Social Intervention cannot substitute Hard Policing

“When a gangbanger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd, because he feels someone disrespected him, we have a problem of morality. Not only do we need to punish that man for his crime, but we need to acknowledge that there is a hole in his heart, one that government programmes alone may not be able to repair.”

 Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope

Social intervention seems to be the new catchword for dismantling criminality in Jamaica. Given the failings of a mono-policing approach for many years, the intervention of state sponsored social intervention programmes in crime-ridden communities is a good thing. Social intervention however is not a panacea. It cannot fix the hole in the heart of the criminals roaming our streets. It will not fix the defective moral compass of many of our citizens.

Social intervention is neither to be confused with civic intervention, the indispensability of people-lead (rather than state-imposed) civicness and civility in transforming values, attitudes, behaviours, citizens’ sense of self, and collective responsibility. Social intervention as a crime strategy appears to, again, misguidedly relies solely on the intervention of the state, with limited participation by civil society from within the most crime ridden areas. Whereas social intervention provides alternatives to criminality, it will take a cultural revolution ‘from below’ constructed and lead and sustained by people within their own communities to enact the kind of transformation which will heal the society so far gone into social decay.

 

 

 

 

A Disappointing Debut Budget Speech

On April 23, 2008, I was among three political analysts invited to participate in a post budget discussion on the popular public affairs programme, The Breakfast Club, aired weekday mornings on News Talk 93 FM. The following is a fuller account of my assessment. The Prime Minister’s Budget presentation was, at best, unimpressive, and at worst, disappointing. It was not a masterful presentation, neither in terms of the eloquence nor (managerial and technocratic) purposiveness, of which PM Bruce Golding has become known, and to which the Jamaican people have become accustomed, and for which they rate him highly. In light of the latter, I wish to lodge the following caveat.

 

A Note on Eloquence

In rating the Prime Minister’s Budget presentation, some people misguidedly focused purely and minimally on Golding’s extraordinary ability to articulate – his fluency, expressiveness, persuasiveness and confidence.  This is, no doubt, understandable. In a society beset with chronic language skills problems and a poor overall literacy record, any ability to demonstrate above average coherence and reasoning is often misconstrued for greatness. “Man can talk,” we often utter in succumbing to the awe of the individual’s ability to use language creatively.

 

Mind you, eloquence and the capacity to articulate ideas are critical to drawing people to listen, and essential for them to retain their keen attention to your message. Pure eloquence, however, does not make a great presentation; a singular ability to talk does not constitute a great leader. This kind of “Obama-ism” will not wash in any serious assessment of Golding’s budget presentation. Having appealed to people’s ear, there must be something of substantive importance that you have to tell them. You must sustain their attention through personal credibility, and the trustworthiness of the ideas/facts being presented to them. They must be convinced of the sincerity of your pronouncements, that what you say is of benefit to them.

 

Bruce’ Speech - Hollow and Incomplete

The nation is hungry for hope and direction, especially within the current context what PM Golding himself declared, as serious global challenges – food insecurity, rising oil prices and the persistent inflation crisis. The decay within our own Jamaican society is so deep, the social crisis so extensive that the people became convinced that the ‘course must change’. Throughout the 2007 national election campaign, Bruce Golding and the Jamaica Labour Party painted a persuasive picture of 18 years of utter and total disaster. The JLP successively drove home the failures of the People’s National Party to accomplish anything of benefit to the Jamaican people. And many Jamaicans bought wholesale into the notion that the society is effectively at square one.

 

It therefore follows that having suffered for 18 years the disaster which was the PNP, and having had 18 years to prepare perhaps the most significant speech of his career, many people, including myself expected to hear a new vision articulated. I waited to hear the PM’s outlining a direction for the country, not only economically but socially and culturally. I waited to hear Bruce Golding’s vision of what this new society would look like, a mental picture of the society he says he wants to help to build. I waited to get a sense of how we may get there. I am a young Jamaican of 32 years, and so I waited to have my hope renewed in Jamaica. What I heard was uninspiring. I heard a mechanical delineation of budgetary allocations, unconnected to an overarching philosophical or political framework. I heard an almost perfunctory description of increased allowances, promises tantamount to ‘political handouts’, done in a vaguely covert spirit of political point scoring.

 

There were positives …

There were many positives initiatives and suggestions announced by the Prime Minister. These must be acknowledged, and also taken into its correct context. The broadening of the PATH programme to include a great number of beneficiaries, increases in the Minimum Wage by some 16 per cent, increases in financial assistance to students, increase in benefits under the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) and increases in allowances paid to special needs people. The PM also reiterated the government’s abolition of user fees in health institutions, abolition of tuition fees as well as the 500b spent to subsidise prices on basic food items. The new government’s renewed focus on agriculture, energy conservation as well as finding new energy sources are commendable. The Prime Minister’s interest in continuing the Justice Reform programme, which was introduced by the PNP administration, is a vital announcement. Affording the Police Commissioner increased autonomy, as well as legislative steps aimed at strengthening the investigative and prosecutorial of the country’s judicial system are important components in the fight against crime.

 

So is his suggested willingness to upload discussions concerning political party financing onto the parliamentary agenda. The latter is a longstanding issue, long overdue but highly relevant to the quality of our electoral democracy. That Prime Minister Bruce Golding also acknowledged the supremacy of the constitution with regard to the recent ruling of the Supreme Court in the election petition against West Portland Member of Parliament, Daryl Vaz, and the precedent it set for other MP’s on his side of the House is to be acknowledged. It must be difficult as a first time Prime Minister to be faced with the kinds of challenges that Bruce Golding particularly has since taking his seat in a Parliament in which he holds only a whisker of a majority. 

 

It is, however, important to place these positives into their proper context. If we don’t, we run the risk of getting carried by away by expected budgetary pronouncements, and fail to identify the extent to which these developments are tied to an overall improvement in the lives of the citizenry. The PM’s Budget speech instead assumed an economy reductionist approach to Jamaica’s deep seated problems. In other words, the speech presumes that if you fix the economy, then everything else will fall into place. Jamaica’s problems go beyond the economy and so do the solutions. Indeed, in his stampede to parallel the social justice agenda of former PNP President and Prime Minister, Michael Manley, and, like former JLP leader Edward Seaga before him, attempt to sweep that agenda social justice agenda from under the PNP, the Hon Bruce Golding seems to have confused ‘growth’ with ‘development’.

Simply growing the economy is, however, not tantamount to development. It therefore follows that abolishing user fees in health institutions in health institutions is not the same as providing quality health care in an atmosphere where patients feel cared for. Abolishing tuition fees is not the same as providing quality education, producing first class graduates, creating an atmosphere where teachers feel respected, where violence is not the order of the day. Whereas bringing more people into the PATH programme and increasing their allowance is welcoming as it may be able to fetch them an additional item at the supermarket per week, it does not change people’s overall standard of living. It does not change their quality of life.

 

Introducing casino gambling may indeed $US1 billion dollars into the Jamaican economy, but it may expand the negative social trends in a society already disintegrating under the burdens of social decay. These initiatives will have to be carefully regulated in order not to create more problems that it solves. In the same breath, to distribute building permits like confetti – in the name of development and job creation– as Prime Minister Golding seems to propose, is blatantly at odds with the government’s desire to protect the natural environment. What we in Jamaica often see as “unused land”, many other cultures (such as environmentally conscious and focused New Zealand) sees as retaining the integrity of the land. Indeed, serious flooding in Ocho Rios is appearing to be a real example of the detriments posed by such an angular view of development. In short, throwing money around will not go very far at solving the fundamental social problems that Jamaica has. This is because the beast we are fighting is not just physical poverty but a fundamental poverty of the mind.  

