Reneto Adams: From ‘Bad Man Police’ to Police Commissioner?

“You have to be firm. You have to use some force where it is necessary and you have to know how to use it. Civil society has lost control in Jamaica, so you have to have a firm strong personality [referring to the job of Police Commissioner] who knows strategy and tactic and who knows how to contend with the criminal elements”.

                                       Reneto Adams, Personal Interview with 2004, February 3).

  If Isiaah Laing and Keith ‘Trinity’ Gardener were the ‘bad man police of the 1970s and 1980s onwards, then Reneto de Cordova Valentino Adams is the contemporary manifestation of the ‘badman police’ phenomenon in Jamaica. Typically clad in combat attire, outfitted with helmet, bullet proof vests, high-powered weapons and sporting dark sun shades(see image inset), Adams’ hard-hitting policing style had become legendary. Now with growing momentum from Jamaican citizens, particularly those on social network sites (facebook, twitter) for this controversial former Senior Superintendent of Police, Reneto Adams to be appointed as Police Commissioner, it is important to reflect on what this  tough cop represented during his 35 year tenure in the Jamaica Constabulary Force, and the significance of this abiding interest in him for the top job in the JCF.

 Indeed, in the desperate bid by the state to act forcefully to combat soaring criminality, the Jamaican society has over time experienced the emergence of new kind of ‘brand name’ cop that I prefer to call ‘bad man police’ and with this, a highly-developed culture of intimidating policing and militarism. In order to understand this controversial development, one would have to look through the lens of former Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Reneto DeCordova Valentino Adams and the militaristic police team he once headed, the Crime Management Unit (CMU).  

Reneto Adams & the CMU

In response to intense public pressure in 2002, including widespread accusations from the media, civil society and the business community about its lack of urgency and political will to stop crime, the Jamaican government, led by then Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, immediately established the Crime Management Unit (CMU) to tackle rampant criminality. The CMU was a specially designed technical team comprised of a heavy detachment of armed police officers with the authority ‘to move anywhere and anytime throughout the Corporate Area’ (Kingston & St. Andrew) to actively combat criminal gangs on their turf. It had the authority to call on back up personnel from other specialised crime-fighting teams within the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) such as the Special Anti-Crime Task Force (SPACTF), Mobile Reserve and Flying Squad (The Jamaica Gleaner, 2000, November 2). The Jamaican government spent some $J11 million dollars to outfit the unit, including US$100,000 worth of surveillance and other technological equipment (ibid).

Heading the newly-installed Crime Management Unit was the tough-talking, brazen and flamboyant crime-fighter, Senior Superintendent Reneto Valentino de Cordova Adams. Reneto Adams was the ‘cream of the crop’ in Jamaican policing and his courtship and ultimate selection by the state was deliberate and calculated. This is because Reneto Adams had come to embody a particular brand of policeman and policing that has been nurtured in Jamaica since the formation of the Jamaica Constabulary Force more than a century ago in 1865. The JCF was formed immediately following the historic Morant Bay Rebellion in which violent citizen riots were put down by the public hanging of its two prominent leaders (National Heroes – Paul Bogle and George William Gordon). The JCF was, in other words, designed to suppress future ‘threats’ against the governing colonial regime. Commentators argue that the JCF thus appears to have been historically invested it with ‘an overriding principle of profound authoritarianism’ (see Harriot, 2000:43). So, although the Jamaica Constabulary Force today is largely required ‘to serve, protect and reassure the people in Jamaica through the delivery of impartial and professional services’[i], it retains much of the ‘Force’ inherent in its name and it seems to have become obligatory for its members to demonstrate the capacity to carry out sustained attack, if not all out war on criminal elements as intended by the Jamaican State at different instances.

 What is a “Bad Man Police” ?

