Polack Post: Caribbean Emperors – No Clothes
By Peter Polack
Peter Polack
Sometimes the past is closer to the truth than the present.
Take the Jamaican government response to hurricane Melissa. Slow like molasses. Pilloried by the opposition, civil society and the usually silent diaspora, the government is floundering like some novice first responder not a seasoned performer with decades of hurricane experience and yes, preparation.
The truth is starting to come out from even within the leadership as one minister in an unexpected outbreak of the truth, admitted that the government had been slow to respond.
Time will tell as the Teflon Don hides and others try out distraction on imported items, non performing utilities or whomever can be blamed for whatever.The recent voter support is ebbing and four nervous parliamentarians, the gap between an old and new government hold the keys to regime change.
Too soon. Perhaps, but people in the West could become dare I say it, a former stronghold. They have suffered the most.
The election motto should have been, to whom much is given much is expected. For the people of Western Jamaica of whom much has been taken, much is expected.
It is like the tale of old where an emperor is surrounded by yes men, and women, to the point where he believes in imaginary clothes, having foolishly been led down the garden path by his entourage.
In the Jamaica of today it is the people who have been led down the garden path, and surprise, fooled again for another five years unless The Four intercedes.
They would follow Bustamante and Manley for what is right, what is necessary and what is needed.
Jamaica is not alone in this predicament. The freshman Premier of the Cayman Islands who described the great Dubai Office Debacle as worrying before the recent election was silent on the subject after. No enquiry, no peer review, no termination, no resignation. Just no clothes.
Naked as a baby so long as the choir sings a believable tune.
The Empress of Trinidad is on the same path as her entire nation is scorned by the rest of the Caribbean.
Like Guatemala and Belize or Argentina and The Falkland Islands, the best solution for a beleaguered political leadership is distraction just like Rome.
The Caribbean Sea has become the Colosseum and their citizens, one legged gladiators.
Surely there must be leaders of conscience in the wings, principled bureaucrats in the offices, conscious businessmen in factories, union leaders on the streets, even reluctant ethical security forces?
Time will tell. History will judge.
Notes
https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2025/11/12/local-government-failed-us
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/06/hurricane-melissa-jamaica-relief
Peter Polack is a former criminal lawyer from the Cayman Islands for several decades. His books are The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013). His latest book is a compendium of Russian espionage activities with almost five hundred Soviet spies expelled from nearly 100 countries worldwide 1940-88.
His views are his own.