 

Biggest Gap in the Budget

There were a few gaps in this budget. The absence of a real discussion of crime – the dominant concern for Jamaicans, was, in my view, the biggest gaping hole in Bruce Golding’s presentation. The Prime Minister spent approximately 3 minutes flagging some issues in the crime agenda, yet he droned on for about 20-25 minutes in defense of his decisions regarding the firing of the former members of the Public Service Commission. This blatantly exposed the real priorities of the Government in this new dispensation.  The fundamental catastrophe which is crime requires a meaningful address from the new government, not a few passing sentences arriving at page 28 and some 3 plus hours late in a four hour speech. A mere flagging of planned legislative changes, continuing justice reform and creating autonomy for the Commissioner is a far departure from what a people expect from its Prime Minister is his critical first speech, and in a context where 1500 of our citizens are slaughtered every year. I expected to hear how the new government intends to address attitudinal issues, declining norms and the constant assault on the values of decency and discipline throughout the society. 2007 exposed in the most elemental way, that we do not speak in the same language concerning fundamental concerns – human rights, crime and justice. There is no consensus on what it means to be a Jamaican, our obligations and duties. In other words, we exist at war with ourselves and a house divided against itself cannot stand. No concern for these fundamental issues was outlined or hinted at by the Hon. Prime Minister.

 

The Prime Minister, however, premised his discussion on the troubles of inflation, and food insecurity which plague even highly industrialized societies such Sweden, Australia etc. This is a false veil. PM Bruce Golding knows fully that the success of societies such as India, China and Russia is not simply based on an economic strategy but premised on a deep sense of order and discipline, a highly developed work force, high rates of literacy, technical and social skills as well as a deep sense of service and a highly developed work ethic. There was also no mention made about the youth except handing out cash to them, no mention of the potential economic benefits of the creative industries and no mention of the continuing value of tourism in a global economy largely serviced based.

 

Cassava Politics

Whereas a stronger focus on agriculture and calls for an increase in domestic food production is, for me, one of the highlights of the PM’s presentation, there can be no bonus points for this announcement. A focus on agriculture is not an extraordinary proposition. The government is simply responding to a global situation which demands this very obvious response. It begs the question however: was it not for America emphasizing a potential food crisis etc, would the government’s concern be agriculture? That we imported almost all our food is certainly not exclusive to Jamaica. America imports most of its food. Since the late 1980’s, many developing countries were dragged kicking and screaming into an increasingly competitive global economy. Agriculture took a battering from post GATT agreements where it became cheaper to access imported food. It was/is expensive to eat locally produced items.  The global emphasis  also naturally and logically shifted since the early 1990s to service based economies premised on human capital and industries such as tourism, information technology and the creative industries.  Many countries, including Jamaica, wanted to be on this bandwagon.

 

Had it not been seen as a desperate necessity, would the JLP opt now to sell the virtues of farming to our people? Many people will recall that self-reliance became a despised idea, a ‘communist’ notion, particularly for those who opposed the radical ideas of Michael Manley.  To now shove ‘cassava’ down the throats of a people already conditioned to the consumption of imported grains is hollow politics. In just the same as the PNP myopically rendered tourism the monocrop of the 1990s, so is the government’s proposition of almost a wholesale return to agriculture a myopic solution. If Bruce Golding led government fails to invoke the revenue earning potential of the creative industries, tourism, technology services etc, and instead drives only the agriculture train, we run the risk of replacing the previous monocrop – tourism, with the original monocrop – agriculture.

 

Mind you, nothing is wrong with renewing our focus on agriculture and feeding ourselves. No one can argue against the positives of the government’s proposition in this regard. However, the problem has never been that we do not produce enough of our own food to feed ourselves. The fact is that we have not been able to produce or offer quality at an affordable rate. Poor quality, unattractive packaging (check the local carrots in your supermarket, and let me know if those things are fit for human consumption) and the fact that we have continuously out priced the poor, means that foreign goods will always be the ones rolled outside in the trolley when we go grocery shopping. A focus on agriculture will have to address our embedded culture of materialism in which agriculture is a dirty busy; it must address contingencies for drought, natural disasters, praedial larceny, poor quality products, poor packaging and expensive costs for local produce. Indeed, if PM Golding is truly serious about a return to agriculture, there would be no stampede to assist one small pig farmer to secure lands, but a comprehensive programme to assist all small farmers who face challenges. Political public relations have no place in a budget presentation. That kind of politicking must be reserved for the campaign trail.

 

Conclusion: When a passing grade of 60% means failure

Asked by Breakfast Club host, Professor Trevor Munroe, how we would rate Prime Minister, Bruce Golding out of ten, with one being the lowest and ten, the highest, I offered Bruce a 6.5/10. Political Analyst and Editor of the Western Mirror Newspaper, Lloyd B. Smith also graded the PM budget speech a 6/10. By any standards, this is an unsatisfactory performance but not a failure. This grade, which, in my view was the fairest I could muster, means that the PM’s ideas were too scattered, unconnected to an overarching vision of where he wants to take the country. As the driver, there was no direction, no destination, and a failure to determine how we may get there.

 

For those commentators you insist that the Prime Minister’s vision was already outlined in his campaign manifesto, I reiterate this point: the campaign Manifesto of the People’s National Party and the Jamaica Labour Party is a particular document created for a particular election purpose. It is not extensively read, it will not have the reach and power as an annual Budget Speech, especially one from a new government who had been out of power for eighteen years. As a communications specialist who has written many a political document and speeches on behalf of governments and political organisations, I will also say this: good ideas can and ought to be repeated wherever the opportunity arises. If nothing else, it underlines your commitment to them.  Other commentators felt that the Prime Minister could not have presented the ‘nuts and bolts’ and a ‘vision’ in the same speech. My response is, and will always be ‘why not’? Nevertheless, in my view, the budget presentation fell flat both in terms of  ‘nuts and bolts’ (manifested in specific plans and time lines for their achievements and how they may be funded), and it fell down significantly in its charting of our course for the country’s future.

 

Putting people at the centre of governance is more than handing out cash to them. It means creating an improved quality of life for them, restoring their hope in the future of their country and inviting their full participation in the decision making process outside of the voting booth every five years. Prime Minister Bruce Golding is fully aware that his debut budget presentation arrived at an unprecedented moment in our political history, when party’s hold on power is, at best, feeble. He walked a tightrope on Tuesday (April 22, 200 between political point scoring and demonstrating that he is a leader of a nation. His statesman eloquence vaguely disguised his politicking. Like I said at the outset, a disappointing debut ride for the man who claims to be the ‘The Driver”.

 

 

 

PNP cannot celebrate - Vaz ruling is hollow victory.

If I were Darly Vaz, Member of Parliament for West Portland, I would be ashamed and guilt-ridden. Vaz had two cases against him - one a constitutional matter, and the other, a criminal matter. His possession of dual citizenship (American and Jamaican) was found to be in breach of Section 40 (2) of the Jamaican constitution. The ruling means that Darly Vaz is no longer eligible to be a member of the Cabinet. Indeed, his nomination as a candidate at the September 3 elections was seen to be redundant.  The criminal case against him is still pending.

In other jurisdictions, one would not need to take a public servant to court on clear matters of breach. A sitting Member of Parliament, obviously committed to his constituents, should be equally committed to his country and its laws - its Constitution. Surely, upon being sworn in as a member of the Jamaican parliament, Vaz would have sworn, among other things, to respect the Constitution. Of course, I am the first one to say that you need not hang out in Jamaica to prove your patriotism or commitment. The majority of Jamaicans live at home, and only a handful aren’t merely spectators in their own society. I believed Darly Vaz when he spoke during the election campaign period. His flaws notwithstanding, I believe that his commitment to his country is genuine. But that is besides the point in this matter.

The Jamaican constitution must be upheld. Or be rid of it. Politicians (and other public servants) who find themselves in breach of the constitution must, publicly, rectify their positions. Or stand down. The same rule must also apply to the ordinary citizen. Flout the law and suffer the consequences. Indeed, as former Prime Minister of Jamaica, PJ Patterson proclaims some years ago, ‘the law is not a shackle to enslave … it is a tool of social engineering’.

