Preserving All Of Our History
Many Jamaicans have a romantic notion of life in old colonial Jamaica. Somehow they feel that life was better for all under British colonial rule and I sometimes wonder just where they got this idea from. Yes life was very good for a chosen few, the colonial class. Yes it was a simpler time but back then the vast majority of Jamaicans lived in poverty and the only difference is back then they accepted their lot in life. Just before independence 80% of the Jamaican population was functionally illiterate. One quarter of the total workforce had no jobs. No real housing, no running water or electricity and the distribution of land ownership and the means of production represented gross and growing inequalities. At that time pre-independence Jamaica had a very small middle class. During colonial Jamaica, just before independence only 20% of the population could read and write During colonial Jamaica the unemployment and underemployment rate was as high as 45% to 50% of the popul...