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I reference it for many developing nations including the rhetoric from many Latin American nations that blame all ills on "the Spanish stole "our" gold - that's why we're poor". You can carry on with the same victimised mentality and dismiss it as "code" or you can confront the elements of truth. Seems as though you will choose to use the former.
What are you talking about?
The discussion about nations not being fully independent is far more complex than the simplistic nonsense above. We are talking about individuals in power who would rather comply with the larger nations for kickbacks, fear of trade losses or due to fear of sanctions, for example.
908Boi is correct regarding it being code. Such preconceived notions prevent people from conducting real analysis. It is not only ignorant but lazy, which is a significant aspect of prejudice anyway. There is not or should not be room for laziness when discussing the challenges facing developing nations.
It seems that independent Caribbean nations such as Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, to name a few, are high in crime and have terrible infrastructure.
Would you say the days of British colonial rule were better?
Does the majority of the population of those countries prefer the countries stay independent, or go back to the United Kingdom?
Whether the current residents think that they were better off under British rule is irrelevant and almost no one who is alive remembers what life was like prior to the 1960s.
Up to the 1950s secondary school education was available only to the elites, with a few scholarships available to the brightest non elites. Societies were semi feudal and dominated by a planter class with a severe hierarchy of skin color. Illiteracy rates, and infant mortality rates were higher and access to electricity and indoor plumbing almost non existent outside of the elites and the middle class.
Whereas today babies die mainly from delivery related issues in those days they died from malnutrition and sanitation related issues, given that the "toilet" most available to most was either the bush, or a leaking latrine.
Large shanty town communities existed. Yes people building "homes" with whatever materials that they could find, much as one would see in today's Haiti.
Those who wish to go back to the UK do so because they wish to migrate to the UK. Of course when they arrive in the UK they might find life not as nice as they might think it is. British people of Caribbean descent are worse off, using most metrics than are Caribbean immigrants to the USA and Canada.
I will suggest that even the two countries which have done worst, Jamaica and Guyana, or better off. Barbados is now almost a developed island. In 1950 it was a land filled with impoverished and hopeless people ground down with the severe condition in the cane fields under which they labored.
The UK had NO INTEREST in lavishing the expenditures that the French did with their islands. As far as the UK was concerned these countries were a drain on their purse and so they were pushed out into independence.
And it’s pathetic. I’m still waiting to see where the victimized statements are in my post. Some people are quick to make assumptions because they believe people of certain backgrounds or from certain nations all think one way. It’s indictative of unexposure.
It is very pathetic. Even this thread premise is suspect, since i'm willing to bet that the threadstarter has zero connection to the Caribbean and could care less. Notice these people never ask whether DR or Cuba should go back to Spain or US occupation.
People love to quote this article but always seem to forget this part. Clearly biased/flawed survey that I would be weary of paying much attention to.
I can't speak specifically to this survey, but professional survey-takers always use a small sample to represent a much larger one. They are careful to select their respondents in such a way, according to characteristics such as age, sex, income, educational attainment, political persuasion, etc., as to represent the overall population.
Again, I have no way of knowing the details of this particular survey. But in general, there is nothing suspect about using 1,000 people to represent the whole of Jamaica.
The answer to this question is rather obvious, just compare the Cayman Islands or Bermuda to Jamaica. Case closed. There's a reason why polling regularly shows upwards of 70-80% of Bermudians opposed to independence. Even the nominally pro-independence Progressive Labor Party doesn't really push the matter anymore. The current premier and party leader David Burt basically said that the party's support for independence is lip service to appease internal party fractions. The modern British Overseas Territories have the best of both worlds, they are basically entirely self governing except for defense, foreign affairs, and certain matters relating to policing and the judiciary (ie: the UK Supreme Court is the highest court of appeal). In return they get British citizenship, free referrals to NHS, reduced tuition at British colleges and universities, access to various grants and funds from the British government, etc. What's the problem? Sounds like a good deal to me. Heck, with DonDon around returning to being a British Overseas Territory sounds like a great option for Long Island.
I think it would be difficult to tell. Remember, Britain itself was in a very sorry state during the 40's after the war and rationing continued well into the 50's. .
This is why they dumped their colonies in the Caribbean.
The reason why the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Turks & Caicos, BVI and Anguilla are rich is because of their vibrant off shore finance industries. An industry that the UK and other OECS nations would like to shut down, but that these territories fight valiantly to maintain.