Although the Prime Minister’s remarks then were conveniently and farcically taken out of context by segments of a sensationalist media hungry for controversy, the point is that the law serves to support social order and prevent social disintegration. Enforcing the law and applying it equally creates and fosters general equality.  One need not study sociology to know that judgements pass down in one case, and made public, either underscores and reinforces the regulations by which a society is guided  or establishes that the social order requires remodelling. The fundamental tenets by which a society orders itself must be upheld and enforced in order to retain their relevance.

For the above reasons, I believe that, in principle, attorney-at-law, Abe Dabdoub, the man who lost the seat to Darly Vaz in West Portland - and the party he represents, the PNP, are absolutely correct in bringing forward a case of breach to the Constitution. At the same time, the landmark ruling in the dual citizenship case brought against Darly Vaz is a much more complex phenomenon than stated here. Indeed, the underlying political motives and objectives which triggered this case, and its meanings for those involved, and the consequences for Jamaica and Jamaicans (including those who live and work overseas) requires an entire book to explain. (I really do hope our historians are taking notice and making the requisite record of this moment. We are without question living and experiencing history.  Sadly, so much of our contemporary lived experienced is ignored by an intellectual class merely content on rethinking the past).

That matters such as the dual citizenship debacle nature had not arisen before is phenomenal, given the number of elections that had been held in the post independence period in Jamaica. Election results, however, were never this close. Never before had the contest for power been so desperate. Had the Jamaica Labour Party lost another election, they would have been made redundant. Their raison d’etre would have been nullified. They would have perhaps hung themselves. On the other hand, had the PNP not taken for granted its contituents longstanding loyalty; had it not abused and misused its power; had it not bartered its place and power in the Jamaican psyche for misguided populism, it would not have to rely on the Courts to hand it political power.

For those naive enough to think otherwise, make no mistake - the unconsitutionality of Vaz (and others) retaining membership in the House of Parliament, would appear to be the secondary motive in this case; the primary being what the landmark ruling may demand - and as in fact implies - a nullified West Portland seat, a second chance for the PNP (or at least some members) to right what it felt was a wrong against it. Very few people will argue against the principle here, but the motives seem suspect.

For what purpose, then, is the the Jamaican judicial system to be used? Is it to be used to defend, on behalf of the citizenry, genuine breaches of law. Or might it be used to used deceptively to win political power. Political power must be won through the ballot. It ought to be won through the voters’ belief in party policies, their sympathy for political causes, their love of the personalities and their commitment to a national vision, embedded in the vision they have for themselves, their quality of life, and the kind of society they wish to live in. It ought not to be secured through politicking - even if the politicking takes place, in principle, within the courts.

Again, I reiterate that breaches of the Constitution are grave issues which cannot be taken lightly. If public servants do not adhere to the Constitution by which they all swear, then who shall? Prime Minister Bruce Golding, and the sitting JLP administration are obliged to adhere to the court ruling, in principle. This is even while they may be fully convinced that this matter has very little to do with principle.

Obama’s Idealism: Can his contagion of change impact deeply racialised societies?

Many pundits chalk up the widespread popularity of Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to his fresh idealism and his superb oratorical skills. I am not so much in awe of his oratory, simply because I have heard many a speaker - preachers, politicians, academics- articulate and resonate equally or better than Barack. But his innate and extraordinary belief in the power and possibility of change in America is, for me, his most appealing attribute, and this has struck a deep chord in me. It is a simple message coming from a genuine place. It is contagious, not because Barack Obama is saying anything extraordinary or novel, but because people have become exhuasted with the monotony of their socio-economic, cultura and  politicalcondition, and a lived existence of depravity, hatred and apartheid-like divisiveness.

But many commentators - although firmly believing in the desire and requirement for change - wonder aloud about America’s readiness for the type of change that Obama speaks of. I wonder about and ask that of all societies which are deeply racialised, where xenophobia is the accepted attitude and where ethnic groups cocoon themselves within their own nests in pretence that their commanility offers protection rather than embeds social apartheid.

This continuing debate about change and a society’s readiness for change brings me back to a keynote speech I had the privilege of giving at a graduate/postgraduate dinner while I was a student at the University of Waikato in New Zealand back in October 2003. Having had many discussions about the smiliarities and differences between New Zealand and Jamaica, I had concluded then that there was a lot that Jamaica could learn from New Zealand  and vice versa, and indeed a lot we could all learn from our varied and varigated societies. The trouble is, as I noted at the dinner, is that there would have to be an enabling environment, a space created, a mechanism set up to enact or effect this two way learning process.

Importantly, as many observers are pointing out in the case of America’s race problems, there has to be a readiness and a willingness to take on the challenge, a deep desire to embrace new cultures, lifestyles, peoples. Such change requires an openmindedness that tells you that your society is inescapably changing as the world itself changes or ought to change as part of the natural evolution that all societies undergo. Critically, the inhabitants of the country must possess or develop the overarching humility needed to succeed in the relearning process. So the real question must agaiun be posed - are societies that are deeply racialised ready, willing, and meek enough to undertake this process of adaptation and change? And are those from minority communities able or willing to accept the challenge of helping to teach  folks in hegemonic groups such a difficult lesson, to recondition their attitudes to poeple of differing races, classes and religions?

I cannot speak much for other socities as well as I can speak for Jamaica and the West Indian community. ‘Despite our colonial history of oppresion and enslavement, Jamaica’s national motto, ‘Out of many, One People’ represents our desire for embrace. Our societies were constructed from a variegated mix of races, cultures, values and peoples derived through conquest, slavery, indensturehsip, colonialism and globalisation.

Societies such as America, New Zealand, Australia and many within the European continent had no such nurturing. It may be said too that the opportunity for this kind of social conditioning had been squandered. It is for this reaosn that these societies seem ill-prepared to fully accept the reality of ‘openness’, multi-culturalism, and therefore change.

Three related incidents blugeoned me years ago into this sad reality in Aotearoa. The first was racial remarks made by New Zealand talkback host, Paul Holmes about former United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan. Holmes referred to Annan as a ‘Cheeky darkie”. (This was my introduction to racism outside my own country). The second was the production of caps/memorabelia to advertise, promote, commodify, proft from and institutionalise an extremely offensive racial remark. The third was the relative silence of civil society, politics and academia on this matter and the cowardly attempts by  some groups to explain away/rationalise rather than outrightly condemn any semblance of racism and bogotry.

The great West Indian novelist, George Lamming, in his seminal literary work entitled ‘In the Castle of my Skin’ called upon both the coloniser and the Afro-West Indian to step into each other’s skind in order to understand their collective plight. Obama’s call for change in America replicates this call for understanding and compassion. The ‘cheeky darkie’ event in Aotearoa back in 2003 reflects the widespread ignorance about the black struggle across the world. The Jews never let us forget their holocuast, but the Black holocaust is effectively denied, forgotten: They have managed to cow us into silence while the Jews make films and build museums to solidy, embed and immortalise their suffering. I will need an entire blog devoted to this latter topic. The point is that unless you had artrived at your place in the world from the incredibly hideous suffering and oppression of the Middle Passage, slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism, and neo-coloniality, one would totally misunderstand the black man’s anguish, and the deep-seated depravity that he feels.

I know that when Obama ask for change, he is not only talking about racism, but this is perhaps the area requiring the most immediate change across the world. It would thus behoove my colleagues in academia, politics, civil society and the media not to be in silent acquiescence with those perpetuating racial hatred, xenophobia, apartheid and hate. When we remain silent, it means we approve of the status quo.

