The prevailing incidents over the past nine months leading to the current state of emergency and the related violence may have severely damaged Jamaica’s reputation and set back any possibility of realizing meaningful economic recovery in the near future. Ironically, the situation culminated into a major crisis just as the IMF announced that the nation had passed the first quarterly IMF test since receiving a loan from the Fund.

What the future holds for the nation does not look very optimistic at this juncture with the international profiled clash between Jamaican security forces and criminal elements entrenched in Tivoli Gardens, West Kingston, supported by some residents who have become dependent on this criminality.

At the core of Jamaica’s (and several Caribbean nations’) problems is the perpetuation of the unfair distribution of wealth, with the majority of the population living in poverty, the youth frustrated by unemployment and the lack of opportunity; and the common factor in the society for too many people being a sense of despair.

Possibly, with the exception of the Alexander Bustamante/Donald Sangster/Hugh Shearer administrations of the 1960s, Jamaica has been besieged by economic challenges. Despite the relative prosperity of the Hugh Shearer administration in the late 1960s, the divide between rich and poor has not been breached.

Michael Manley unseated Shearer as prime minister, gaining the overwhelming support of Jamaicans on his passionate platform of social change; change that would, “for the first time at last,” level the socio-economic landscape. Historically, this may have been Jamaica’s best chance to realize real socio-economic reform, as the nation was then caught up not in just the ascendance of an extremely charismatic leader, but a movement for change. Maybe this change would have been realized if Manley had not stamped the misunderstood and misinterpreted label of ‘Democratic Socialism’ on the movement.

If only Manley was not so fond of, what now appears to have been, irresponsible rhetoric that scared Jamaica’s middle class and business class into taking those five Air Jamaica flights daily to Miami, that he urged them to take. Without the support of these two classes, the promising movement faltered and instead of the rich-poor gap being breached, a larger corps of poverty stricken citizens emerged. Unfortunately, so damaged was the socio-economic system, neither the technical expertise of Edward Seaga, the analytical and political skills of P.J. Patterson, the populist appeal of Portia Simpson Miller, nor the once refreshing promises of Bruce Golding have been able to fix.

Jamaica never recovered from the ‘70s. There has been fleeting glimpses of growth, but these were never sustained, and poverty has worsened. Maybe if the quest for social reform was effectively managed and succeeded in the ‘70s, it would have militated against the longevity of garrison communities and their dons.

It was the worsening national economy, the widening divide between rich and poor, and succeeding government’s ineffectiveness in meeting the demands of the poor that led to dons like Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke. The dons replaced the government in the inner cities in providing the basic needs of the residents, especially women and children. These residents, like the West Kingston women demonstrating against the extradition of Coke, regard the dons as “next to God.” If governments were able to adequately provide for the poor, Dons like the late Lester ‘Jim Brown’ Coke, Vivian Blake and now Dudus would not be inner city legends.

The stark fact is that poverty breeds crime; crime helps to fill the poverty gap in the inner cities, and among those filling the gap is the Don, who fosters a community that becomes a garrison community in which the Don is revered.

Hopefully, when the mess in which Jamaica is now embroiled ends, and law, order, sanity and good governance are restored, whoever is the nation’s leader, and whatever party forms the government, seriously focus on reforming Jamaica’s socio-economic system. The poverty gap must be bridged. Formidable social programs, irrespective of the demands of the IMF must be developed and implemented. The poor can no longer remain in a state of hopelessness, depending on handouts from dons. The one, real Don, should be the government.

Social reform could have worked in the 70s, and it can work now, if effectively developed, implemented and managed. If no Jamaican leader/government is willing or able to meaningfully address the problem of poverty, attempt to eliminate garrison communities, dons, and crime, it will be fruitless. Hopefully, the current situation will produce a leader, who will embrace the majority of Jamaicans in embarking on a new social movement, dedicated to fighting and defeating poverty. It won’t be easy, but therein lies the real hope for Jamaica.