Jamaican Dysfunction is normal.
Having lived and worked in several countries, I’ve come to what I know will be an unpopular conclusion: in my view, Jamaica is decades behind much of the rest of the world in how its institutions function.
Before anyone blames poverty, I don’t buy that explanation.
Poverty doesn’t make paperwork disappear. Poverty doesn’t cause insurance claims to sit unresolved for months. Poverty doesn’t create needless bureaucracy, poor customer service, a lack of accountability, or systems that seem designed to frustrate the very people they are supposed to serve. Those are failures of leadership, standards, and a willingness to accept things that should never be considered normal.
The state of healthcare is one of the country’s biggest embarrassments. Too many people experience long waits, limited access, and inconsistent standards. For a nation with so much potential, that should be a source of national embarrassment.
Fraud has become so commonplace that many people almost expect to encounter it. Banking, insurance, and financial scams are discussed as if they are just another part of daily life. Too often, the burden falls on ordinary citizens to protect themselves rather than on institutions to prevent abuse and hold people accountable.
What frustrates me most is how quickly people defend the status quo with, “That’s Jamaica.” That phrase has become an excuse rather than a challenge to improve. Even worse, it has become politically correct to avoid criticising broken systems, as though pointing out obvious failures is somehow more offensive than allowing them to continue.
Jamaica has intelligent people, abundant natural beauty, and enormous potential. Yet, in my opinion, it continues to lag behind much of the world because too many people have accepted dysfunction as part of everyday life. Until that mindset changes—until citizens expect competence instead of excuses and accountability instead of complacency—I struggle to see how meaningful progress will happen.
You don’t improve a country by pretending everything is fine. You improve it by refusing to accept that “that’s just the way things are.”