Rosemarie Shaw | Stop degeneration of St Thomas

St Thomas is blessed, and the people are brave, innovative, and resilient. History has underscored them as accommodating and long-suffering and yet very disrespected and mistreated. Whenever things become unbearable, St Thomas people are the ones most likely to grab the bull by its horns.

The people of St Thomas played extraordinary roles in the 1930s uprisings, and in 1974, they registered a revolutionary election victory – independent candidates winning majority seats in the St Thomas parish council election of that year, still the only independent majority in independent Jamaica.

It was only after enduring intense hardship, under the ill-managed roadworks, that St Thomas’ residents began putting real pressure on the authorities – blocking roads and shifting support from the governing political party. Other parishes might not have been so patient. Yet the Government seems oblivious to the fact that the residents of St Thomas have been stretched and their patience has run out. How unconscionable is it for Prime Minister Holness to be asking them and the people of east Portland to “pardon the progress” of the roadworks?

It is disrespectful to, especially, St Thomas residents for the Government not to apologise and compensate them for the undue suffering they have been put through, from the ill-managed roadworks, and not to hasten completion and ensure improved quality. It does not make sense for asphalt to be peeling away while work is in progress in eastern St Thomas – Dumfries to Lyssons and Johns Town to Prospect main roads. Also, the redigging of some completed sections, because of poor standards, has caused ‘craters’ in Church Corner to Morant Bay main road. It is more than disgusting that there is now a literal standstill on the roadworks in eastern St Thomas and snail-slow progress in the west.

DESERVE BETTER

St Thomas’s people deserve better. Economic and political exclusions, facilitated by an entrenched political culture, has been holding progress back – neither of the two current MPs is from the parish. In fact, since 1955, the Jamaica Labour Party has not used a St Thomas person to contest national elections in eastern St Thomas and in the west save for Dorothy Lightbourne. It is hard to believe that it was mere coincidence that the Isaac Barrant Hospital was downgraded to a clinic while the Princess Margaret Hospital is still celebrating the monarch – Barrant was a St Thomas native. Also, that Violet Thompson, a St Thomas politician – who became the first Jamaican woman to sit in parish councils, the Senate, and the elected House of Parliament – is not mentioned on the pages of history.

There is still no monument commemorating either Miss World 2019 Toni-Ann Singh or Hansel Parchment – 2020 Olympic gold medallist – in St Thomas or anywhere else in Jamaica. In fact, Toni-Ann’s portrait still has not been painted in any of our international airports. Both Singh and Parchment are St Thomas natives. But the treatment is worse at the lower levels. Current MP of St Thomas Eastern – Michelle Charles – sank the disrespect of the less privileged of the constituency to unprecedented low levels. Only days ago, she physically shoved a woman’s orange rag under the woman’s dress to accentuate not only her commitment to tribal politics, but the extent that she was willing to go to muffle freedom of choice and of privacy of, especially, the less-fortunate women of Eastern St Thomas.

No woman should have to endure such humiliation to obtain financial assistance from taxpayers’ money for her children. Not when the experience is likely to scare not only hers, but her children’s self-esteem for life. There are other instances of disrespect to Eastern St Thomas women seeking assistance for their children, reportedly some were spoken down to and calls from others not being answered.

UNAWARE

MP Charles seems quite unaware of the history of St Thomas women. Historic records show that St Thomas lost most of its strong and witty men in the mass-revenge killing of 1865. So it was mostly women who rebuilt the parish. Furthermore, “in a patriarchal society, it was even more difficult for them as there weren’t men to advocate”. Now that there are comparative opportunities, there are absolutely no reasons for St Thomas women not to be equitably and respectfully treated.

The people of St Thomas have been literally excluded from current arrangements for big hotel developments in the parish. Some have already been removed from their natural habitat and others have been served removal notices to make way for big multinational hotel developers – no empathy for the disruption of their economic and social life and for their psychological well-being.

In the coastal village of Pera in eastern St Thomas, the residents’ dream of community tourism’ is being shattered by the member of parliament siding with the Pera Estates owners in stopping a community tourist camping initiative and trying to restrict the community’s access to the beaches – notwithstanding their generational rights. Pera has enough sea, beaches, fresh water, and vacant land for a big multinational all-inclusive hotel and residents investing properly in tourism at the same time.

TOURISM HUB

Up to the end of the 1980s, Pera was the Mecca for both international and local tourists. Guests from the then Peak View Hotel and from other accommodations on Bowden Hill and sailors from boats docked in Bowden wharf would be frequent in Pera. The Peak View hotel began, as a subsidiary of the then Titchfield Hotel, basically to accommodate wharf and ship officials.

Bowden is an old seaport town from which banana and sugar were shipped. Bowden Hill is so close to Pera that many believed that it is a part of Old Pera.

Hotel development in Pera was first proposed in the 1950s by then Premier Norman Manley and then Finance Minister Noel Nethersole, who toured the area and highlighted its rich natural and man-made features.

Pera is divided into two districts: New and Old Pera. Old Pera previously had an aerodrome and New Pera, a well-kept public beach with all basic amenities and ample parking space. Mr Ashwell, then owner of the Pera Estates, operated these facilities for private and public use, respectively, They significantly enhanced the quality of tourism in Pera. Nuff respect to Mr Ashwell. He never tried to exclude locals. If fact, men from Pera and adjoining districts were allowed to have their cultivations on certain sections of his land. Some well-to-do people from Pera still tell their stories of how they boarded Ashwell’s private plane in Pera to Boscobel because Ashwell got them decent jobs in tourism on the north coast.

It would be Jamaica’s biggest blunder if Pera is not developed as a model community tourist resort and massive disrespect if big multinational all-inclusive hotels emerge to exclusively dominate the people there.

Rosemarie Shaw is St Thomas Eastern PNP constituency chairman. Send feedback to rosemarieys@yahoo.com.