Dear Editor,
The dust has once more begun to settle and the flickering particles shine in a complexion reminiscent of golden texture. This texture perhaps has been gleaned from the quality of medals won by Jamaican athletes in the recently completed Moscow World Athletics Championships.
Once more, our athletes, both medallists and non-medallists alike, went, saw and conquered, and in the process left the world once more in awe of our athletic prowess.
In all the deserved glory and tireless celebrations, however, it must not be lost on us as a people that there exists a gargantuan chasm between our sporting and cultural achievements and our socio-economic progression. The unswerving truth and absolute crux of the matter is that unless we as a nation decide to make those necessary decisions which are vital to our collective progression, especially in an economic sense, then I am afraid that there will come a time when no amount of gold medals and sporting prowess will be enough to save us.
We need to start now to ensure we gain ground in the regional education race, for we have sat in the blocks for too long. Surely we need to now seek to get in the race for economic growth and development; sitting in the stands and cheering on our regional competitors has not served us well. While other nations around us have long honed in on gold, silver and bronze in the race for development, sadly, we lag behind, off the pace and out the race. The only salvageable hope is that this race for development is not a sprint, for this reason alone we still have a chance.
Noel Forbes Matherson
noelmatherson@gmail.com
Good Champs, but what of the race for development?
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The dust has once more begun to settle and the flickering particles shine in a complexion reminiscent of golden texture. This texture perhaps has been gleaned from the quality of medals won by Jamaican athletes in the recently completed Moscow World Athletics Championships.
Once more, our athletes, both medallists and non-medallists alike, went, saw and conquered, and in the process left the world once more in awe of our athletic prowess.
In all the deserved glory and tireless celebrations, however, it must not be lost on us as a people that there exists a gargantuan chasm between our sporting and cultural achievements and our socio-economic progression. The unswerving truth and absolute crux of the matter is that unless we as a nation decide to make those necessary decisions which are vital to our collective progression, especially in an economic sense, then I am afraid that there will come a time when no amount of gold medals and sporting prowess will be enough to save us.
We need to start now to ensure we gain ground in the regional education race, for we have sat in the blocks for too long. Surely we need to now seek to get in the race for economic growth and development; sitting in the stands and cheering on our regional competitors has not served us well. While other nations around us have long honed in on gold, silver and bronze in the race for development, sadly, we lag behind, off the pace and out the race. The only salvageable hope is that this race for development is not a sprint, for this reason alone we still have a chance.
Noel Forbes Matherson
noelmatherson@gmail.com
Good Champs, but what of the race for development?
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