During this past week, while thinking about what I wanted to rant about this week, I was torn between going off about my increasing disgust over the escalating political conflicts as elections draw near, and the never-ending tensions between the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the players.

It then struck me that both situations are the result of poor leadership right across the board. It is something that the region seems to be afflicted with - poor leadership. And when I say leadership, I am not talking about just the people in power. No, I refer to all the people in positions of leadership whether they may be the members of the WICB, the ruling party in Jamaica or the leaders of the opposition.

The first thing that is clear to me is that our leaders lack the necessary sophistication. Let's start with politics. Tell me. Are there any sophisticated leaders in Jamaican politics anymore? Personally, I think that none of the current leaders have the sophistication of Norman Manley, Hugh Shearer, Michael Manley or Edward Seaga. These were men of vision who commanded a level of respect from their peers, both at home and abroad.

Men of dignity

They were men of dignity who, for the most part, refused to wash their dirty linen in public, and who exuded authority often without uttering a single word; they were statesmen. Who among the current leaders on either side of the political fence commands that kind of respect?

None.

Similarly, when Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards and even Richie Richardson were captains of the West Indies there was never this public squabbling between the board and the players, even though back then there were as many issues as there are now. The difference is that matters were handled discreetly and with an element of class. None of that exists now.

Back in the world of Jamaican politics, I really believed that we had turned the corner away from the political savagery that used to define election campaigning during the 1970s, and that came to a crescendo in that supremely violent campaign back in 1980, when an estimated 800 people were murdered in the name of politics.

I vowed back then that I would never vote for any of the two major political parties because, in my mind, both are forever stained with the blood of all those innocents who died so that some power-mad politician could get to dip his bloodstained hands into the public purse and steal our money.

Regressed

Now we seem to be heading down that road again, refusing to learn from our history because we have become too dumb to even read about it.

All this stems from a lack of leadership wherein we have failed to equip our people with the tools to grow intellectually, so instead they have regressed, devolved into savages who would kill a fellow countrymen over a difference of opinion.

We have reverted to fighting among ourselves, not realising that divided we cede our collective power to the fools who would seek to lead us and, as such, we have become the laughing stock of the world.

Just like the West Indies players, board and selectors have become the laughing stock of the sport because the board and the players can never stop fighting among themselves because the game, like politics, has stopped being about achieving greatness, about setting an example for others to follow, about cementing a legacy that we all can be proud of. Instead, it is now about every man for himself, greed and killing everything and everyone around us, for a few crumbs.

We have become so tunnel-visioned that we fail to see the bigger picture, limiting our sight to as far as the tips of our noses.

All this is a consequence of a lack of leadership. Our leaders lack vision and, as such, their followers remain blind.

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