Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

“Sometimes we have to reach back to the past before we can launch forward into the future.”

We have all heard this “slingshot analogy” in different variations; like this one:

We have to know where we came from in order to know where we are going.

Any similar theme rings true!

Even in God’s word the Bible, the concept is presented that while a man reaps what he sows, he can be punished for the sins of his father – Exodus 34:7 – because chances are very great that he will commit the same infractions, as his father did; (and see Appendix VIDEO below):

An apple does not fall far from the tree

We are a product of our environment

Our nurture can override our nature

This is a consideration for Jamaica … and how this community can foster a Way Forward, away from its near-Failed-State status quo to a different destination of a prosperous homeland.

This commentary asserts that Jamaica must first reconcile its bad past before it can have a good future.

Why? Because of this premise here:

“If an empire is destroyed by its enemies, it will rise up again.
But if destroyed internally, it will be gone forever”. – Source.

This is the historicity of Jamaica and the sullied past that must be reconciled. This refers to the original plan for integration for the British Caribbean, the West Indies Federation.

Jamaica used to be a colony of the British Empire (United Kingdom); the quest for independence and autonomy was set forth as a long journey; the planners for stewardship of the British Caribbean conceived this West Indies Federation for 10 British territories to have the scale and leverage to be effective and efficient for regional economics, security and governance.

There was a West Indies Dollar, West Indies Regiment (today’s Jamaica Defense Force), University of the West Indies, and the West Indies Cricket Federation just to name a few of the institutions that were formed for this integration purpose – some remain today. But this Federation only lasted 4 years (1958 – 1962). This entity was not destroyed by its enemies, rather it was destroyed internally, by its own people, starting first and foremost with Jamaica. The 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean – a roadmap for a new integration movement: Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) – related this historic summary:

Jamaican Dynamic Appendix (Page 302)
Jamaica’s nationalistic ideals doomed the Federation; they were the largest population base and felt trivialized by the Federation. They believed that the smaller islands were draining Jamaica’s wealth; their share of the seats in the federal parliament was smaller than its share of the total Federation population. Jamaica was also remote to most of the other islands in the Federation, lying several hundred miles to the west. And many in Jamaica were upset that Kingston had not been chosen as the federal capital.

10 Lessons Learned from the West Indies Federation – #3: Jamaican Dynamic (Page 135)
Among the Caribbean nations, Haiti is highest on the 2012 Failed State Index (#7), Jamaica is among the next set of Caribbean countries at #119, just slightly behind South Africa (#115) and Albania (#118). Obviously, the nation-building needs of Jamaica has been truncated, plus the country’s brain drain is worst in the region with almost a matching population living abroad in a Diaspora as opposed to residing in and contributing to the local economy. The CU will ensure better representation of larger populated states by employing a bicameral legislative branch: while the Senate is “one-man-one-vote” (2 Senators per state), the lower house has balanced representation based on population.

Geographically, Jamaica is not the furthest west (Belize), nor south (Aruba) in the region. The Capitol for the CU is slated for a Federal District on the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. …

The Way Forward for Jamaica is that this country must now reconcile their bad behavior in the “regional sandbox” and learn how to play nice with others. Only then can the benefits of collaboration, cooperation and confederation come home … finally.

Only then can this country have a good future. (Since 1962, Jamaica has played in the “sandbox” alone, to its own peril). This theme – this Way Forward – aligns with previous commentaries from the Go Lean movement; see this sample list here:

Jamaica needs to reach back into their past, learn what it was that they did wrong – their fathers did wrong (see Appendix VIDEO below) – accept the learned-lessons, turn a new leaf and then march forward into the future with a determination and devotion to think, feel and act differently and better. This sounds so much like the Serenity Prayer that Alcoholics and Addicts are urged to enchant everyday:

Lord, give me the courage to change the things I can change
The serenity to accept the things I cannot change
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Today, this Way Forward is the courage, serenity and wisdom at work for Jamaica.

This commentary continues this recent series for the Way Forward for many other Caribbean member-states. Just recently, we completed a 3-part series categorized as follows:

1. Way Forward: Puerto Rico learns its “status” with America
2. Way Forward: Virgin Islands – America’s youngest colony
3. Way Forward: Bahamas – “Solutions White Paper” – An Inadequate Plan
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4. Way Forward: Jamaica: The need to reconcile the Past

This entire series asserts that “no man is an island” and that in fact “no island is an island”. Jamaica have always needed to collaborate and confederate with its regional neighbors. Their failure to do so, only imperiled their economic, security and governmental engines. Then their people fled; they left and joined communities abroad where the needed integration, cooperation and harmony existed.

This must now be reconciled. The stakeholders in Jamaica and from Jamaica are hereby urged to lean-in to this integration plan, this Go Lean roadmap, to make Jamaica a better homeland to live, work and play. Finally …

🙂

About the Book
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

• Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
• Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
• Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society.

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

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Appendix VIDEO – Does God Punish Children for the Sins of Their Parents? – https://youtu.be/C3OGrGAxqGE

Dr. Sean McDowell
Published on Oct 31, 2018 –  Does God hold children accountable for when their parents do bad things? Is culpability for sin passed on from one generation to the next? Sean briefly answers these questions.

• Category: Education