%202021_edited_edited.jpg)
PUBLISHED: Is Andrew Holness’ shame tree quite dead?
- aquest
- Jun 2
- 6 min read
Reading Time: 7 minutes
May 27,2025
This year in Jamaica, the signs of political rot are no longer subtle.
They shout. They scream. They reek. Yet the man who should hang his head and confront the nation’s moral decline—Prime Minister Andrew Holness—seems increasingly incapable of shame.
His ‘shame tree’, a spiritual symbol of conscience and contrition in Jamaican folklore, appears not merely leafless, but utterly dead—burnt at the roots by arrogance, hubris, and the toxic fertiliser of unchecked power. This essay contends that the prime minister’s apparent indifference to mounting scandals and suffering signals a profound failure of moral leadership, with grave consequences for the nation.
Let us count some of the ways in which shame has been strangled under this administration.
The plight of Haitian migrants
I begin with the chilling treatment of Haitian migrants. Many arrived in Jamaica seeking nothing but safety—a pause from lives steeped in violence and despair. Instead of sanctuary, they encountered cold steel, state agents in jackboots, and the incineration of their lifeboats—their property wilfully destroyed by arson.
These actions, widely reported by local and international media, were not the work of rogue actors but of state agents under the direction of Holness’s own ministers and government servants. In a nation that still dares to chant ‘Out of Many, One People’, this is a cruel contradiction.
Rather than extending kindness or acknowledging Jamaica’s own history of migration and displacement, the government responded with official hostility. Yet the Prime Minister offered neither apology nor redress. No sign that the tree of empathy ever took root in his soul.
Cornwall Regional scandal
Consider, too, the Cornwall Regional Hospital scandal—now a textbook case in governmental ineptitude and fiscal recklessness. Nearly a decade of delays, grotesque cost overruns (the project has ballooned from an initial J$3.5 billion to over J$21 billion, according to official reports), and repeated PR spin have left western Jamaica with a perfumed, powdered, and painted insult of voluptuous distractions instead of a functioning, air-conditioned hospital.
How many patients have suffered unnecessarily? How many have died?
The prime minister’s silence on this matter is not neutral—it signals a troubling lack of accountability.
Transparency and Integrity
Even more troubling is the veil of secrecy surrounding Holness’s and his family’s unexplained accumulation of wealth. In a land where children still go to school ashamed of their shoddy underclothing, and pensioners choose between medication and food, the public is asked to accept, without scrutiny, the glittering trappings of prime ministerial fortune.
The Integrity Commission has repeatedly called for more transparent declarations of assets from public officials, yet the administration has responded with legalistic evasions rather than open disclosure.
A man secure in his integrity does not hide; he declares loudly and unequivocally.
Corruption and hypocrisy
Jamaica’s ranking on the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) continues to embarrass us all. In 2024, the country ranked 70th out of 180 nations, a decline from previous years. This is not because Jamaicans cannot recognise corruption, but because it has become all too familiar. The government benches are filled with those who publicly profess religious uprightness—many are Seventh-day Adventists or other “church people”—yet preside over deepening inequality, educational neglect, and stubborn crime. The phrase “bandulu wid bobol reely, reely deh run tings now ” (meaning “corruption and fraud really reign supreme nowadays” in Jamaican Patois) has become a common lament.
To be fair, corruption is not unique to this administration, and some ministers have made efforts to improve transparency. But the overall trend is unmistakable: the public sees more and more ‘market moi' than substance.
Child abuse and social decay
Where is the voice of the prime minister on child sexual abuse, which now mushrooms across our society like a sickness in the bones? More and more children are being violated, often by people in positions of trust. The Office of the Children’s Advocate has repeatedly called for a national plan, but government response has been sluggish and muted. Not a rallying cry. Not even a sermon. Does Dr Holness’s shame tree even feel this ‘bad breeze’?