I draw particular attention to Former Supt. Adams here because he had come to bridge the gap between the capacity ‘to protect and serve’ as well ‘to attack’. Reneto Adams stands out among an exclusive list of popular Jamaican lawmen – such as Keith ‘Trinity’ Gardener, Cornwall ‘Bigga’ Ford, Isiaah Laing and Tony Hewitt,  - who had come to personify the classic prototype of what I call the ‘bad man police’. A ‘bad man’ in generalised usage is an armed civilian combatant, a regular gunslinger, more commonly known as a ‘shotta’ (read as ‘shooter’ or gunman) in Jamaican vernacular. The shotta is heralded in the ghetto as a respected ‘warrior’ and ‘folk hero’ (see Johnson & Soeters, 2008) while the ‘police’ symbolize the state and the rule of law and is charged with stamping out all that the former advocates. I juxtapose these otherwise incongruous terms/personalities – ‘badman police’ – to illustrate and characterise the popularisation and consolidation of a new brand of crime-fighter in the Jamaican context. Despite the deliberate tension and ambivalence the phrase ‘badman police’ engender, I argue that this juxtaposition is appropriate as this new kind of police effectively assumes the characteristics of the ‘bad man’. He attires himself in heavy-duty, military style combat wear, carries high-powered weapons, moves around in a posse of other officers (or join forces with soldiers) and, in the performance of his duty, displays the same kind of aggressiveness and fierceness akin to the ‘bad man’ (gunman).  

This psychological and physical stance in the policing function is seen to be indispensable to confronting/ combating and ultimately subduing the ‘bad man’ and maintaining the rule of law. The following remark from one police officer on the beat provides insights into this phenomenon: ‘You can’t listen to Bob Marley when you going to hunt criminals, I have to listen to Bount Killer (dancehall deejay known for violent lyrics). I have to get into the psyche of the bad man. If I don’t, I get killed’ (Personal Communication, December 2007). This ‘kill or be killed’ mentality is no doubt a harsh reality of policing in Jamaica) but these remarks also reflect the paradigmatic shift in the psychology of the cop on patrol. He effectively portrays the attitude and style of the bad man in the attempt to carry out the rule of law. It is this incongruity which I attempt to unmask here. Although when drawn together, the expression ‘bad man police may suggest ‘police-turned-criminal’, it is conceptually distinct from what is usually understood as ‘police criminality’ embodied in the phrase ‘rogue cop’. Instead, I use the designation ‘bad man police’ to refer to cops who combine a healthy respect for the rule of law but are not adverse to employing ‘force majeure’ to bring violators of the law to account.

For example, according to reports in popular media, Keith ‘Trinity’ Gardener was the archetypal ‘street cop’ in the 1970s, becoming the most feared nemesis of politically-factionalized criminal elements who had assumed control of Kingston’s ghettoes during this politically volatile period (Jamaica Gleaner, 2005, March 13).  Meanwhile, so legendary had the temperament and exacting policing carried out by Isaiah Laing become that he was ultimately immortalised in song by Jamaican entertainer, Norman ‘Tiger’ Jackson through the popular lyrical refrain – ‘wha [what] de ‘badman police’ name? …Laing!’ As I said at the outset, if Laing and Trinity were the ‘bad man police of the 1970s and 1980s onwards, then Reneto de Cordova Valentino Adams is the contemporary manifestation of the ‘badman police’ phenomenon.

Reneto- Rise of a Celebrity Cop

Typically clad in combat attire, outfitted with helmet, bullet proof vests, high-powered weapons and sporting dark sun shades(see image inset), Adams’ hard-hitting policing style had become legendary. This tough-talking, flamboyant and media-savvy lawman was renowned for fearlessly disarming criminal gangs and recovering illegal weapons. In fact, his highly publicised success record of ‘cleaning up’ (substantially reducing crime levels) the volatile communities such as Spanish Town and East Kingston in the mid-1990s as well as his ability to drive fear into armed criminals, catapulted Reneto Adams into national attention. His openness with the media, genuine friendliness with members of the public and his mildness of speech and unquestioned integrity had earned him popularity, respect and widespread support from among large segments of the Jamaican population. But his uncompromising approach to policing brought him both popularity and infamy. This model of policing, Reneto Adams declared, had become indispensable in Jamaica as the social institutions that normally regulated society had failed. In my interview with him way back in 2004, he remarked:

The policeman, because of what is happening in the society [mushrooming rates of crime and violence] is not seen anymore as a peace person because he has got now to be carrying along with him into the community M-16s and huge weaponry and not the style that used to accompany a policeman once with his little baton but he is seen now as almost a monster (Personal Interview, 2004, February 3).

Given the nature of crime in Jamaica and the sheer brutality of some murders, it may be fair to argue that both the policeman and the criminal have become the proverbial ‘monster’. Reneto Adams had thus come to symbolise the possibility of genuine ‘public safety’ for many Jamaicans. His ‘badness’ was proof that the rule of law still abound within the society and the criminal was not in control but could be conquered and subdued.  

