- Article
- By Kevin O'Brien Chang
- March 19, 2001
“Big a yard and small abroad” goes an old saying. And since I was in Canada on March 8th it certainly rang true for me about the North East St. Ann by election. The Jamaican newspapers that week talked of little else, but in the Canadian media it warranted no mention at all. Which is hardly surprising. After all Jamaicans don’t pay attention to Canadian by elections either.
- Article
- By Kevin O'Brien Chang
- April 2, 2001
Jamaica is not a country of comfortable certainties. Take the recent Braeton shootings where police killed seven youths. Like most people my first reaction was “Yes, seven gunmen less on the streets!” But when some reports cast doubts on the police version of events I began to wonder if it had indeed been a case of extra judicial murder.
- Article
- By Kevin O'Brien Chang
- August 13, 2001
While in Toronto Canada last week I went to a live free performance by Jamaica’s international star Shaggy. The massive crowd, composed mostly of young females of all races, enjoyed itself immensely. At one point Shaggy brought a young girl of about 12 on stage and serenaded her while the crowd cheered. When he did his signature piece “It Wasn’t Me” the place went wild. (Why are women of all ages invariably the biggest fans of “old dog” songs?) Afterwards Shaggy gave a studio interview shown on big screens around the venue where he came across as bright, articulate and humble. Having tasted stardom once before and then been almost forgotten, he realized fame was fickle - “Another guy might soon come along to take my place, so I’ve just got to enjoy it while I can”. Shaggy made me feel proud as a Jamaican – “What a nice guy” everyone kept saying. The crowd left feeling happy and in high spirits, which after all is what entertainment is supposed to be about. All in all it was first rate stuff. The man deserves to have sold 10 million records.
- Article
- By Kevin O'Brien Chang
- October 8, 2001
Last year the human genome “Book of Life” project confirmed what every intelligent person already knew, that there is no scientific basis for the concept of race. Only a fraction of the three billion letters in the human genetic code differ among individuals, so biologically we are all 99.99% the same. Persons from different ethnic groups can be more genetically similar than individuals within the same group, and there is more genetic variability within Africa than outside it. Meaning that from a biological perspective all of us are Africans, either residing in Africa or in recent exile.
- Article
- By Kevin O'Brien Chang
- October 15, 2001
Whatever else he may be, Edward Seaga is unique. He must be the only non-native born white man ever elected prime minister of a predominantly black country. And has anyone else in recent times played such prominent roles in both the cultural and political development of a nation? A pioneer in Jamaican anthropology; a driving force behind the popularization of ska; an originator of Festival; arguably our best finance minister; the prime minister with the second longest term in office; the longest serving parliamentarian ever - no one else has influenced modern Jamaica in so many ways.
- Article
- By Kevin O'Brien Chang
- June 5, 2000
The United States claims to be the land of the free. But like many television ads, the reality is very different from the image. The US contains only 5% of the world’s population but over 25% of its prisoners, and America’s incarceration rate of over 730 per 100,000 is the highest on earth. (Jamaica’s 135 per 100,000 is fairly normal.) In 1980 there were 500,000 inmates in the US. There are now over 2 million, two thirds of whom have been convicted for non-violent crimes, mainly drug offences. Average prison sentences have also increased, partly as a result of “three strikes and you are out” legislation mandating long fixed jail terms for repeat offenders. All this is the result of laws making it easier to arrest and convict suspects.
- Article
- By Kevin O'Brien Chang
- June 26, 2000
Never say never is the first rule of politics, so it may be premature to write the National Democratic Movement’s obituary. But with declining poll ratings, ineffective leadership and muddled policies, the NDM increasingly appears a spent force.
- Article
- By Kevin O'Brien Chang
- August 28, 2000
In 1955 Jamaica recorded 20 murders and our homicide rate was about 1 per 100,000. This was slightly above Britain’s, about the same as Barbados’s and about a quarter of America’s. In 1999 Jamaica recorded 848 murders or a rate of about 33 per 100,000. This was over 15 times that of Britain, and about 5 times that of Barbados and the USA.
- Article
- By Kevin O'Brien Chang
- November 27, 2000
Of the 22 countries where democracy has existed continuously since 1950, 18 have parliamentary governments - Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and the UK. France has a hybrid system and Switzerland a plural executive. Only Costa Rica and the US have presidential governments.
- Article
- By Kevin O'Brien Chang
- March 24, 1999
Except for Switzerland and Sweden, the only countries to enjoy uninterrupted democratic rule between 1914 and 1945 were Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. This was no accident. As the black American Economist Thomas Sowell wrote.