The paradox for us as thinkers and students of a new age is that we are here to learn, reframe, theorise and diagnose our own politics, history, development, culture and values from within the context of societies which everyday clebrate their progressiveness, liberty and freedom of expression. These are soceities which  laud their accomolishments in extending rights to those traditionally marginalised - women, homosexuals, prostitutes etc. But it would appear that immigrants, refugees, blacks, Asians do not fall within this bracket of rights. There can be no half-rights.

Racism is inimical to multiculturalism. It abhors the diversity many developed societies applaud and celebrate. It runs counter to the enabling environment and humbling space needed to foster change and learning between our different groups. Societies such as America, New Zealand, Australia and those of Western Europe have two options: They can either continue to be arrogant, small-minded and racist, or it can choose to excite the imagination of citizens and visitors to the uniqueness of its vast and rich plurality of cultures, peoples, beliefs, religions and values which will render it attractive to the world. It is only then that any of its group can speak of change without courting doubt, sarcasm, indifference and pity.

Violence - A Costly Strategy for the Poor

Whereas violence carries with it a deep and undeniable logic, I thought I would write about the flip side of this logic. Indeed, the paradopx of violent protest is that whislt disruptive demonstrations, including fiery roadblocks, rigid barricades and burning tyres, are triggered by genuine grievances and injustice and whereas the government’s seemingly ritualized inaction humiliates and angers citizens, the requirement of the poor to survive poverty is not a sufficient explanation for the extremity and destructiveness dominant in the protestation models currently in force in Jamaica. This brand of demand-making rebellion is problematic because (1) genuine citizen mobilizations, when executed in antagonistic ways, run the risk of being hijacked by persons with contradictory or outright criminal intentions, (2) legitimate forces of activism (community groups, student groups; youth movements) will potentially co-opt these so-called ‘weapons of the weak’ and thereby perpetuate the normalization of destructive mobilization and political negotiation tactics rather than advance strategies that can build a truly participatory and functioning civil society, and (3) the deployment of combative protestation styles gives the impression of instability and a departure from the rule of law and hence invites repression by the state in the name of order.

These developments not only serve to alienate possible supporters but instead perpetuate the further marginalization of the marginal sector and undermine the cause and goals for which they protest. An impression is also being formed in the political culture that protest cannot take the form of civil discourse and organized civil action. This is not to say that civility does not allow room for overt acts of resistance or criticism of unjust laws and practices. Indeed, roadblock politics, in certain circumstances for example, to protest against bad road conditions, is sometimes a necessary and positive action. However, from the point of view of civility and civil politics properly understood, fiery roadblocks and other forms of violent protest presume superiority to the rule of law as well as disrespect to others who feel differently or actively object to the action. 

Violence is, in reality, a costly startegy for the poor. Let me reiterate F. Piven & R. Cloward’s (1977) perspective on this issue, as outlined in their seminal book, ‘Poor Peoples’ Movements: Why They Succeed and How They Fail’ because it finds basis in the Jamaica context. They argue persuasively that the amount of leverage that protestors gain by applying negative sanctions (violent tactics) is dependent on: (a) whether the contribution withheld is crucial to others, (b) whether or not those affected by the disruption have resources to concede and (c) whether the obstructionist group can protect itself adequately from reprisals or consequences. How does this thesis relate to the Jamaican context? First, unlike factory workers or students, marginal sectors such as the unemployed usually operate in non-institutional settings and thereby do not have contributions such as labour to withdraw. In other words, the poor in Jamaica, as elsewhere, cannot strike so their only recourse is usually to riot or block roads in order to create maximum disruption of others. Second, the economic constraints facing the Jamaican state largely determines its capacity to concede resources. Thirdly, in some instances, unless a protest has managed to galvanize the support of powerful groups (politicians, business sector, media etc.), it is very easy for the state to repress or ignore these campaigns and the demands of protestors.

In light of these criteria, it becomes evident that it is the poor who are usually in the least strategic position to benefit from this kind of defiance. Blocking roads, barricading schools, burning and looting, as well as exchanging gunfire with the police are no doubt powerful forms of direct citizen action. However, they impact not just the source of citizens’ discontent (the government) but everyone. Schools are shut, transportation is halted, productivity is diminished and food supply is disrupted. The political reverberations are enormous. This may of course force the state to act but the disadvantage appears to fall more to the protestor and less so to the state and other powerful interests.

I am not here objecting to protests and the need for citizens with genuine concerns to mount protests, or calling for a halt to the democratic exercise of civil protest. Indeed, civil protest has proved itself time and again in Jamaica as a viable and effective weapon to solicit attention and generate more encompassing remedies to local problems than conventional means.

We must however decide whether it is justifiable for citizen-protestors to assume a stance of bullying (as opposed to lobbying) in order to achieve results. Violence cannot eclipse or be seen as a legitimate and more useful option of generating state response than modalities of peaceful (but effective, targeted) protest and civil negotiation. This is because, however fashionable, the wanton employment of radicalized and/or extremist forms of popular citizen action is evidence of the increasing rupturing of a civil way of life and the retreat of civil politics in Jamaica.

 

Why Jamaicans Protest (and Protest Violently)?

‘[Violence] is de only language those in power understan’…. The only means of compassion dem will show is when dem see flames and destruction’. This was the reasoning of a Rastafarian entertainer on what he sees as the necessity of violent protest. Recent protests across the world have exposed this problematic reality: despite the widespread popularity of the ‘global peace’ movement, popular citizen movements retain a promiscuous relationship with violence. Indeed, non-peaceful strategies (violence, intimidation and aggression) have come to far outweigh peaceful techniques in the contemporary models of protest assumed and performed by citizens during so-called civil protest (and other civic routines).

For example, for nine consecutive nights in November 2005, deprived immigrants, along with the poor working classes and the unemployed in Paris (and other cities), protested their demeaned social and economic status by engaging in coordinated acts of vandalism and arson. Protestors used home-made petrol bombs to torch some 900 cars and buildings while gangs of youths participated in fierce clashes with Parisian police. The French government likened this eruption of protest to ‘genuine guerrilla warfare’.

Far from France in the so-called ‘periphery’, thousands of pro-democracy activists and supporters, in April 2006, converged in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu for 14 straight days, in forceful opposition to the autocratic reign of King Gyanendra. Blocked roads, burning tyres, brick-throwing, police-citizen clashes, anti-government poetry, marches  and the police resorting to tear gas, rubber bullets, live rounds and savage beatings were the dominant themes of this citizen mobilization. Likewise, angry mobs took to the streets of the Solomon Islands in April 2006 to force the resignation of newly-elected Prime Minister, Synder Rini. These protests also had as their backdrop intensive violence – arson, vandalism and looting. Violent clashes between citizen-protestors and police/military also framed the 2007 pro-democracy protests in Burma and Pakistan.

Jamaica is by no means the exception. In fact, maximum disruption, including violence, has come to form the basis of civil protest in Jamaica. I, however, wish to lodge a caveat. The proclivity of modern Jamaica to engage in non-peaceful protest is rooted in a longstanding history of resistance to slavery, colonialism and the plantation system. It took non-peaceful protests to build Jamaica, to seek redress to injustices, to make claims and wrest concessions from the state, and for the Afro-Jamaican poor to cement their sense of place in this post colonial society. And non-peaceful protests have remained the dominant mode of struggle in the continuing search for change.

 

Why do Jamaicans protest?

‘We protest because we feel we nah get justice, and if we nah get justice, we will bu’n dung de place’, says one taxi-driver with whom I spoke. Citizens’ awareness of government’s obligation to provide ‘good governance’ and the perceived elusiveness of justice (social, political, economic and judicial) clearly compel contentious citizen politics in Jamaica. For example, deficient delivery of social services – water, proper roads, sewerage and electrification – and the prohibitive costs for telephone service, water and power usage, and issues regarding public transportation have triggered frequent mobilizations and roadblock-demonstrations since the mid 1990s.