But the Reneto Adams–led Crime Management Unit was the manifestation of ‘military style policing’. For example, a joint CMU (police) -military trawl for illegal weapons in July 2001 erupted in three days of fierce fighting between gunmen and the security forces. A total of 27 people, including three members of the Security Forces were killed (Jamaica Gleaner, 2001, July 12). The police emerged out of this confrontation with an even more sullied image and a widening gap between itself and the citizens in the targeted communities for crime-fighting.

Although it was to be a permanent, proactive structure with long term goals of intelligence gathering, crime detection and containment and the short-term objective of targeting and disarming criminal gangs across the island, Reneto’ Crime Management Unit was abandoned in 2004. Its uncompromising mode of operation and ‘take no prisoners’ attitude had become increasingly unattractive. Reneto Adams made enemies within his own ranks as many colleague officers felt he was ‘in bed’ with the media as well as from amongst criminal gangs, receiving hundreds of death threats per year. Significantly however, although overlooked and deemed to be justified by many citizens, Reneto’s harsh crime fighting style had ultimately spiralled out of favour with human rights groups, particularly the lobby group Jamaicans for Justice.

 Although the CMU deployed successful criminal detection and apprehension tactics and Reneto Adams was celebrated for his fearlessness and unique ability to flush out and intimidate gangsters, his unit fronted heavy and continuous criticism from the then political opposition (Jamaica Labour Party), influential pundits within the media and the human rights lobby. Indeed, the emerging view of Reneto’s CMU was that its militaristic policing approach, particularly its frequent resort to firepower was unsustainable. The final nail in the CMU’s coffin came after its involvement in several controversial incidents. These included the killing of seven alleged gangsters on March 14, 2001 in Braeton, St. Catherine and four people, including two women, in a house in the district of Crawle, Clarendon. These police shootings ignited intense condemnation from human rights lobby group, Jamaicans for Justice and Amnesty International.  The Jamaican government, having responded to public pressure to forcefully combat crime, found itself in a quandary. The CMU was disbanded.

Statistically, and in terms of presenting an appearance of stability, squads like Reneto’s CMU appeared to be worthwhile. Its logic is a simple one. Jamaican urban (terrorist) gangs represent active “threats” to the social order. The application of a “militarized” response to contain/eliminate this “threat” is justifiable. But persistently employing the wrong tool for the job carries strong risks for human rights, and effective policing.

Bad Man Police Versus Community Policing

Does the policy of bad man policing render redundant effective community policing? The whole notion of “community policing”, is designed “to foster improved communication and mutual understanding between the police and the community” (Harriot, 2000:93). Given that they are the locus of the crime problem, violence–prone inner city communities are ideal political spaces for the incubation of improved relationships between citizens and police. The logic is that the police, due to living amongst and sustaining healthy interactions with citizens in the community and respecting their rights, will be less feared or perceived as an “occupying force” to be treated with contempt but as partners/facilitators in the fight against crime.

But according to Reneto Adams, who had been charged with murder following a controversial police killing in the Clarendon community of Crawle in 2004:

Community policing was designed for a real civil society or a society which is behaving in a civilized way. In other words, the policeman exercising community policing should not be carrying a firearm, should not be dressed like you see me dressed sometimes, should not be in squads … but many communities in Jamaica do not allow us to do that. They are dangerous… those places are not conducive to community policing.

It is these very real circumstances, which elevates the ‘bad man police’ and a militaristic style of policing (and leads to its widespread acceptance) as a viable crime-fighting option in certain communities in urban Jamaica.

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Caribbean Nationals Energise North Queensland (Australia)

“That dude with the Rasta head band is Trini”, the operator of Jamaica Joes restuarant and pub in the North Queensland city of Townsville Australia, American Christopher Haddad, shouted to me in a packed pub of Australians out in numbers to watch the Townsville Air show put on by the Australian Defence Force (Townsville hosts the largest army barracks in Australia).

