I had another column already written, but after the showing of our athletes in Beijing, I had to put it aside. The performance of these Jamaican men and women, competing against the world, has important lessons for us.
First, their achievements are theirs. Nobody gave them a 'bligh' or a 'skip' in the line. They worked bloody hard for their medals, which took commitment and discipline and sticking to the programme. They had to deny themselves many things which would bring pleasure but which would deny them medals, and here I have in mind food and drink of certain quality and quantity, and the like.
This is deferred gratification taken to a very high level. Several of our athletes came from what many would call underprivileged homes, without some of the comforts considered normal by many, but that was not an insurmountable obstacle. They did not whine and complain and grouse and ask for sympathy or affirmative action. They buckled down and did what they had to do. With the right upbringing, Jamaicans can do it. And have done it. That is character.
Second, in almost every case our medal winners were coached locally. In the past when we won medals, I did not care much for remarks by US malcontents that our champions were all trained in the USA and therefore our medals were not fully ours.
Home-grown talent
The USA can no longer make this claim. Our talent is home grown and home trained, and hearty congratulations to our Jamaican coaches. Things foreign are not necessarily better. I wonder how many foreign athletes will now beat a path to the doors of Jamaican coaches?
Third, I am not aware that the Jamaican Government had much of a hand in these victories. The leadership which led to these medal performances came wholly from within the athletic community, and our young athletes responded. What might Jamaica do and where might Jamaica be if our politicians had provided this sort of leadership to our young nation? Our underperforming economy and sub-standard education system are due ultimately to poor political leadership. No medals for that sort of leadership.
I have no doubt that politicians of all stripes will bolt forward to claim these Olympic victories for themselves; that is the nature of the beast, as they bestow national honours upon one another.
Based on performance, we need to realise that our greatest assets are our people, who have been able to make a place in the world despite our various governments. That is where our investments should go.
A hard time
But let me turn it around. I hope our government and our political parties take inspiration from the struggles and success of our young Jamaican men and women on the field of sport and in our classrooms, and up their performance. I sit on a selection panel for a certain set of scholarships at the tertiary level, and we had such a hard time this year.
Each and every one of the 40 applicants we interviewed deserved a scholarship. Most were from 'disadvantaged' back-grounds - rural and inner city - who had triumphed against great odds, either travelling great distances to high school, or studying by lamplight, or by dodging bullets or the opportunity for pregnancy. Our people deserve better leadership than we have had in this country.
The last point I want to make is that these Olympic Games have thrown up large countries and small countries, and I am not here referring to geographical or population size. It is a small country that is ungracious in defeat, and which seeks to win medals through the courts rather than on the field of play. (The same might be said of political parties, but that is another story.) I want to know which delegations to Beijing contained lawyers, and who had the most lawyers.
These Beijing Games are not a flash in the pan. Now that the playing field is more or less level, Jamaica's true quality, which we have possessed over many decades, is finally shining through. We are indeed a large country, and if we learn the right lessons from our athletes, we can be victors too.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a Roman Catholic deacon.
