Since December the Jamaican dollar has slid from about 48 to over 60 to one against its US counterpart. Where it will settle is anyone’s guess, but perhaps the past can give some guide as to what is to come.

When Richard ‘Shrimpy’ Clarke fought for the World Flyweight Boxing title in 1990 you could almost feel the nationalistic fervour in the jampacked National Arena. “Lick ‘im down Shrimpy!” the ecstatic crowd screamed deliriously as he skillfully outboxed champion Sot Chitalada for the first 8 rounds - “He’s giving him a boxing lesson!” a man behind me kept shouting. Alas a jolting uppercut knocked out Shrimpy in the 11th round. “Him teach him too good!” a wag commented wryly as we filed out in gloomy disappointment.

Jamaicans love to revel in bad news, and there’s been a lot of it lately as the dollar falls, the national debt rises, and Gulf War II decimates tourism. Then of course there’s the continuing cynicism and hypocrisy of our politicians.

Upper class verandah talkers love to compare Singapore to Jamaica. “How much better off we would be with a Lee Kwan Yew!” they lament. Now you have to admire Singapore’s accomplishments. Starting from virtually the same level as Jamaica in 1962 it has become one of the 10 richest countries per capita, and is spotlessly clean and crime free.

Why is Jamaica’s murder rate – which at 44 per 100,000 was last year the world’s second highest after Colombia’s – so high? Well garrison politics obviously play a part. As do drugs. And deportees. And guns. And illiteracy. And an inability to resolve conflicts peacefully. But these are all symptoms and not root causes.

Thanks to Marcus Garvey and Bob Marley Jamaica is famed as a font of black consciousness. And no country gave stronger moral support to Zimbabwe and South Africa in the fight against apartheid. So what will Nigerians watching the Miss World contest next month think of a white Jewish Miss Jamaica?

Every August we hear dewy-eyed imperialists nostalgically lamenting how much better off we were under the Union Jack. And the recent Stone poll showing that 53% of Jamaicans feel we would have been better off if we had remained a British colony was certainly food for thought. Yet suppose a referendum had been held in 1962 and a majority of Jamaicans had voted against independence. Would Britain have continued to support us as a colony?

“A culture based on joy is bound to be shallow. Sadly, to sell itself, the Caribbean encourages the delights of mindlessness, of brilliant vacuity, as a place to flee not only winter but that seriousness that comes only out of culture with four seasons.” Derek Walcott – Nobel Lecture 1992

“The Church In Crisis” – so ran many headlines about the recent Roman Catholic sex scandals in America. But it’s also the title of a book by Philip Hughes detailing the 20 General Councils of the Church between 325 AD and 1869. If you include Vatican II in 1962 this gives an average of one every 80 years. Meaning that “The Church in Crisis” is probably the second oldest regularly occurring headline in history, ranking only behind that eternal favourite “War Breaks Out”.

Jamaican music’s planet wide popularity is surely one of the late 20^th century’s most intriguing cultural phenomena. For reggae may be the only music not of European or North American origin which can be heard in every country on earth, and is arguably the first example in modern times of a non-western nation exporting its culture around the globe.