I saw the head band with the signature Rastafarian colours – red, green and cold – but it was draping the head of a young scrawny looking ‘white dude’ with shaggy blond hair. Chris beckoned to him to come over to meet me and as he walked up to me, I imagined I would hear bellowing from his lips that quintessential Steve Irwin type Australian drawl. Naah.. was not to be. Jesse (as he turned out to be )walked up to me with a big grin and out came that awesome Trinidadian accent, and guess what it said: “Townsville people say my accent is more authentic”!. “You are too learned, he continued with his introductory jabs, so your voice is too cultivated and too polished”.
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Jesse, Trinidadian living on The Sunshine Coast, Australia

Can you imagine the audacity, the gall, the total lack of tact and restraint. His behaviour would be frowned upon by the average Australian as rude but I laughed loudly. I loved that – going for the jugglar!; he was without a doubt a Caribbean national. ‘Excuse me!?” I said more in delight than in annoyance. Jesse was of course referring to several radio commercials I voice for Jamaica Joes restaurant. (Click here for a listen or cut and paste link ). Jesse had been the voice behind the commercials before I arrived in Australia. An authentic Jamaican had arrive so poor Jesse was naturally ditched!

<b>Caribbean Nationals set up Business in Queensland</b>
Jesse is a 24 year old and arrived in Australia only two years ago (2007). He moved to Australia’s Sunshine Coast (Brisbane, Queensland) with his parents. An older sister had moved to Australia ten years before and had managed to convince the family to take the long voyage south of the Equator to set up a business and begin a new life. The family had operated a furniture business in Trinidad supplying equipment to educational institutions, among them the Vocational Training College, COSTATT. Frustration to crime and corruption in Trinidad was part of the reason for migrating Jesse tells me. His parents sold their business in Port of Spain, and is now busy setting up a similar establishment on Australia’s Sunshine Coast.

They are not alone. A Jamaican restaurant is already on the Sunshine Coast and from all reports quite a popular spot. Jesse reports that during the severe Australian winter, there was a signed scrawled on crocos bag at the windows which jokingly read “Enjoy the winter, I gone to Jamaica where there is sun”. Priceless. These Trinis as enjoying Australia. Jesse is studying international business at Griffith University but does not feel he will end up in corporate Australia. He is helping his parents ti run the family business and spends the rest of his time hanging with his mate Christopher Haddad and helps out at Jamaica Joes, and his cousin, another Trini, Dwayne – born in Singapore to Trinidadian parents. With Dwayne you can’t tell that he is Trinidadian at first glance. he is white and speaks with a perfect Australian accent. Dwayne is Christopher’s business partner in the Jamaica Joes franschise. (I will tell the amazing story of this popular restaurant in a separate blog).

<b>Jamaica Joes, the backdrop of Caribbean vibes in Townsville</b>
Suffice to say however, Jamaica Joes has provided a backdrop for Caribbean people to meet and greet each other every weekend. On Sunday last, the mood was great. We sat on the deck watching the US airwing fighter jets, The Thunderbirds, help the Australian airwing race through the sky over Townsville to the delight of residents. Man, they moved so fast, I could only capture a couple helicopters that were flying low towards the end of the show.
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UK Deejay called David and his sound system called “Cry Tough” played the best and latest reggae -from Sizzler to Movado, from Tony Rebel and Queen Ifrica to Shabba Ranks and the awesome sounds of Lymie Murray. People ate and watched a DVD of Rebel Salute on a big screen. I supplied the DVD as it added to the immensely Jamaican atmosphere in the place. Australians bopped their heads to the music and soaked up the generally positive vibrations and energy that Caribbean people imbue.

<b>New Yorker of Jamaican parents – Star player for Townsville Crocodiles (basketball team)</b>
Hugging the sound system and dancing up a storm was none other than Corey Williams, star player for Townsville’s basket ball team, The Crocodiles. Sporting his signature mohawk hair style, Corey Williams is a celebrity in Townsville. he moved to Australia on contract some three years from New York to play basketball. He says it was a ‘great opportunity’ that he did not want to pass up. Born in New York of Jamaican parents, Corey is a New Yorker through and through but Jamaican blood runs through his veins. His personality is extraordinary and with him around the pub, Chris Hadd reports that Jamaica Joes requires no ‘PR”.
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Townsville Crocodiles player, Corey ‘Homicide’ Williams

Corey’s family hails from the ghetto community of Mongoose Town located south of Payne Land in St. Andrew. Theirs was a life of poverty and material deprivation. The family escaped poverty by moving to New York. Moving to Australia is part of that continued search for opportunity. His fun and charming nature belies the seriousness with which he takes his career. Success means a lot to him. he says he contributes by sending his family in Jamaica what he can and by identifying always with his Jamaican ness. That is not hard to tell. He alone occupies the dance floor. He loves Jamaican music and cares not whether he has to dance alone. As he hugs the sound system, we laugh loudly, but you can tell that the rhythms of the reggae beat runs deep in him.