Issues of justice, security and representation, embodied in human rights violations (police killings and abuse), inadequate and untrustworthy mechanisms of redress for grievances, insufficient protection against crime and the perceived right of vendors to ply their trade also regularly drive large numbers of Jamaican citizens onto the streets mounting roadblocks and engaging in disorderly demonstrations. Jamaican citizens are therefore responding to the many faces of poverty – unemployment, crime and inadequate social amenities.

Together these are fundamental to basic survival and the quality of life. Grassroots activism in Jamaica tends therefore to be linked to an ingrained moral economy built on the desire of the poor to survive, subsist, better their lives and assert their rights to justice and, in some instances, to claim autonomy for themselves and their community. In the face of widespread perception of state neglect, citizens feel unable to exercise any effective control over the policies of the state and the nature of their socio-economic condition except through vigorous and many times violent protest.

Peaceful forms of protest have thus, in the main, taken a backseat to intimidation, mayhem and violence in the models of popular protest institutionalized in Jamaica. These violent strategies are embodied in fiery roadblocks, disruptive street demonstrations and, in extreme cases, police–citizen clashes and gunfire exchanges, arson (burning police vehicles; public and private property), mob activity (looting and vandalism) as well as out and out war with the police. Aggressive negotiation by citizen-protestors have become a workable modus operandi in wresting justice from the state what they want; defined in terms of collective consumption, the right to subsist and, in instances, even freedom from official (police) surveillance and other features of modern social control.

 

The Role and Function of Violence

Violence helps to raise the visibility of protestors’ demands through its coverage on the mass media and the perception that the deployment of forceful strategies elicits more immediate responses from state bureaucracy. In the context of Jamaica where donmanship and criminality are increasingly normalized and political party competition historically assumes violence as a tool of contestation, violence as an apparatus in civilian politics is not all that extraordinary. In other words, given that violence has always been imported into the political mix, popular citizen politics necessarily exhibits residual elements of extra-legality and violence.

It is for this reason that I maintain that grassroots activism (and civilian politics more broadly) in Jamaica contains multiple elements, both legal and extra-legal. It is not always guided by the rules which inform civil discourse, civil action and civil negotiation which connote a sense of law-abidingness, orderliness and peacefulness. In fact, there is an entrenched lack of concern on the part of some citizens for alternative (read as peaceful) methods. Who cares if you picket peacefully? No protest like that is legitimate in the Jamaican experience. You have to mash up the place, burn tires on the streets and hold innocent people hostage in their homes in order to get attention or to get your demands met. In other words, the easiest way to announce that you are unhappy is to get into these negative behaviours. Recall the perspective of the taxi-driver – ‘if we feel we naah get justice, we will bun dung the place’.

 

Ode to Street Vendors: Understanding their Defiance

 For close to fifteen years, armies of small-scale vendors, hustlers and higglers have acted in defiance of efforts by the Jamaican State to remove them from the streets, sidewalks, intersections, piazzas and storefronts of urban areas into what many believe to be unsafe, decrepit, un-lucrative selling arcades. Using low-profile, silent and concealed protest narratives and practices as well as open collective disturbances, a powerful network of informal traders (supported by a large contingent of the otherwise poor and marginalized sectors) have united in popular resistance to defend their way of life against the encroachments of “super-ordinate” groups, primarily the Jamaican State. By employing impressively inventive and effective tools of “anancyism”, street vendors and higglers have managed to persistently outwit/outmaneuver the state authorities - the police and Metropolitan Parks and Markets (MPM) - marshaled to drive them off the streets.

 

Distaste for Street Vending

The urban poor often see the sidewalks/street pavements, bus stops, street intersections, shopping piazzas and/or store fronts as well as public parks as providing the most favourable business opportunities. Not unlike many cities across the developing world, Downtown Kingston, for example, is the definition of bustling commercialism and capitalistic enterprise, but also a hub of conflict and chaos. This situation naturally renders higglering and street vending, in all its forms, a vexing illegal mode of entrepreneurship, which the Jamaican State can scarcely tolerate.

Like many governments across the Third World, the Jamaican government has waged war on street vendors as part of its response to public pressure to “clean up” this shopping area. With the severe congestion and crime (extortion, drug-dealing, pilfering) associated with Downtown Kingston, state authorities have always refused to abide with such a precarious counter-culture, albeit a vibrant and active use of the urban space. A Jamaica Gleaner editorial of December 2, 2003 bluntly expressed the growing public distaste for street vending:

Illegal vending is a subset of squatting, which, for political reasons, has been allowed to get out of hand… Like all other businesses, they [vendors] must play by the rules of commerce including where and when they can set up shop. They must pay reasonable fees for the privilege (not the right) to ply their trade… Their wholesale capturing of the streets of Downtown Kingston is an affront to law and order and a stop must be put to it once and for all. This will call for a mix of force and tact but unless the authorities prevail the city will fall victim to incremental chaos (emphases are mine)

 

However, in the face of the great fortune being made by the surrounding businesses even while they suffer deep and persistent poverty, the increasingly demeaned but empowered Jamaican street traders are likely to interpret any action by the government to coercively remove them from the streets as not only as a threat to their subsistence security and livelihood but as a state siding with “big business,” which is not insignificantly composed of white/brown middle class, “respectable” entrepreneurs or immigrant Chinese merchants. In other words, endemic poverty, restricted economic opportunity and polarized class relations have set the broad terms of the class conflict that constantly reproduces itself in Kingston’s commercial district.

 It is therefore no wonder that public order efforts on the part of the government, however rational or beneficial, so menaces crucial elements of (informal) people’s subsistence routines and so offends the lower classes that intense resistance, featuring “hidden transcripts” and/or open explosions of rage and anger from the members of this marginal sector, are the predictable responses.

 Resistance Rituals

For example, determined to cash in on the lucrative market of the street, vendors often feign compliance by appearing to obey removal orders. They obediently clear off the streets and abandon trading on piazzas and store fronts in accordance with instructions from the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC) but return the next day, sneakily peddle their goods and continue with business as usual. Others artfully store their goods in the passageways between large retail stores and buildings and peddle them in small portions on the streets.

 

These resistance strategies of “false compliance” and “passive noncompliance” means that Jamaican vendors have developed the empowering capacity to “call the bluff” of the authorities and escape penalty. Through this collective resistance-response tactic, they thereby reinforce their dominance of the street and underline their customary rights and usage of this public space while weakening the ability of the state to enforce its removal policy and invoke its “rule of law.” Of course, the persistent disregard for warnings and orders to clear the streets can attract harsh penalties such as the seizure of goods, which itself costs (up to 6 years ago) a prohibitive or subsistence-reducing J$500 to reclaim, not to mention lost profits.

 

Security Risks at Arcades and Malls

However, despite the employment by successive governments of coercive strategies as well as political techniques (refurbishing of vending arcades in the market district - installing improved sanitary facilities and ready-made stalls), many street and pavement vendors are reluctant to reposition their businesses. This is due, in part, to declining security in the commercial district and a genuine fear of predatory criminality in the trading areas to which they are being relocated. Despite their majority status, women traders are especially susceptible to crime – physical violence, extortion, robbery and the upheavals of gang warfare which sometimes play out in the Downtown Kingston market district.

 

In reports published in the Jamaica Gleaner in November 20, 2001 and November 5, 2002, female vendors expose the gravity of their vulnerability and explain, in part, their resistance to relocation. Says one vendore, “we nah go ‘shooting valley’ [referring to the Oxford Mall]”. Another: “If police are running from Oxford Mall, why should we go there?” and another: “When we sell round there, dem [thieves] take up wi [our] goods and we can’t do nothing bout it. When we sell here so [referring to the street], we more safer. We can’t go round so go sell, dem will kill we off”.

