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I think everyone who has met a Jamaica knows all too well that there is no shortage of confidence in the Jamaican people. Bolt is the quintessential Jamaican who loves life and gives voice to all that he feels. IOC Chairman, Jacque Rogge should know that we get mad with the same gusto so let them tick us off in Beijing and then they would see a burning track/stadium literally rather than metaphorically!!
After 500 years of enslavement and oppression, and more than a century of global achievement in many arenas – music, film, fashion and sport, we have people with more than enough to celebrate. We do this by dancing and prancing! Every single night there is a party in Jamaca, sometimes several in one night. Dancehall researcher, Dr. Donna Hope and myself had gone to Tivoli for the weekly Passa Passa in its infancy a few years ago, and concluded that it was as if Jamaicans were dancing to forget the pain of impoverishment, crime, and deprivation. We had never seen a more happy set of poor people!!
We thanked God then for blessing Jamaica with such a wonderful musical form that Jamaicans obsessivly love. The rhythms are so potent, the lyrics so inflammatory and the vibe so intense that one immediately forgets the troubles in his own life and just move to the lilting beat. Bolt overcome by his own accomplishment felt that same reggae beat – not in his head – but in the stands as the Olympic organisers appropriately found himn some reggae. Asians are mad for reggae so it was a perfect international, reggae, Jamaican moment.
It helped Bolt that Jamaica has had dancers such as Bogle (may he rest in peace), and a crew of other who create a new dance move for the dancehall and the population to follow. Jacque Rogge should come on a visit to Tivoli and “Passa Passa” to see the dancers at work – to bear witness to how Jamaicans celebrate their own. Raver Clavers are on a high as they are busy watching Bolt popularising their dance moves for the world to watch. Dancing, music and fun is what we do! It’s the ‘reggaementality’ of the Jamaican people. Boasty and show off is part of the collective psyche – but we remain a people from hiumble beginnings/circumstances, and we know when to turn off the celebration and focus!
We love competition, Jamaicans love to win! I was at the National Stadium in Kingston when bolt first broke Asafa Powell’s record – and I nearly bust my throat – it was pandemonium in the stands. Jacque Rogge may also want to come visit Jamaica for the High School Boys and Girl’s Athletics Championships to catch a glimpse of the seriousness with which we take track and field. Years after leaving high school, grown men and women still turn out in their thousands to celebrate the victories of their secondary schools. It is a national pasttime. Better still, IOC President, Jacque Rogge should come to Jamaica to watch “Prep School Champs”!! haha! Now, I went to the stadium with my friend Ingrid to wtch her 9 year old , Rachel run in 207, in one of these kids’ races, and I will say the excitement and the pandemonium could equal that of the Bird’s Nest in Bejing.
Rioutous behaviour is embedded in the Jamaican personality; So is hyperbole. Jamaica is perhaps the only country plagued by extreme poverty which acts, thinks looks, and operates like a first world nation. We have an incestuous love of ‘Jamrock’. And we deserve to celebrate as we see fit. In any case, Bolt does a BAD (read as ‘good’) ‘nuh linger’. Pity we did not have the ‘nuh linger’ tune to match. Perhaps next Olympics! Dem would need to hire a bad sound system/selector like the eternal Stone Love and Weepow – well – if the respectable, civilised, conservative Brits would allow it!
Yes, we certainly know how to celebrate and have a good time. This has never a problem for us. Anybody who has ever been to the Penn Relays knows that we dutifully go, not so much for the stunning athletic performances from up and coming stars – there’s that too – but to have a good time. Jamaicans gettin’ on bad in our own section is the height of the event.
However, I don’t agree with your claim that we know when to turn off the boastfulness. Indeed, we have ample evidence of how that showing off of authority, class status, etc. is part of what ails us in terms of the level of corruption and refusal to play by anybody else’s rules but the ones we cherry-pick. I am glad that you didn’t link boastfulness to success, as many are wont to do especially when trying to explain away Asafa’s performance, because again, the evidence says otherwise.
What is fascinating to me is how this issue of Bolt’s style of performance has become racialized sooo quickly and easily, and like clockwork, Jamaicans line up to defend and cuss off the naysayers.