<b>Curacao footballer plays for North Qld Fury (Townsville Football Club).</b>
Sitting at the corner table of Jamaica Joes is David, a very tall handsome brown-skinned guy who could pass as a basketball player. But he is a footballer (not to be confused with ‘footy’ – the Australian bame for rugby). Unlike Corey’s extraverted personality, David is quiet and extraordinarily reserved. He hails from the Dutch Antilles, the island of Curacao, a popular destination for Jamaican higglers who go there to buy goods for resale in the arcades around Jamaica.

David sat reading the couple DUO Magazines (Townsville’s premier lifestyle mag)srewn across the table. I went to rest my dancing feet at his table. “I hear you are in here”, he turns to me and smiled. “Yes, I am”, I said as we both flipped to the page in the September edition with an article of me and a pic. We chatted for a while about Townsville and its otherwise lack of fun and vibrancy – the Australian way really (smile). “This (the vibes at Jamaica Joes) makes up for the low keyed week here”, David said. I could not agree more.

Townsville is an industrial town, its vibrancy lies in its very attractive employment culture. In short, people come to Townsville from around Australia and overseas for work and job opportunities. It uses a lot of skilled labour – plumbing, carpentry, masonry etc. Construction is booming in this regional city, and with the Mines in close proximity and the army barracks, jobs are a plenty.

David says he basically moves anywhere there is the opportunity to play football. He was a central player in the Scottish Premier League team of Aberdeen. He speaks with a noticeable Scottish accent. His parents moved from Curacao to the Netherlands a few years ago. His sojourn to Australia is a good opportunity to improve his game and earn an income. Footballers on international contracts are paid handsomely. His team mate is former star player for Liverpool, Robbie Fowler, who now plays lives in Townsville and plays with the North Queensland Fury. Go figure.
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The blokes and I went to watch them in action on the weekend. Although the team lost 2-0 to Adelaide United, David – who came on in the second half, was instrumental. His height make shim tower over the other players and a beautiful header from him just missed the goal towards the end of the 90 minutes. I was proud to sit with Trinis and watch and supporter a national from the Dutch Antilles play for an Australian team.
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A few weeks before, I met another Jamaican in Townsville at Jamaica Joes. He is an older man in the mid- to late 50s. He had lived in New Zealand for more than a decade with his kiwi wife before moving to Townsville. He has been in Townsville for close to ten years. I promise to call and catch up with him and his family before I head off to Jamaica for Christmas. But for all of us, meeting each other and hanging out was already like Christmas. The Caribbean spirit is alive in each of us and seeing ecah other allowed it to rise to the surface. The depth of joy it brings to encounter your own people in a far away land is indescribable. So until next time, hope you enjoyed the tale.
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Dismantling Donmanship in Jamaica: Is it possible and what shall it take?

Imprisoned Jamaican don, Joel Andem

I have been reading with great interest the raft of discussions surrounding the potential extradition of Jamaica’s premier don, ‘Dudus’ (aka The President) to the United States to face drug trafficking and weapons smuggling charges. What concerns me is the pervasive thinking, especially by the intellectual class that this somehow would unravel the ‘peace’ in the otherwise captive and garrisoned communities over which these dons rule.  

Let me say here that academics who rationalise criminality are to be feared as much as the criminals that their thesis appears to protect. I understandthe sensitive politics of the garrisoned communities. I also get the extraordinary sentiment and empathy felt by captive communities when one of their own is taken away to be imprisoned or killed, particularly by their so-called ‘outsider/enemies’. But the case of the FARC rebels in Columbia, the drug gangs that control the favelas in Brazil, and the militants who control the oil base in Nigeria and those controlling large parts of the resource rich areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is clear evidence that garrisons/dons ought to be dismantled, not protected. What they offer to communities and the state appears to be an unstable peace premised on the complicity of the citizenry and the state of their own illegalities. This kind of contract with outlaw authorities renders the state itself criminal in its desperation to stem disorder. What we would now see is stable disorder, a persistent state of anarchy but an acceptable anarchy. Is this what we want for the future of Jamaica?

