabled human beings to build, maintain and contribute to civilisation. Values such as neighbourliness, good manners and diplomacy. Above all, it is a place of culture, raising people to understand the primacy of what it means to be human.
It is not necessary now to know whatever Joseph Maistre was thinking when he wrote: “Every nation gets the government it deserves.” We could ask whether this properly brought-up, counter-Enlightenment Frenchman, lawyer and philosopher intended that an observation he made about his own political culture should be globally embraced and made to apply to all people and all governments everywhere? For if his philosophical position regarding the relationship between the governed and the governors is true, then it could be restated so that the reverse is also true and must also be true that every government gets the people it deserves. KinTeet is amused by the reminder that “deserve” is used to mean punishment or reward given as a result of prior behaviour. Which leads to the obvious question, then what is happening in Jamaica?
Do the people deserve a sober discussion in Parliament about how to halt crime, stop corruption and ensure more people are gainfully employed? Does the government deserve people who refuse to pay taxes, begrudge workers minimum wage and still expect to benefit from a well-run, ordered society and justice for all? Who is deserving of the viciousness being rained down on our women and children? Who is deserving of the growing mountain of claims and counterclaims of corruption and scandal in places from which a nation ought to be able to take examples of how to behave?
The burden of leadership is to demonstrate to followership how to challenge itself to be better than it could ever imagine. The burden of the follower is to remind political leaders of everything they promised in their letter of application, sometimes called a manifesto, for the jobs they hold to which every honest working citizen contributes to their salary. The citizens deserve politicians who do not make utterances that suggest that they believe government is a game and the point of the game is to reduce the party in opposition to a museum relic. It deserves an understanding of a culture that values the role of museums and refuses to trivialise for momentary laughter.
The nation deserves a government who relates to the people of the Caribbean in ways that heal hurts hungover from the days of Federation and works to achieve common objectives which serve our collective future in a world increasingly hostile to the audacity of island-nations who dare to make the marks that we have been making on the world. Furthermore, we deserve a relationship between government and those who elect them which recognises that international doors open, not so much because of politicians, but more so because of the reputation which ordinary people have created out of their art and culture, their ability to excel in economic exile and their deep desire for their nation to thrive economically and spiritually. There can be nothing more deserved than a government who understands and protects that. It can begin by building a people worthy of what it aspired to lead.
Amina Blackwood-Meeks, PhD, Cultural Studies, is a lecturer and college orator at The Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts.
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