Streets Too Lucrative To Leave

One of the predominant factors conditioning vendor defiance, however, is that most of the nearly 15,000 vendors, who ply their wares in Downtown Kingston, simply prefer to sell on the sidewalks and streets on account of their being lucrative economic trading spaces. Higglers especially rely heavily on maximising profits at specific times such as weekends (Fridays, Saturdays), “Back to School” (July, August) and at during peak shopping periods such as Christmas and (although less so) New Year’s, Valentine’s Day and Easter. While shoppers do patronize the arcades to which vendors are to be resettled, many small-scale vendors and hustlers fear the intense competition from big businesses and, in instances even from their arcade-based counterparts – the more established ICI’s or medium-scale higglers.

 

Given that the streets and sidewalks prove to be the most lucrative spaces to earn their livelihood and “move up in a life”, vendors won’t hesitate to engage in militant resistance campaigns, explicitly combative and violent. For example, in 1999, vendors collectively defied the police and officers from Metropolitan Parks and Markets (MPM) who were enforcing the government’s “Vendor Removal Action Plan” by physically hauling down the shutters of some competitor stores in the business district. “If we cyaan [cannot] sell, then no body will sell” was their rallying cry.

 

Again in 2001, following the refusal of authorities to allow vendors to off-load their goods for sale in prohibited areas, hundreds of angry street vendors, led by mostly female traders, prompted the closure of several businesses through aggressive demonstrations, which effectively ground to a halt all commercial activity in the city. Spurred on by a powerful network of higglers, these empowered “informals” bore placards and chanted “no seller, no store.” In symbolic assertion of their right to “justice” and, in recognition of their moral right to earn their food, they marched in procession on Beckford Street, strutting past members of the security forces as in ritualized challenge to their authority.

 

Vendor Resistance – Meanings and Lessons

Participation in social protests and resistance raises the political consciousness of the participants, sometimes, but not always contributing to a revised view of their subordinate status in society. It is however unquestionable that Jamaica’s informal provides a thriving source of income and a better way of life for a vast number of vendors, many of whom are members of the disadvantaged and marginalized underclass, and are unable to claim real access to resources through the formalized, recognized channels of the society.  Through free enterprise, vendors are offered a range of social and political resources which allows them to realize some success and social betterment within the otherwise confining socio-economic structures of the Jamaican society. 

 

At the same time, the higglering and vending class are left with limited options. They can relocate to the allotted vending areas and face a loss in profit or continue to defy the state and face hefty fines and seizures of goods. Clearly, interminable mobilization may seem unrealistic but there seems to be general agreement among the higglering sector that disruptive, confrontational tactics cannot be abandoned. This resolve is based on their increasing awareness, not only of their own subordination and lack of rights but also that it is the state which is the source of their oppression.

 

In a Jamaican political climate overwhelmingly tolerant of protests, the massive numbers of higglers and vendors can maintain a momentum of resistance even in the face of sporadic state clampdown. At the very least, these deliberately offensive tactics may ultimately force the state to rethink its position, change its objectives and consider these alternate/subordinate voices in their decision-making. It is also worth noting that public opinion, while at times highly critical, has largely been in the favour of the need of disadvantaged classes to survive poverty and better their lives.

Civic Hypocrisy and Dancehall

I decided to revisit the topic of the dancehall since it appears that the received belief in Jamaica is that veteran journalist, Ian Boyne, sits in splendid isolation in his sharp critique of dancehall music culture. Ian is not,  but the matter of the bastardisation of dancehall - as I prefer to see it - goes much deeper than current ideas floating around. I introduce some of these other layers in  a 2004 article published in The Jamaica Gleaner. I reproduce this below: Feel free to comment.

Civic hypocrisy and dancehall
published: Jamaica Gleaner, Sunday | October 10, 2004
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20041010/focus/focus2.html

Hume N. Johnson, Contributor

IN ITS stampede to stand as guardians of civil leadership and to install civility in dancehall music culture, corporate Jamaica has exposed its own civic hypocrisy. For the last 30 years, dancehall music, in reproducing and “re-presenting” the socio-economic and political conditions at work in the Jamaican society, has given lyrical endorsement to violence, materialism, narcissism, homophobia and misogyny. For the same time span, it has been corporate funds, which have partially driven the success of many dancehall events and the present hegemony of a negative dancehall discourse.

Today, Jamaican bottled drink, telephone and lately furniture and financial companies are stumbling over themselves to have dancehall artistes add their fame and personality to company brands and products and to lend their talent to the multiplicity of profit-inducing events staged within and by the corporate arena.

Despite public displays of vulgarity, indecent language and lyrics that offend the toughest female sensibility and make a mockery of attempts to rid the society of crime and violence, artistes such as Baby Cham, Beenie Man and Elephant Man remain the voices and symbols of Jamaican corporate firms, too obvious to mention.

Two events/incidents stand out in my mind as evidence of corporate Jamaica’s civic ambivalence. The first is ‘Red Stripe Reggae Sumfest’ and its promiscuous relationship with the event billed on their roster as ‘Dancehall Nite’. Having previously expelled ‘Conscious Night’, which usually displays the talent of artistes of Rastafarian orientation from its roster, Sumfest, a few years ago made way for a double dosage of ‘Dancehall Nite’.

DANCEHALL GENRE

This is not because they love dancehall music or wish to interface with its emissaries. But what else attracts the biggest crowds in Jamaica but dancehall music, particularly when it exhibits riotous indecency and vulgarity? It has never mattered to promoters that some of the artistes billed for these events are known contributors to what I call a ‘bastardisation’ of the dancehall genre. A simple process of sifting and contractual savvy could have prevented the widespread vulgarity displayed by several artistes during their onstage performances at successive Sumfest shows.

One would have thought that such shameful incidents would have sounded trumpets of civility from all sections of society and bellowed to the private sector to check the events they lend their brands to and the values they honour. Instead, corporate Jamaica responded in characteristic silence.

The second is the ‘Magnum’ Sting Affair of 2003 which saw dancehall artistes wreaking foul language on the ears of citizen patrons of the dancehall and engaging in a public fist fight onstage. Civil society lashed out at the entertainers and the Government and rendered patrons who had the nerve to attend such sessions as supporters of incivility. Some media commentators finally found fodder for their contempt for a sector of the Jamaican citizenship classed as bhuttos. This is while corporate Jamaica once again cowardly retreated in silence.

REBEL SALUTE

The hypocrisy becomes ashamedly blatant when artistes with a markedly positive image are not allowed to feed from the endorsement tree and reggae events, which celebrate the healthier aspects of Jamaica’s music product, are hard-pressed to attract corporate sponsorship of the sort accorded to ‘Red Stripe Reggae Sumfest’. I draw Tony Rebel as an example. His refusal to sell alcohol or to encourage its consumption at his reggae festival, dubbed Rebel Salute, has resulted in corporate Jamaica turning a consistently blind-eye to this event. I therefore applaud Cable and Wireless and Capital and Credit Merchant Bank for their boldness in the last two years in going against the prevailing grain. I am not here in clique with the ’separatists’ who not only make a sharp differentiation between dancehall and reggae but attempt to rank one music genre above the other.

In their pursuit of civility, corporate Jamaica, inhabited by middle class snobs and alongside their counterparts in academia, the Church and some sections of media, has been the biggest separatists of this country’s people. For them, the dancehall is a domain inhabited by uneducated bhuttos, lacking in politeness, enlightenment and refinement and dancehall music, save when it issues from the mouths of Shaggy and Sean Paul, is not ‘real music’. The marked distinctions some of this elite sect make between Shaggy/Sean Paul and the ‘other’ ghettoites from Kingston’s slums clashes with their desire to be seen among the African elements in the slums at ‘Passa Passa’ on Wednesday nights. So what should we make of corporate Jamaica’s latest stunt to demand civility of others before they display it themselves?

