Well done!

Prime Minister Andrew Holness was officially presented with his doctorate at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, on Thursday (May 1).

This was an earned doctorate, not an honorary one, which tends to be handed out to many leading personalities

Prime Minister Andrew Holness now holds a Doctorate in Law and Policy.

His written dissertation was entitled ‘From the States to the Streets: The impact of gun laws on gun violence in Jamaica‘.

This work by Prime Minister Holness is apropos and very important given the high number of murders by guns in the country. Jamaica does not manufacture guns, they are invariably brought into the country from the United States.  Jamaica has paid a heavy price for being labelled as one of the murder capitals of the world.

Both the United States and Canada, two countries which are Jamaica’s biggest source markets for tourism, have placed advisories warning their citizens to avoid visiting Jamaica because of the high crime and murder rate.

While President Donald Trump has insisted on protecting the United States’ borders and keeping migrants out, he may do well to ensure the US does not flood neighbouring countries with lethal firearms.

You can’t censure small island states when the firearms used in crimes come from your country. It is incumbent on the United States to stop the guns from leaving its shores.

It is disengenuous of some Jamaican journalists, particularly those from the leading traditional media houses, to make it known that they are not carrying the prime minister’s academic accomplishment because it is an “honorary” doctorate and he didn’t work for it.

They are mistaken and ungracious.

While attending to the affairs of state, Prime Minister Andrew Holness managed to make time to pursue a doctorate-not on pollinated flowers, but rather on a subject that is plaguing the country.

He is a credit to himself, his family and his country.

The importance of education in Jamaica cannot be understated, given that Jamaica has one of the lowest literacy rates in the Caribbean.

Jamaica cannot attain developed status if its people are illiterate and uneducated only capable of holding low-paying jobs.

Today, there are too many young people not invested enough in their education and professional development. All too often, they gravitate to the flashy lifestyle, easy money and chicanery. Young women shopping their “wares” on Instagram, portraying a life they simply cannot afford to live. Broad smiles from Mercedes and BMW X4s, but can’t maintain them.

Speaking at St George’s College lecture series last month, CEO and founder of Cafe Blue Jason Sharp urged students to “strive to produce something of excellence and if you do something to the best of your ability, that is your excellence. In your lifetime, produce something.”

That kind of thinking will help propel the country into prosperity. It is no good focusing on being a social media influencer, or coining it from OnlyFans, wasting time on inane pursuits that get you nowhere. There is no easy road.

Holness had to study, work hard to attain his doctorate.

Jamaica has a young, academically inclined, educated prime minister who has set a good example. How many Prime Ministers and leaders out there took the time to do a doctorate while in state office?

It brings to mind that quote by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the one our parents and teachers back in the day all too often kept going on about. It is fitting in the prime minister’s case.

“The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.”

We are now in election season and vitriol and venom are being spewed. But let us consider that both the prime minister and the opposition leader are educated men who place high stock in academia and knowledge. They are not dunces who recoil at the sight of a book.

Young people in Jamaica today say you don’t have to learn anything, you don’t have to master a profession because AI does it all for you.

This erroneous trope has to be debunked because it will only serve to place Jamaica in the doldrums.

I, for one, salute you, prime minister, well done. 

I will be raising a glass of Domaine Leroy’s Chambertin Grand Cru to you this evening.

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