Good evening to you. How are you doing?
Very well, how are you? I'm very good. Thank you and same to you.
What does independence mean to you? Jamaica 50 and all. How does it...
Well, before we even come to Jamaica 50, let me tell you, I was born at a very interesting time. I'm 59.
So in 53, I was born in 53, and then when I went to school, when I was about 6,
at that time we were still singing God Save the Gracious Queen.
So for me, it was a very important, it was a very, very important transition in my home, in Smithland, in the hills of Plarr.
Learning as children and with the adults what our new emblems would be, that there'd be a new coat,
that would be a coat of arms, a flag, and beyond them, and the symbols.
So you learn about the lignum vitae as the national flower, and the bloomer hoe as the national tree,
and the ackee and salt pieces as the national dish. So it took a kind of re-framing and re-engineering of one's identity.
And it was not lost on me, even though I was 9, because the adults around you understood what it meant to gain political independence.
And they kind of imbued you on it, and it just came into your being.
So to answer what Jamaica 50 means to me, it was important for me to tell you where I'm coming from.
Jamaica 50, let me tell you what it means. It means many things. Many people are very quick to say,
oh, Jamaica has not accomplished anything. We have not accomplished some of the things that we should have.
We've not accomplished some of the things in the way we ought to have had done, but we have accomplished a lot.
The point is that many Jamaicans who are talking either are not sufficiently informed, they're ignorant.
When you think of our medical doctors, when you think of our farmers, when you think of our geneticists,
for example, the late T.P. Lecky, who was a geneticist from all over the world,
will come to find out what he did to develop a different breed of Catholic that he developed.
When you think of something as simple as an ortony, you speak of an ortonic orange.
There's no such thing as an ortonic orange. It's a cross between a tangerine and an orange.
You get an ortony, that was developed in Jamaica.
And you think of all the young Jamaicans, some not so young, some who are still around,
some who have passed on, who have made a mark internationally in politics, in history,
in economics, in sociology, as engineers, as good carpenters, as good...
You understand, anywhere we go in the world, we make our mark and we do so with the kind of...
It's a kind of thing that is unique to Jamaica.
It would appear that we stand out, and sometimes when we're not good, we stand out too.
Yes, indeed.
So how do you see Jamaica moving forward in the next 50 years?
Well, the thing is, there are many things on which we need to build.
There are new things that we need to embrace.
Technology is going to play a very, very important role.
Not only technology, but technology, because the world is spinning on technology.
Media products will be very important.
We hear about Hollywood and Bollywood and Bollywood.
Nollywood from Nigeria, Bollywood coming out of India, Hollywood, which is established.
So those media products have been coming into our marketplace over the many years.
Some of ours, the music has done very, very well.
Our sports people have been outstanding, and some of our scientists,
from just being on a stage, and we've done a little bit of that,
but moving it into the sphere of DVDs, pretty much like how our friends in Nigeria have done it.
You can go downtown and get to place Nigerian products on DVDs, right downtown Kingston.
So that's one thing that we need to examine and look at and the direction we need to go.
We also need to take charge of our own destinies as individuals
and understand that if we are going to grow and develop, we need to inform ourselves,
we need to educate ourselves, we need to school ourselves, but I think it's something.
Oftentimes, I've had to think about this in the last two, three weeks,
another concentrated way.
When people say that Jamaica hasn't really achieved a lot, how can I say to them?
Fifty years in a country's life, in a nation's life, is a short time.
America has been around for over 200 years as an independent nation
and the same issues we are grappling with here in Jamaica,
we are grappling with it in the first world country.
Not that I'm not using that to justify the things that we have not done,
but to say we are on the same place and we have to function and lay it out
to the way a country like America is based, or the UK or Canada, you know?
So we need to find a place, work on improving the things that we need to work on
but also not accept from anyone that we are not as accomplished as we are
because we are, there are many people who want to come to Jamaica or want to investigate
or search things that we are doing in Jamaica to find out who to do this
and why are we saying that we haven't done anything?
It's not true.
Mash down that line.
A politician said that some time ago.
Thank you very much for your time Faye.
I'm going to enjoy the rest of the evening.
Thank you.