Mind you, the increased levels of crassness, aggression and violence being presented as entertainment by artistes on stage, re-presented to us through media and unreservedly endorsed by corporate Jamaica, is no longer about counting the chickens coming home to roost. It means that there is a radical revolution taking place in our values and the way we order the society. These fundamental shifts in values and behavioural norms are not the reserve of dancehall artistes and musicians but are occurring at all levels of the society, across all institutions and within all social and political domains of our society. This recognition requires that we undertake a re-evaluation of our self-image in line with our changing condition.

The same dynamics of change must also compel corporate firms to re-evaluate their self-image, disable themselves of the sort of ‘master race’ psychology, which causes them to detach themselves from the happenings in the dancehall body and the society below Cross Roads.

HUGE PROFITS

In other words, to win credibility, corporate Jamaica cannot detach itself from the decadence in an entertainment industry it supports and from which it garners huge profits. It cannot expect to place its dollar to artistes, activities and events which degrade women, celebrate badmanism and glorify violence and then withdraw in moral panic, covering their guilt with a signed memorandum. If the aim is to integrate their defiant dancehall others in a moral community fashioned by the middle class, they would have failed without even beginning. It behooves this private sector realm to understand that this Dancehall genre they distance themselves from possess a significant youth following within which is the source of the greatest value change taking place in Jamaica.

VULGARITY ENTRENCHED

We have long allowed vulgarity and incivility to fester and become an entrenched aspect of our cultural discourse. Where our citizens have not acted, our artistes have rushed in and have become our unapologetic spokespersons. Where our people have been dispossessed of their voice or offer it up willingly, it has been our artistes, (dancehall and roots reggae) which have been our social commentators. In the face of a sedated civil society, our artistes have unconsciously become our political negotiators. We need not romanticise them. Many like myself have found it difficult to locate the artistry in the advocacy of intolerance, hate and violence.

However, let us not pretend that their vociferous rejection of homosexuality is a radical departure from our collective perspective. To call for death, murder and mayhem, whether lyrically, physically or metaphorically is wrong but their generation-old celebration of all forms of violence is merely a reflection of a violent culture and an uncivil discourse in which we are all complicit. However, our historical tolerance for such decay must now be exhausted. This rebellion against ourselves and the society has left a gulf of fear, hostility, mutual misunderstanding and contempt among our citizens.

The solution is not to shun dancehall music. Dancehall represents the vibrancy and confidence of this country and its people. History will not applaud civic sanctimoniousness or acclaim for singers and players of instruments who insist on abusing and misusing their gift. There can be no applause, at least not while the media and corporate power brokers continue to be the master who hold the whip that forces our artistes into these meaningless roles. The negative about our music rings loudly and the objective is not to defend it but because the negativity speaks so loudly and has persisted for so long, we are all exposed as justifiers of decadence.

The quality and stability of our society is likely to be continuously affected by the challenges arising from uncivil elements within our civil society. It is therefore crucial for those of us working for a more ‘civil’ society to recognise that a civil society cannot exist without civil values and attitudes because civility depends on behaviour, attitudes and institutions that only civil society can create.

Brand Jamaica = Brand Incivility

Brand Jamaica = Brand Incivility
Published: Jamaica Gleaner, Monday | March 3, 2008
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20080303/news/news6.html

Dr Hume Nicola Johnson, Contributor

Boorishness, from playing loud music to jostling to enter a bus, has helped reaffirm Brand Incivility which has tarnished Jamaica’s image, Dr Hume argues. - Norman Grindley/Deputy Chief Photographer

New Zealand, the country in which I have lived for the past four years, says it will not send its netballers to Jamaica because of fears for their safety. Recently, the Economist magazine wrote about the ’sun, sea and crime’ in Jamaica. We are now known as much for an exciting culture and beautiful scenery as much as we are for crime and violence. I call it crime tourism and at home it’s Brand Incivility.

But having witnessed and been a victim of crime myself in the United States and in beautiful and civilised Aotearoa (New Zealand) where my purse was stolen), I begin this article with a caveat. Every society, past or present, has illustrated tendencies to violence and intolerance that contradict the ideal notion of civil society as a haven of openness, non-violence tolerance and altruistic citizens working for the ‘common good’. In Jamaica, embedded and blatant incivility has always lurked behind the call and desire for a more civil society.

Civil society is itself not all virtuous. In the first place, its network of associations is cast so wide, it automatically and unwittingly embraces criminals, hate groups and extremists, as well as tendencies and practices that constitute everything civility is not. There are groups in Jamaica which skirt the boundaries between legal and extralegal behaviour. Civil society contains both civil and uncivil actors, and legal and extralegal practices, processes and dimensions. This has led to confusion over its meaning and, in contexts such as Jamaica, may trigger doubts over its usefulness as a force for societal transformation. The following is the reason.

Just three months into 2008 and we are already obliged to come to terms with the familiar, but stark reality - the predominance of disorder and incivility over order and civility in many of our social spaces and institutions - schools, politics, streets and within homes. Disorder won out in 2007: More than 1,500 of our citizens, including 20 policemen, were slaughtered; young schoolkids mirrored the society’s example of violence and attacked each other while their classmates watched, cheered and captured the violence on cellular phones; schoolgirls had sex on buses, and at one Clarendon school protested their right to break the school rules. The television media sanctioned their indiscipline by providing coverage; violence and vulgarity reigned in our music, was reproduced on radio, and in the dancehall, and defended by our intellectuals. Our people lived free of accountability, and showed disregard for the trappings of modern social control, and our politicians accommodated thugs, fostered violence and provoked tribal divisions among the citizenry in their quest for political power.

Violence, the national language

We accept violence as normal. Our language is that of hate and violence. The way we played, told our jokes, our sense of self was imbued with the language of hate and violence. Words are meant for us to communicate. Language is meant to be a beautiful thing. Instead, we use language as weapons to injure, condemn and attack. In politics, disagreement between opponents is the sign of a healthy and flourishing democracy. Not so in a culture already as violent as ours. The bickering and the smear campaigns during the 2007 election and the deepening of the boorishness and cass-cass after the election, and which still continues, are exhausting and a poor example to our people. It means that civil society cannot still depend on political leaders to lead us into constructive dialogue. Yet, it is from within civil society - albeit not a cure-all - that we must look for hope and transformation.

Role of Civil Society

We always knew that there was an absence of strong and genuine political leadership in Jamaica, but never before has this crisis of leadership across all the domains of the society been so obvious. There is a curious silence about the role of civil society - the musicians, the social networks, the Church, the community groups and the media.

Civility is about demonstrating respect for others. Civility is the common language of communicating respect for one another. Offering your seat to a lady or an older person is your way of communicating respect for them. Civility also means self-regulation, holding back in the pursuit of your own self-interest, for the sake of living in harmony with others. So if playing your music loudly is how you get your groove on, realise that this may be a disturbance to your neighbour. Civility also relates to public behaviour - not blaring music loudly on buses and not using profanity.

Civility does not mean respect and sympathy only towards specific people, but having generalised empathy for all those who share the society with us. Civility must be returned to the conduct of citizen politics.

A House Divided

One of the challenges with accomplishing this sense of civility is that we don’t have a shared sense of values which define us as a people. For example, we are not yet united on the idea that there should be respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual. Some of us believe criminals should be executed; they should get no rights. Some of us believe gays should be murdered. They have no rights. Yet, this same section of the community will claim to support human rights, but only in the sense that the police officer should not draw his weapon in the performance of his duty.

We are not all united in our commitment to the rule of law. We are at war with the rule of law. Citizens have withdrawn from participation in crime fighting because they feel it is the Government’s responsibility.

We are also not united in showing compassion for those in need. We remain in deep disagreement over these values, and a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Role of the State

Civil society is not at war with the state but deeply depends on its efficient performance and accountability. Civil values are so fundamental to the kind of society we want. Innovative public policy initiatives by the Government can go a long way in promoting civil virtues and values in Jamaica. Civic education is required and the avenues through which this can be done are fairly obvious. Schools have a pivotal role to play in any initiative to strengthen civil norms. Countries such as Australia and New Zealand have, for example, developed a Values and Attitudes Survey which measures or tracks the social and moral development of the students. The benefit of this is that you get a sense of the attitudes and core character of students long before behavioural problems arises.