The Italian case is a powerful illustration that to really address in any real and comprehensive way the robustness of criminal gangs, the power of dons and the impact of their garrison government requires the support of civil society. Like Italy, Jamaica boasts a diverse civil society and myriad civic organizations, yet they are usually seen to be ambivalent and sedate (see Gray, 2005).  However, there is an ethical progression which is gaining momentum in Jamaica and the growing global movement against powerful criminal organisations has coincided with a Jamaican civil society slowly awakening to its inescapable role in the struggle against donmanship and garrisonisation.

The slaying of High court judges Falcone and Borsellino was the tipping point for Italian civil society. The brutality of the murders shocked its conscience and forced it into action. With a record number of homicides including 1674 in 2005 alone and the massive rise in the kidnapping and murder of children in 2008, the potential tipping points for Jamaica are many. Jamaican citizens are exhausted with criminality and the longstanding hegemony of dons. There is hope. Not unlike Italy, there are a plurality of cultures even in the areas where dons and criminal gangs reign. In other words, dons and gangs never have complete hegemony over an area. Indeed, rivalry and internal strife between gangs as they tussle for leadership weakens the don’s hegemony in an area. This violence also creates space for the higher authority of the state to win back control of the enclave and consolidate a pool of witnesses to become state’s evidence. This was the Modus Operandi of the Italian state when it secured some 400 mafiosi as ‘justice colloborators’ in the mid 1990s.

The loss of power of the Jamaican dons has manifested over the last decade in the increasing anti-don sentiment in overtly garrisoned communities, and a greater willingness of residents to risk their safety to assist the authorities. The result has been a slow breaking of the code of silence which has kept criminality viable as well as an increased intensity of episodic mobilizations in the streets by loosely organised networks of citizens, particularly women and students, who desire to exhibit their fearless opposition against criminal violence in their communities.

Rest assured that significant elements of the Jamaican working and disadvantaged classes are huge supporters of efforts to rid their communities of extra-legal actors. Whether embodied in civic initiatives such as marches, prayer vigils and crusades organized by the Church, covert attempts to provide information to the police or the lyrical output of reggae and dancehall entertainers, there are always people who try to escape the don’s reach and power.

Moreover, like Italy and elsewhere, Jamaican women (especially within the context of the historically significant accession of Jamaica’s first female Prime Minister, Portia Simpson-Miller – now Opposition Leader) are becoming a force in themselves, raising their voices, also against criminality and injustice, and gaining power in civic action, popular street mobilizations as well as in the political arena. Whether as talk show hosts, human rights activities, news journalists, politicians, academics or entertainers, women are increasingly holding the stage and they use words as their only ‘weapons’, but – so it seems – those words are effective in realizing drastic changes.

Colombians protest against the FARC in 2008

While impoverishment and fear still keep some women trapped in the situation of being economic clients of patron-dons and filial bonds prevent others from assuming the much desired anti-don stance, the evident courage of women in the face of real danger may contribute to real changes in the status and authority of don in the country.  As recent as 2008, two women, relatives of criminals on the Jamaican police’s ‘most wanted’ list, were instrumental in getting their relative to surrender to the higher authority of the state. Other women, at great risk to their lives are speaking out against the practices of criminals. A televised new item in 2007 reported that a pregnant woman was shot to death in the community of Marverly in the metropolitan parish of Kingston and St. Andrew because she helped the police to unveil a kidnapping plot in her community.

Over the last decade also, there is a noticeable increase in citizen mobilizations in the streets against the control of their communities by criminals. Women, students and neighbourhoods in both rural and urban areas have become chief players in the process and are gaining power through collective action. Examples include the residents of St. John’s Road in Spanish Town who protested in February 2008 the criminal encroachment in their community; University students in March 2004 protested in fearless opposition to the reign of then area leader, ‘Bulby’; the Violence Prevention Alliance was formed to extend the message of peace by bringing together – not unlike LIBERA- different sectors of the Jamaican society. Also worthy of note here is the protests by teachers at Ocho Rios and Christiana High Schools in St. Ann and Manchester in February 2008 respectively against violence in schools. Their protest was a keen illustration that the criminal culture had embedded itself not only within garrison areas but had developed tentacles and spread throughout the wider society.