Ironically, with the exception of Bermuda, these were all extremely poor and undeveloped places in the British colonial era as they were too dry or had soils too poor to grow sugar and so generated no revenues for the UK.
These territories are all self reliant, and basically independent, and receive no budgetary support from the UK. One cannot argue that being UK territories guarantees better governance as more than one chief minister from the BVI and T&C were involved in corruption, and in at least one case, money laundering and allowing drug trafficking.
Whether the current residents think that they were better off under British rule is irrelevant and almost no one who is alive remembers what life was like prior to the 1960s.
Up to the 1950s secondary school education was available only to the elites, with a few scholarships available to the brightest non elites. Societies were semi feudal and dominated by a planter class with a severe hierarchy of skin color. Illiteracy rates, and infant mortality rates were higher and access to electricity and indoor plumbing almost non existent outside of the elites and the middle class.
Whereas today babies die mainly from delivery related issues in those days they died from malnutrition and sanitation related issues, given that the "toilet" most available to most was either the bush, or a leaking latrine.
Large shanty town communities existed. Yes people building "homes" with whatever materials that they could find, much as one would see in today's Haiti.
Those who wish to go back to the UK do so because they wish to migrate to the UK. Of course when they arrive in the UK they might find life not as nice as they might think it is. British people of Caribbean descent are worse off, using most metrics than are Caribbean immigrants to the USA and Canada.
I will suggest that even the two countries which have done worst, Jamaica and Guyana, or better off. Barbados is now almost a developed island. In 1950 it was a land filled with impoverished and hopeless people ground down with the severe condition in the cane fields under which they labored.
The UK had NO INTEREST in lavishing the expenditures that the French did with their islands. As far as the UK was concerned these countries were a drain on their purse and so they were pushed out into independence.
Quality post. Made me re-think my post that in some ways Jamaica is worse off economically. Its really not true. Jamaica is worse off economically compared to where Jamaica used to be as an "independent" nation but not where it used to be as a colony. Sometimes people are so caught up in the problems of today that it is hard to see how far you have come. I honestly believe that poll offers no insight into the thought process of Jamaicans as its just anger at our current condition without a real analysis of what it meant to be a colony.
Its been amazing how some have used this poll as a means of reinforcing certain stereotypes while completely ignoring the role of others in creating a current condition.
You really ought to be do better than to use the BBC as a source of whether Jamaicans love the Queen or not. You think that they would dare mount a piece where many people blame her family for slavery and all the ills of the colonial era, and its ongoing legacy on contemporary Jamaica?
Jamaicans want to migrate to the UK. They also want to be a colony of the USA and of Canada. This for the same reasons.
I bet if one asked any Caribbean society if they wished to be annexed to large rich nation the response will be yes, because then they would be able to migrate to that country. This much as Puerto Ricans and people from the French islands do.
That no one will want to be a colony of Spain is quite obvious!
Few Jamaicans know life under British rule. The island began to have measures of self government after 1944 and achieved full independence in 1962. If they did they would remember that for urban black women their main occupation was as maids and that almost none of them had access to secondary school education.
I suspect that Americans love the Queen more than Jamaicans do. Does this mean that the USA wants to revert to being a UK territory.
There are some people that love to quote the findings of that poll...I see it all over the place...people who really know whats going on understand that the poll was more of a referendum on the failure of the Jamaican political system...people who understand that system a little deeper also understand that the system is not that of a truly independent nation
Exactly! No one who is honest will claim that life in Jamaica in 2017 is worse than it was in 1937 in the depth of the British colonial era.
Until 1944 the vast MAJORITY of Jamaicans COULD NOT VOTE! Clearly a reversion to the British colonial era isn't something that anyone would want....that is if they were knowledgeable of what life was like then.
I agree with this. However, more often than not (almost always in fact) emphasis is placed on blaming the foreign power for your woes whereas if the emphasis was switched perhaps we would have more countries like South Korea in this world. Also the colonial power of the past is usually very different from the present one in societal attitudes.
Actually as the poll shows most people from the former British colonies blame THEIR leaders, BOTH the politicians and the political elites for the current state. They also blame the deterioration of the family structure and increased materialism among the population at large.
Whereas blaming foreigners might have worked in the post independence era in the 70s in 2017 this doesn't impress. Caribbean people see Caribbean people running the show and to the extent that foreign interests (increasingly the Chinese) are perceived to have undue influence they blame the local governments for "selling out". In fact Caribbean people view foreign investment as a source of employment and economic opportunities.
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