Civics is no longer a compulsory element of the school curriculum, but it should be returned to the school curriculum because it’s an introduction to responsible citizenship. If a child drops out of school at age 12 or 15, at the very least, he or she would have already learned what it means to be a responsible citizen. This is because they would have learned tolerance, respect for opposing positions and the views of others, a willingness to abide by rules and regard for the institutions in the society. In other words, they would be less inclined to forfeit their ’social contract’ with the state.

More Self-Regulation

The police and other guardians of the law are essential to any programme to renew public civility. The current resort by some police officers to unlawful behaviour in the pursuit of order is a huge hurdle to the overall objective of creating a civil society. There is also, in my view, an overreliance on the police to regulate behaviour. A civil society would be one where citizens engage in self-regulation. This means abiding by the laws, acting civilly and doing the right thing so as to reduce the incidents where the police must employ force.

Entertainers must heed the critique of the many voices urging them to take stock of the messages they disseminate and see their roles more in line with responsible citizenship. We now exist too close to the edge not to care or to be mere contributors to the problem.

The country’s music product has always been a reaction to society and reggae artistes have helped to articulate the concerns and grievances of the poor and often mount a lyrical counter-war against an oppressive power structure. However, Jamaica’s contemporary (reggae versus dancehall) music culture transmits intensely violent and antagonistic values and norms, leading to the development of an ambiguous social language inimical to civility. Current research into this arena only renders passing commentary on this development and so it is worthy of critical exploration.

As citizens, we are obliged to participate in the process of governance in our country. Many of our citizens are too comfortable with being mere spectators in their own society. The media are obliged to play a more active, educational role. In the same breath, there are many fair-minded, responsible thinking citizens so there is still hope. Politicians and the police can’t and won’t do everything. We can no longer escape our part in the struggle.

The response of the State and of civil society to this spectre of chaos is crucial.

Dr Hume Nicola Johnson, a broadcaster, holds a PhD in political science and public policy from the University of Waikato in New Zealand and has published on the challenges to civil society and governance in Jamaica. Email humepela@gmail.com.

Obama’s Idealism: Can his Contagion of Change Impact Deeply Racialised Societies?

Many pundits chalk up the widespread popularity of Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to his fresh idealism and his superb oratorical skills. I am not so much in awe of his oratory, simply because I have heard many a speaker - preachers, politicians, academics- articulate and resonate equally or better than Barack. But his innate and extrordinary belief in the power and possibility of change in America is, for me, is most appealing attribute, and this has struck a deep chord in me. It is a simple message coming from a genuine place. It is contagious, not because Barack Obama is saying anything extraordinary or novel, but because people have become exhuasted with the monotony of their socio-economic, cultura and  politicalcondition, and a lived existence of depravity, hatred and apartheid-like divisiveness.

But many commentators - although firmly believing in the desire and requirement for change - wonder aloud about America’s readiness for the type of change that Obama speaks of. I wonder about and ask that of all societies which are deeply racialised, where xenophobia is the accepted attitude and where ethnic groups cocoon themselves within their own nests in pretence that their commanility offers protection rather than embeds social apartheid.

This continuing debate about change and a society’s readiness for change brings me back to a keynote speech I had the privilege of giving at a graduate/postgraduate dinner while I was a student at the University of Waikato in New Zealand back in October 2003. Having had many discussions about the smiliarities and differences between New Zealand and Jamaica, I had concluded then that there was a lot that Jamaica could learn from New Zealand  and vice versa, and indeed a lot we could all learn from our varied and varigated societies. The trouble is, as I noted at the dinner, is that there would have to be an enabling environment, a space created, a mechanism set up to enact or effect this two way learning process.

Importantly, as many observers are pointing out in the case of America’s race problems, there has to be a readiness and a willingness to take on the challenge, a deep desire to embrace new cultures, lifestyles, peoples. Such change requires an openmindedness that tells you that your society is inescapably changing as the world itself changes or ought to change as part of the natural evolution that all societies undergo. Critically, the inhabitants of the country must possess or develop the overarching humility needed to succeed in the relearning process. So the real question must agaiun be posed - are societies that are deeply racialised ready, willing, and meek enough to undertake this process of adaptation and change? And are those from minority communities able or willing to accept the challenge of helping to teach  folks in hegemonic groups such a difficult lesson, to recondition their attitudes to poeple of differing races, classes and religions?

I cannot speak much for other socities as well as I can speak for Jamaica and the West Indian community. ‘Despite our colonial history of oppresion and enslavement, Jamaica’s national motto, ‘Out of many, One People’ represents our desire for embrace. Our societies were constructed from a variegated mix of races, cultures, values and peoples derived through conquest, slavery, indensturehsip, colonialism and globalisation.

Societies such as America, New Zealand, Australia and many within the European continent had no such nurturing. It may be said too that the opportunity for this kind of social conditioning had been squandered. It is for this reaosn that these societies seem ill-prepared to fully accept the reality of ‘openness’, multi-culturalism, and therefore change.

Three related incidents blugeoned me years ago into this sad reality in Aotearoa. The first was racial remarks made by New Zealand talkback host, Paul Holmes about former United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan. Holmes referred to Annan as a ‘Cheeky darkie”. (This was my introduction to racism outside my own country). The second was the production of caps/memorabelia to advertise, promote, commodify, proft from and institutionalise an extremely offensive racial remark. The third was the relative silence of civil society, politics and academia on this matter and the cowardly attempts by  some groups to explain away/rationalise rather than outrightly condemn any semblance of racism and bogotry.

The great West Indian novelist, George Lamming, in his seminal literary work entitled ‘In the Castle of my Skin’ called upon both the coloniser and the Afro-West Indian to step into each other’s skind in order to understand their collective plight. Obama’s call for change in America replicates this call for understanding and compassion. The ‘cheeky darkie’ event in Aotearoa back in 2003 reflects the widespread ignorance about the black struggle across the world. The Jews never let us forget their holocuast, but the Black holocaust is effectively denied, forgotten: They have managed to cow us into silence while the Jews make films and build museums to solidy, embed and immortalise their suffering. I will need an entire blog devoted to this latter topic. The point is that unless you had artrived at your place in the world from the incredibly hideous suffering and oppression of the Middle Passage, slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism, and neo-coloniality, one would totally misunderstand the black man’s anguish, and the deep-seated depravity that he feels.

I know that when Obama ask for change, he is not only talking about racism, but this is perhaps the area requiring the most immediate change across the world. It would thus behoove my colleagues in academia, politics, civil society and the media not to be in silent acquiescence with those perpetuating racial hatred, xenophobia, apartheid and hate. When we remain silent, it means we approve of the status quo.

The paradox for us as thinkers and students of a new age is that we are here to learn, reframe, theorise and diagnose our own politics, history, development, culture and values from within the context of societies which everyday clebrate their progressiveness, liberty and freedom of expression. These are soceities which  laud their accomolishments in extending rights to those traditionally marginalised - women, homosexuals, prostitutes etc. But it would appear that immigrants, refugees, blacks, Asians do not fall within this bracket of rights. There can be no half-rights.

Racism is inimical to multiculturalism. It abhors the diversity many developed societies applaud and celebrate. It runs counter to the enabling environment and humbling space needed to foster change and learning between our different groups. Societies such as America, New Zealand, Australia and those of Western Europe have two options: They can either continue to be arrogant, small-minded and racist, or it can choose to excite the imagination of citizens and visitors to the uniqueness of its vast and rich plurality of cultures, peoples, beliefs, religions and values which will render it attractive to the world. It is only then that any of its group can speak of change without courting doubt, sarcasm, indifference and pity.