Building trust
THE LITTLE infant-school girl stood at the crossing just above the Ministry of Finance at Heroes Circle. The attendant with the sign stopped the traffic to let her pass across safely. Frustration: she wouldn’t budge until minutes later, when an only slightly older child, maybe a friend or sibling, appeared and held her hand as they braved the congestion and crossed. It was a matter of trust. Relationships matter where trust is concerned.
Trust levels are low in Jamaica. Uniforms, status, pretensions and show off don’t bespeak trust. Often, they induce fear and disdain more than cooperation. Check the public’s real feeling about the police and soldiers. Look at what is happening in Denham Town.
Selfishness is the by-product of mistrust. It is foolish to expose yourself when you don’t trust. Commitment, which i mplies vulnerability – to a person, a cause, a job, a country – is withheld. You can’t leave yourself careless. One has to choose carefully who you let hold your hand to cross the dangerous streets of life. But wasn’t nationhood meant to foster mutual reliance and trust?
“Peter began to walk on the water towards Jesus… but became afraid of the wind and began to sink. “Lord save me”, he cried. Jesus stretched his hand and caught him…” O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:30)
In hard times, which are getting worse every day, and as we lurch towards this big Independence anniversary, introspection is advised as to how we can improve trust levels.
There is danger i n making opposites of freedom and obligation. I think the chaos on our roads is emblematic of our moral deficit. When driving or riding, the ethic is that I do whatever I can get away with. To hell with the police and the traffic rules. My freedom and perceived advantage trump any sense of obligation to others. The same feeling determines how I link with people.
This frame of mind and pattern of behaviour is very infectious. If you don’t join in, you will get ‘share out’ or be trampled. Standards become infinitely malleable. Coercion – not trust, not shared values – becomes t he only recourse of the powerful.
WHAT HAS CHANGED?
So what, fundamentally, has changed since 1865? Then, the House of Assembly, which was supposed to advance Jamaican interests, was the pawn of the colonial government. Bogle and his race were to trust ‘backra’, work, shut up, and hope for social mobility in Heaven.
Fast-forward to 2022. Ask Fitz Jackson, that relentless fighter for fairness in the banking sector, what has changed. Only the melanin of the present plantocratic House, still representing minority interests but ironically named after a martyred member whose values we find every reason to decline to follow.
Trust is key to progress and happiness more than money and big talk. Listen to the news last week. A respected voice, Richard Pandohie, tells us that food and energy prices are going to go higher, so we had better plant up the place quickly and conserve. We trust him more than the ministers who say that the economy is rebounding nicely and jobs abound, while the working poor and the horde outside the labour market can’t find what to eat.
And how is trust engendered when the bureaucrats in the finance ministry say that the Budget may have to be recasted; the gas price surges beyond $250; chicken raise again although, like in America, the billionaires multiply in the hardest of times; while the spirit quails and the purchasing power of the working class declines?
Lack of a common cause, absence of trust, ‘advantage taking’, all sap the national spirit. No frolic, carnival or Independence circus can assuage that. Hype and froth can’t fill hungry belly or satiate restless souls.
GREAT HOPE
I repose great hope in what should be a renewed partnership between Church and State regarding education. Respectfully, I suggest that they agree on three priorities which are affordable and essential. First, declare the whole country a truancy zone under the Education Act. Every church and social group must accept responsibility to insist on full school attendance. Whatever the deficiencies in the classroom programme, turning up is the prerequisite for any advance.
The second necessity is to provide enough food for school breakfast AND lunch. Tens of thousands of children need more nutritious food to be able to learn. Government funds, along with parental and community ‘mek-up’, are sufficient to provide this – but only if the shared will and the trust are present.
Third, every adult church member should try to mentor at least one child – to show sustained interest and care, especially when family support is weak. Mentoring can make a huge difference to that one life, and to the nation.
Dr Peter Phillips used to describe the ideal Jamaican school as becoming “a community of care”. I trust that the practical resolve to create such will be the outcome of the meeting between the Umbrella Group of Churches and the Ministry of Education.