I don’t really see a problem with Usain’s post-race celebration, but I totally get why people like the IOC dude would think it was a problem; it simply fell outside of the not-previously-defined boundaries of acceptable response. They didn’t need to have a rule for how he or anyone else should be, they just never saw this way of celebrating before, and thus, it becomes the OTHER that must be contained and explained. Nothing new playing out there. Lots of academic papers will be generated from how we choose to look at this moment, but I don’t know that we will be saying anything different from when we lined up to defend Buju, Beenie et al. over the past few years.
On the other hand, I can’t tek too much show-off business; its just distracting and annoying. I guess that makes me less Jamaican; not a problem really, since I don’t measure my Jamaican-ness by how well I line up with many of these aspects of the collective psyche.
I chose not to watch Usain’s pre-race performance for the 200 m; at that point, it was all about him being the center of attention and all that. I found his performing for the audience and tv cameras a trifle juvenile and inauthentic, in my view; he didn’t go there to BE the olympic clown, he went there to run a race and kick some butt. But, I was right there with him when he was crossed that finish line, was laying on the track, jumping up and down, dancing and carrying on. I mean, who doesn’t dance/cry/laugh/shout when they are celebrating?? I don’t know of any such person. Since there’s no script for how to celebrate one’s victories – and there certainly cannot be at an INTERNATIONAL event – IOC man needs to get over it and quick.
Hi Hume,
Good post! Nice comments Long. I see the BBC has managed to push this issue so much now that the whole world is talking about it, notwithstanding that it started with Ato Boldon and Bob Costas! My bit on the matter is that I am frankly not interested in whether Usain was dancing just that he are di one! Plain and simple! I think it is just ring down bad mind and player hating! Indeed, I find all of Jacque Rogge comments very, very much out of character.
The point is that the Americans are under pressure as indicated by their baton dropping today and Gay’s comments that it is Jamaica’s Olympics as well as Gail Devers’ comments to the Associated Press that, the Americans need to redeem themselves in the same 200m that Felix lost to VCB, because she does not know what is happening. In her view, it does not feel like an Olympics without the Americans winning! How tasteless!!!
So, Mr. Rogge feels pressured too, as he was complicit in the award of the Games to China which while I am not suggesting that it should not have been, is certainly causing him many sleepless nights. He now has to turn on a hapless twenty-two year old and of all people the double world record holder to continue to fan the flames of speculation about our performances in the Games! Don’t miss it for a minute, Rogge is a turncoat in terms of the force of his betrayal of what the Olympics should mean and the fact that he is so completely astounded that the increased focus on drugs would have had the effect of toppling the highly vaunted Americans. He is even sounding like the condemned Victor Conte in casting aspersions on Usain’s antics! Dem could brite!
Did you know that both Usain and Asafa have each been tested thirteen and twelve times this year, respectively? While I take no comfort in that as it speaks to our own issues in terms of an independent drug testing agency for sports, what I do know is there is no doubt that we are top of the top!
So that, Mr. Rogge needs to speak out against why protesters are not allowed into the protest areas and why only one reporter and camera man (still and or video) are allowed per media for the opening of the paralympics. As far as some Americans are concerned, he needs to comment on the Chinese babies who are winning the gold medals in gymnastics. But, surely, he needs to tell us how the Games of the 29th Olympiad will draw China closer to the West, as was obviously the plan in the award, and whether China is on target for achieving the timetable of requirements for democratic compliance.
Had he spoken about that, then, I would have listened! Outside of that, I will have to assume this is further evidence of how tainted bodies like the IOC can be in terms of credibility and the fact that their head feel it is more important criticise small countries like Jamaica for kicking butt at the Olympics! How very, very, very sad for all us, but especially for the spineless Jacque Rogge!
Dem coulda double brite and extra renk! Mek dem move! Dem know too much tings! Dem waan fi come script the part! Of course, none ah dem nuh see it when the disgraced, two time drug cheat Justin Gatlin and Shawn Crawford were running and speaking to each other in Athens in one of the preliminary rounds of the 100m! What ah ting dough ehh! Well, tomorrow we can set two world records and i am sure that the mile relays will be just as exciting, as the Jamaicans are now bursting with confidence! Dem ah fi later! Fiesty!