By Michael Burke From Jamaica Observer

Globalisation is mainly about the fact that certain First World economies had mass produced many products, including food, and had no buyers.

So we are approaching that time of year again when we celebrate both Emancipation and political independence. It is now 177 years since full Emancipation in 1838, and 53 years since political independence. While the political Opposition of whichever party has a collective duty to oppose and criticise when necessary, they should never oppose in such a way that young people are confused about our achievements since we gained full freedom, especially since political independence.

It is very easy to assume that the things we take for granted were always in existence. Too many Jamaicans have been brainwashed to the extent that they believe that things were better under colonialism. And, so effective has been the brainwash that, when shown that it was not, they say that the changes would have come anyway. Many times they point to the Cayman Islands and state how that country is still a colony and point to their advancement. But the nationalists in Cayman are always very angry when Jamaicans speak like that.

The fact is that Cayman has self-government, and their status is almost like independence because they rule themselves. The only thing England does for them is to pay the governor’s salary. All of Cayman’s advancements have taken place since they achieved full internal self-government.

To a certain extent, though, mental slavery is only natural. We read in the scripture that when the first pangs of hunger were felt by the Jews in the desert, they criticised Moses for taking them out into the desert, when there were always fleshpots of meat to eat during slavery under Pharaoh.

Indeed, it is a well-known tactic of slave owners to make themselves feel dependent to the point where parents teach the succeeding generations that this is the way things are. In later years the trick of making allowing a limited availability of enjoyable things for the slaves, serfs, workers, or whatever would make the slaves hanker after slave-like conditions just to achieve them. This is done until this day and the entire aim is for money.

Economic independence

Emancipendence in 2015 comes at a time when the Black caucus of the US Congress has written to US President Barack Obama to request his veto power in the International Monetary Fund to take the crippling debt repayment conditions off Jamaica so that the economy can grow. On the one hand, this has been hailed as a progressive move because it will allow Jamaica to grow and allow some breathing space. On the other hand, it can push us back into the yoke of dependency where we continue to borrow for eternity.

While it is true that Jamaica should go through some bitter medicine to learn fiscal responsibility, debt forgiveness would allow nations to move up with progress. The late Pope John Paul II joined the cry of many Third World states that called for debt forgiveness. Globalisation has seemingly brought instant benefits, but it has wreaked havoc on our local industries. Jamaica, like many Second and Third World states was given the choice of buying cheap goods mainly from the United States of America or face the consequence of a boycott of our exports. This was mainly in the 1990s.

What was globalisation mainly about? It was really about the fact that certain First World economies had mass produced many products, including food, and had no buyers. So the agricultural products were dumped on the Third World and we were bullied into submission to take it. It meant cheaper items and very few democratically elected governments that have to face the polls periodically were going to refuse such goods.

All of a sudden cheap chicken meat was available which put our own industry in jeopardy. But it brought income to US farmers and, by extension, votes for the then sitting US Government in their elections.

But flooding the Jamaican market with cheaper goods — which created havoc with local employment — was but one thing. The destruction of our goods and services industries, coupled with the sustenance and confirmation of a system of dependency on foreign goods, was quite another. All of a sudden there was cheaper milk at a time when Jamaicans consumed large quantities of cow’s milk each day. Jamaicans consumed volumes of milk each day, some as much as three glasses per day. Local farmers opened their milk vats and let millions of gallons of milk go to waste as they could not keep up with the competition. This was 20 years ago. Very few people foresaw the danger of this renewed dependency on imports. I have been a newspaper columnist for 27 years and I was worried what would happen if the imports were cut off. Then came the US Gulf war and 9/11. All of a sudden they needed all of that extra food for the war effort so the imports from globalisation to places like Jamaica lessened.

Further, the USA needed their corn to make ethanol, and the corn farmers forced the animal feed industry in the United States to match the prices of the US Government in terms of the price of corn. This created inflation that put many businesses in the US out of business and, as a consequence, further financial problems in Jamaica whose economy is tied too much to the USA.

The end result of all of this was a return by Jamaica to the International Monetary Fund when the Bruce Golding-led Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) was in power and Audley Shaw was minister of finance. This was all the more inevitable because the JLP, when in government, are not known to have many friends on the world circuit that would give Jamaica some loans and grants to help us out in hard times. There was no equivalent of Michael Manley or P J Patterson in the JLP in terms of persuading some nations to take us out of the economic problems that we have.

Then there was the threat of boycott of our exports if we did not take the cheap items. This was a major contributor to the financial meltdown of the 1990s but it is ‘bad politics’ for the party in Opposition to mention this.

For more on this story go to: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/Emancipendence-on-the-global-level_19220132