Crawford

Today, The Gleaner presents the views of Vivian Crawford, executive director of the Institute of Jamaica, on the positive traits of Jamaica as a nation.

Any response to the statement 'What's Right With Jamaica' must include the incredible creativity of our people to survive, notwithstanding our many challenges.

Our motto 'Out of many, one people' is very relevant to our country where we can live and work together without any apparent racial tension.

In addition, we are extremely fortunate to be living in such a small space (10,562 sq km) with a significant number of flora and fauna that are endemic to Jamaica.

Just recently our athletes in Beijing reminded the world that we should be taken seriously and this was a signal to some of the other achievements of our people, such as in music, especially reggae, which evokes easy identification for the uninformed about Jamaica. Our cuisine is still sought after and 'jerk' is almost on every menu. Blue Mountain coffee still draws world attention.

An outstanding quality of our people is caring for others through our enormous networking of religious groups, clubs, societies - a network which has its foundation in our rural folk.

It behoves us to be mindful of what makes us special as a country so that we can preserve such attributes for others to share.