06.MAR.09

Editor: I have all the ambition of one day becoming a good writer, but for now I will just settle for expressing my ideas on whatever topic is important to me at the time when I sit by my computer. This week, I have realized that there are quite a few interesting topics on my mind. I will start again with Cuba.{{more}}

Cuba

I was sitting listening to the closing of Parnel Campbell’s The Law and You last Monday night, and he made a few interesting remarks about Cuba and the Embargo. In my own words, he was saying that the Cuban people lived with an embargo for over 50 years, and the pressure that the US tried to apply never subdued their will, courage and strength. All it did was actually strengthen their survival skills and make them a more resilient and fortified people. I must, therefore, pose the question to persons here: Are we a strong and resilient people that we could take anything that is thrown at us? Is our nation always going to be divided along partisan lines? Can we become a new people where we are able to criticize or support an issue without being labeled as green, yellow, blue or the other party?

I definitely think that this is within our reach, but persons have to start by making the changes within themselves, start opening up and seeing an issue based on its merit, not based on whose agenda it was put forward. Too many of our intellectuals, professionals and talk show personalities lead the masses in the path of division and exclusion, instead of unity and inclusion. Let’s start everything from the communities. To develop any nation, we must start from the foundation, the grass roots, the ghettos and slums. We must be concerned about the smaller things, like if our neighbour has had a meal, if the sick are really able to purchase their medication.

Youths

It’s the sports season here in all schools. I fondly remember the days of my youth. There was so much that we did that are now things of the past. I know the previous generations would have labeled my era as a very privileged age, but I now can say the same for the current generation. I can give a few examples.

•  Games in our day were mainly outdoors, like Moral, Hopscotch, Dodge and Round Dodge, Coupiee, and the other conventional sports.

•  We would have a cook out in my village almost every week; sometimes yard fowl, and sometimes crab that we hunted on the rainy nights.

•  Lots of picnics with Mrs. Bailey; Sunday school class, where we visited lots of sites of historical and national interest.

•  Our school fairs and teen hops were exactly what they were supposed to be, fun filled time for the youths.

I am in no way going to be devastatingly critical of the youths because a lot of the problems that we label on them are spill offs from our own neglect and lack of participation in the activities that interest them. We can see that there are some serious problems in relation to the youths of our nation, especially in the following areas:

•  The games of the youths are now mostly indoors, with machines and little personal contact with others. We all spend more time now on cell phones than on face to face conversations.

•  The rate of teenage pregnancy, in my opinion, is still too high, especially now that we are in the information age, where info is all around us in how we could protect ourselves against this.

•  The second is closely linked with the first; there is an alarming amount of young persons with the dreaded disease of HIV/AIDS. This clearly suggests that they are not adhering to the campaign against this disease here in our country.

•  I have noticed the general decline in the behaviour and attitude of a lot of our youths, but again I will not rest this solely on the shoulders of our youth. The tolerance and respect levels here have decreased tremendously, and this is one of the reasons why our crime rate has soared.

•  In one of Haile Selassie’s speeches, he mentions that we must become members of a new race, and that we have to try and live side by side with those of other races, opinions and points of view. We must guide the youths and stop always blaming them. There has been a general problem in our society, and the youths form an integral part so they will be effected equally.

In conclusion, I will use a famous quote from Fidel: “A better world is possible,” but for this to happen it has to start which each individual. We have to be convinced that this is our utmost goal and start creating it.

Blessed Love
Angella Ideisha Jackson