The famous American Novelist Thomas Wolfe said that ‘you can’t go home again’. The presumption of his argument being that home is never what it was, once you’ve left for any extended period of time. Someone like me who has been gone for over three decades with a severe case of rear view mirror syndrome is probably a classic case of longing for the home that is no more. For some insuppressible reason I’ve been getting this aching for a return home lately, the astonishing results of the last election probably have stoked the fire of repatriation, and the idea of a true democracy looks achievable. It is slowly dawning on me that America is probably never going to grow to an appreciable level of black entitlement in my lifetime, and the constant need to rage war against recalcitrant dictators is causing me undue anxiety, and a life of tranquility in the autumn of my years appears elusive.
Call it middle age restlessness, but the weekly tennis game and the occasional Golf macabre is just not hitting the proverbial ‘spot’ or evoking the desired euphoria. There is a deeper need to make a sustained contribution and be involved in the advancement of a system that for far too long was callously managed.
This desire, though a glorious dream, is still fraught with uncertainties. I wrestle with nagging questions about my future as a returning resident. What happens after one has drunk enough coconut water, ate enough mangoes, played enough dominoes and gone to enough beaches, will the ensconced petty bourgeoisie eventually warm up to ones’ modified American ways, will the slightly disjointed bureaucracy tolerate ones criticisms and frustrate ones repeated attempts at installing efficiency as they do it in the first world? No doubt I would have to soften my views to prevent being an ulcer to my elitist hosts.
Where will I Live.
Since my departure in the early seventies, the quiet tree lined neighborhoods and warm townships have developed hostile enclaves with names so poignantly distressing, you wish they were not referring to Jamaica. Names like Viet-Nam, Rema, Tel-Aviv, Beruit, Lebanon and Jungle certainly don’t lend themselves to the idea of the Island paradise I want to call home, furthermore with the mosaic of good and bad neighborhoods so comfortably ensconced beside each other, the good neighbor concept could be anything but good. Needless to say, a gated community here may be hard-pressed for acceptance.
I was never a hill person so traversing those hills above Havendale everyday is not my idea of a commute, I loved Harbour View when I lived there but the enclaves have wreaked havoc on this once lovely community. Then there is Portmore once called the city of the future, the largest city in the English speaking Caribbean, but still no efficient mass transportation system. A city that is crying out for a light rail system to move the thousands of people that travel to Kingston daily under stressful conditions. The government would be wise to float a bond aimed at the Diaspora to generate the funding necessary to get this done. I for one and I know many others would be willing to invest our dollars there. We would be investing in developing our country and putting in critically needed infrastructure. Truth be told, if I make this move quickly I could still probably afford a quarter acre of the most expensive ocean view property outside of the south Florida coastline, before the crime rate drops. A crime rate that doesn’t seem to phase the Spanish as they’ve made record investments in our Island over the past three years, and they are still coming. The reports suggest that between them and the ex-pats from England, the Canadian and American returning residents land option is going to be limited to the rough terrains of St Thomas, Portland, St Mary and Trelawny. Not that these places aren’t acceptable, its just that I always felt returning home was going to be a hacienda by the beach or a beachfront condo on the northcoast. So much for the dream, the harsh reality is that our little Island is fast becoming a playground for the rich to the detriment of the working middle class that it will need to return and rebuild our birthright.
Entrepreneurial skills needed.
Going home should afford those of us who desire to do so the precious opportunity of starting our own businesses, after all the new government has declared loudly and clearly that they want to encourage new businesses starting up as this is the primary route to reducing the stifling unemployment rate that the country is presently facing. So on the surface this move appears to be a match made in heaven, a returning citizen who knows the culture and steeped in the American Entrepreneurial spirit usually embolden with the appropriate degree of nationalism should be met by an enthusiastic government that understands the need to grow a stagnant economy and put its citizens to work. I can see them now, warmly embracing us in droves as we roll off the Tarmac at Norman Washington Manley Airport, ye brave souls coming home.
That bothersome little voice is saying different. “Wake up!” history has shown us otherwise, jealousy, corruption, hate, envy, distrust and plain thievery has created a nightmare for well-meaning returning residents and those that could do the most to revitalize our homeland is actually playing Russian roulette when they make that decision to go home. The government needs to make policies that encourage the bulk of us who immigrated in the seventies and eighties and who are now financially stable, to transfer some of that wealth to our homeland. Offer incentives that encourage financial investments in our homeland, these productive years won’t last and it would be a shame if all this Jamaican talent and money that is overseas is dispersed and spent on other countries that are not deserving or even appreciative of it. The window of opportunity is closing as the most productive period of our working lives is dwindling and the inevitable social security age is creeping up on us, the uncertainty that is retirement in America is looming on the horizon and we are really beginning to see how much we are valued in this society of “what have you done for me lately”. Serious planning must now begin about our evening years. With the trend showing a decline in population, history will show that the economic nest egg garnered by the baby boomers will be one of the most significant contributions via generational bequeathment in our times and it shouldn’t be squandered on societies that may have passed their maturity peak and are now on the decline. Growing countries and societies that must increase their standard of living for their citizens like Jamaica may well be our best investment option for the future. If we squander this economic nest egg of the baby boomers, our country will have to resort to the tried and questionable approach of depending on the super rich in the developed countries to pity us with a few investment dollars after we’ve made all the conditions favorable for them. It is in our country and our people’s best interest to seek investment funding from sources that are favorable to our growth and are willing to share the risk.
Is the sacrifice worth it?
The million-dollar question still is “is the sacrifice worth it?” For many of us who have raised children that are Americans and have spouses that are definitely not Jamaicans, even if they were born there, but have made that inevitable transition to Jamericans, how do we present Jamaica in an appreciable light. The monumental task of trying to convince them that decent affordable health care is just a plane ride away in Miami or that the grilles on the windows are not really a fire hazard but a third world fashion statement that is actually catching on in places like Miami and Brooklyn. My wife who is caught up on this moral high ground that there is something perverse about slipping the jovial policeman a few hundred dollars for not writing that speeding ticket or giving the nice gentleman at the licensing department a two hundred so he processes your license first thinks we might have a hard time adjusting to this benevolent lifestyle. I am trying to convince her that it’s a toss up between living in the police state (America) where our sons are constantly harassed for DWB (driving while black) and we are one infraction away from being an OJ look-a-like or we take our chances with the needy policeman who as he so succinctly puts it “just a look a lunch”,
Maybe the greater question is what will be our lasting contribution to our homeland and humanity and will we get the opportunity to make that significant contribution here in North America. One measures his/her own value as a person by the lives one is able to touch in this brief journey we take call life. If at the end we are discarded because we failed to make a contribution or our contribution was of little or no worth we have truly squandered our talents, we have primarily lived for self, we did not make this world a little better than we found it, our existence amounted to a drain on society and that can’t be a reason for being.
Sadly so many of our peers made the effort to return home to offer what they could of their time, talent and money only to return to the United States completely broken and bewildered. This should not be the fate brave souls encounter when they undertake to make this virtuous sacrifice. We need to find a way to make the re-introduction of valuable resources into a desirous society more compatible. Reversing brain drain needs to be encouraged and our people must be taught to treasure those who have returned to help rebuild. The government’s position of acting like there is no problem is an act of denial. At the very least they should highlight that those that have returned and thrived had some kind of a support system and all who desire to return should know how to avail themselves of such a system or how to build one. At the end of the day, when the leaders of the country have demonstrated that they truly value that contributing returning resident, that’s when I’ll call the movers and catch that evening flight home.
