My country is schizophrenic

And the gas tax that the Finance Minister announced today made me think of many reasons why I believe that statement to be true.

As for the tax, it involves collecting $8.75 per liter of gas (effective Monday!) to close a J$18.13 billion gap in the budget. I started seeing rumblings about the tax — or wait, is it a cess? Because just as in the U.S. taxes never increase... only fines, fees and levies do. Anyway, I started noticing what was happening last week, but with all the drama of the weekend — I still cannot believe plane, hijacking and Jamaica all ended up in one story — the impending gas tax announcement got pushed to the back of my mind until I saw "PM puts nation on alert" as one of the lead stories on the Jamaica Observer Web site.

Well, what's hilarious is that this month is the 10th anniversary of the riots that shut down Kingston for two days after the then-ruling PNP party announced a gas tax as part of the 1999-2000 budget. Apparently, two such riots had taken place before in 1979 and 1985. What can I say, for better (or often worse) riots and road blocks are hard currency in our form of democracy. (The outcome of the '99 riots? The government slashed the proposed tax in half.)

Now normally I have to deal with people saying, "Oh sweety, this was before your time." Well, the '99 riots were definitely MY time. I remember sitting out under the mango tree at school the Thursday morning when a classmate came in through the gate and said that "buss stop run" and since that's how I was going to get home, I headed to the pay phone at the police station to tell my Mom.

I never made a better decision than to skull the rest of school that day.

Busses weren't scarce in Liguanea, but as it headed toward Half-Way-Tree past Jamaica house there was a thick knot of people outside Jamaica House with the misshapen cardboard placards with misspelled slogans that are one of the hallmarks of any Jamaican riot. OK, fine. I was inside the bus, and they were outside the bus. Catching the second bus I needed was a whole different story. In Half-Way-Tree protestors were stoning the busses, telling the drivers to take the off the road and support the riot. The bus I caught home was actually the last bus running that route and it came under a barrage of stones as we pulled away from the curb. Heading down Dunrobin Avenue, I saw men dragging the prerequisite old furniture and appliances and tires out into the road to block the way after the bus passed and I was never so glad as when I made it home.

In retrospect, I should've been more afraid, but to a teenager this is fun stuff. I remember standing out on the avenue with my friends in the subdivision watching a chicken truck go by and hearing the men blocking the road yell, "A chicken trukc coming!" Only to have another man yell, "But is a CB chicken truck, let it through!" because Best Dressed Chicken is preferred to CB chicken in Jamaica. I do remember being more concerned though when the sound of gun shots started picking up. But while that sound in itself wasn't uncommon, tear gas wafting into your living room certainly is.

That incident and watching rioters loot an overturned rice truck on Mandela Highway pretty much live on CNN defined the riots for me. Well no, add to that seeing affluent members of society, with their BMWs parked at the foot of Beverley Hills, holding clean cartridge paper placards with neatly stenciled slogans — that defines the riots for me.

Hopefully, the duality is apparent.

As Jamaicans, we have the ability to rip ourselves apart — crime and violence truly is a problem that has a stranglehold on the country — but we also have the ability to shine on the world stage, earning the right to stand with our heads high on pondiums at top sporting events or even just smile and acknowledge that yes, our country did give the world one of its greatest musical icons.

Jamaica is a country that is on one hand amazingly "first world" — all the amenities, luxuries, cars... producing quality statesmen, scientists, teachers and leaders... but we're also painfully "third world" in our approach to many things, such as crime and corruption.

I think this where I should get off my soap box, I've rambled long enough! Hopefully, things don't degenerate as they did in 1999... we're already picking our way through fall-out from Sunday, we shouldn't add more to our plate.