Foreign affairs and moral leadership
Jamaica once had a voice of moral clarity on the world stage, especially on matters of racial justice, sovereignty, and peace. Today, we are diplomatic fence-sitters, incoherently stuttering platitudes while the world burns. Consider the prime minister’s silence in the face of Benjamin Netanyahu’s military actions in Gaza and Lebanon—actions widely condemned by human rights organisations as disproportionate and devastating to civilians. Babies bombed. Hospitals flattened. Journalists killed. Yet, no condemnation from Jamaica’s leadership.
Is this not the land of Bob Marley, Paul Bogle, Sarah “Matilda” Rowe, (Queen Nanny of the Maroons), NW Manley, EP Seaga, DB Sangster and P.J. Patterson? Has this government lost its moral compass entirely?
The broader decline
Death by murder is now routine, a Jamaican staple. Corruption is expected, gravy for the course. Greed is glorified, as ‘billioneering goodness’. Hypocrisy is celebrated, as a dietary elixir of political life. And while pastors-turned-politicians quote scripture in Gordon House (Jamaica’s Parliament), the people sink further into despair. Jamaica, under Holness, is no longer even pretending to be virtuous.
To be fair, the prime minister inherited many of these challenges. Crime, corruption, and inequality have deep roots. But leadership is measured by one’s willingness to confront, not ignore, such realities.
The moral reckoning
One is left to wonder whether Andrew Holness ever had a living shame tree, or whether he cut it down long before Jamaica House cried out “come!” in 2010—in response to the Dudus affair. What kind of leader presides over moral chaos and says nothing of substance? What kind of man accepts praise while presiding over corruption, child abuse, and diplomatic cowardice? What kind of leader promises transformation, only to deliver photo ops and silence?
Holness came to power on a platform of accountability and transformation. Today, those promises are gasping in the gutter. The truth is bitter, but it must be said: Jamaica is being morally and in many other ways bankrupted by a prime minister who either cannot or will not own his own hand in the nation’s decay.
This is not simply about policy failure. It is about moral failure—the failure to be moved, to act, and to acknowledge the sacred weight of leadership in a country too long abused by rulers past, recent, and present.
Conclusion: The ‘Shame Tree’ and the path forward
Is Holness’ shame tree quite dead? By every visible sign, yes. For the tree of shame, like the tree of life, cannot grow in soil poisoned by arrogance, hypocrisy, and the lust for power. It needs watering by truth. It needs the light of repentance. It needs the humility to say, “I have not delivered, and so I must change course.”
But we see no such humility. No national apology to the Haitians. No full account of ministerial wealth. No urgent moves to protect children from abuse. No credible lunge to conclude the repair of the hospital in Montego Bay. No rebuke of foreign tyrants, even as they commit mass slaughter. No vision for diplomacy—only disarray, smiles, flawless make-up, and a remarkably Pygmalean first name for the personage face-heading our foreign affairs.
Instead, we see photo ops. And silence. And a parade of parliamentarians whose public piety hides private greed. We see the steady withering of every noble value on which Jamaica was built. And we see a people growing numb—tired of shouting, tired of hoping, tired of pretending that leadership still means something.
To those who still believe in the Prime Minister’s integrity, I ask: what evidence remains? To those who still trust his party to do what is right, I ask: Where is the fruit of that trust? And to those ministers who line their speeches with biblical verses while their actions betray the Gospel—I ask:
Where is your fear of God?
There is still time—though not much—for Andrew Holness to seek out that old Shame Tree, to replant it in the soil of truth, and let its roots drink deeply of honesty, compassion, and repentance. He might yet be remembered not as the man who buried Jamaica’s conscience, but as the man who, at the brink, turned back.
But until then, duty demands we pronounce this: “Yes, Dr Holness’ shame tree is quite dead. And leaves Jamaica mourning its avoidable passing.”
by Dennis A. Minott, PhD.
May 27, 2025.
Comments