The increased role of the Church – through prayer vigils, crusades, prayer breakfasts – as well as social intervention programmes – is a great example of the power of combining symbolic gestures, evangelistic practices and real community activity. As a result of the installation of these activities, the Church counts as success its work in the one Hundred Lane community in Red Hills, St. Andrew where 7 people from one family were brutally murdered in 1997. The government sponsored Peace Management Initiative (PMI), established in 2002 and headed by a member of the Church community, Bishop Hero Blair, has also had much publicized success in halting violence in volatile garrison communities such as Mountain View and August Town. Part of the success of the PMI was that it had significant support from large sections of the marginalized community in the targeted communities. One of the challenges of civic initiatives such as the PMI is that it is not part of a larger strategy that would bring about the kind of structural changes that could offer real alternatives to the alienated class, or offer social goods which are tied to larger state structures and processes. Nonetheless, these interventions are clearly positive developments for de-garrisonisation in Jamaica.

In the same breath, there has been public indignation in recent years, propelled by the media (Letters to the Editor, radio talk shows, Editor’s Forums and Media sponsored Public Service Announcements), over the cosy, symbiotic relationship fostered between the political establishment and members of the organised crime industry. This included the daily publishing of the details of vicious crimes as front page stories, statistics illustrating mounting crime levels and letters from ordinary citizens expressing outrage at the state. This public objection resulted in the reluctant ‘outing’ of the role of politicians in legitimising donmanship. Nowadays, there is a less explicit or public display of alliance between politicians and dons and a generation of a public rhetoric by both political officials and citizens of ‘the need for political disassociation’ between these entities (see Ritch, 2001; Jamaica Gleaner, 2001, May 20).

Whereas this push from civil society has had the effect of exposing the ingrained linkages between criminal enterprise and politics, the mutually-dependent relationship which has been cultivated and sustained for more than half a century between dons and the political order clearly requires more than rhetoric to shatter. After all, if political parties are to be viewed as a vital part of the functioning of the state as well as an indispensable element of a mobilized and engaged civil society, then those within its employ cannot serve to undermine it. This sentiment also resonates with the Jamaican music industry whose members often display an ambivalent attitude to the problems of crime which beset the society by disseminating contradictory values, and at times, overt challenges to the police and the state.
Like Italy, Jamaica also knows a middle class based civil society, comprised of intellectuals, professionals and a sizeable merchant element whose constituents favour good governance, healthy economic and social institutions and are for the most part, anti-don/donmanship. The middle class is likely to profit most from institutional reforms which deepen its affinity for that agenda. Of crucial purchase therefore is that this very powerful merchant class, itself often accused of complicity in the extortion practices of dons (Henry, 2002, Jamaica Gleaner, January 31) and detached from the problems in the society, has – for the first time – pledged its financial support for the government’s latest initiatives to tackle organized crime.

Imprisoned Jamaican don, Donald 'Zekes' Phipps

Like the protests and demonstrations staged in Italy by women and youths in local communities such as Sicily and Palermo, the larger positive developments taking place in Jamaica are promising. This is because they represent the overcoming of silence, fear, resignation, years of indifference and inaction which are fertile ground for the flourishing of outlaw authorities, and for criminals to assume responsibility for governance. As such, I reiterate that the reasons dons and donmanship have persisted in Jamaica is powerfully connected to those that informed its development – a compromised Jamaican State, which continues to foster a symbiotic co-dependent relationship with alternate, outlaw authorities through the contrary patron- client practices of some Members of Parliament and a police force, some members of which continue to be in collusion with narcotics trafficking and banditry. Although the government is emphatic that it has no current ties with dons, informal practices by public officials in reality constitute de facto approval of their autonomy and independent authority. As a consequence, dons, like their Mafia counterparts worldwide, find themselves in the haughty position of being able to operate outside the rule of law.

All in all, pursuing the idea that the fight against dons have begun in Jamaica may lead one to become somewhat optimistic about the island’s future. If representatives of the middle and disadvantaged classes, including Jamaican women, official civic groups, corporate bodies, members of the reggae and dancehall industries and the media, feel increasingly confident in playing a role centre stage, and if the authorities are serious about the ‘de-garrisonisation’ of urban communities and able to evade the risk of having the ‘wars on crime’ becoming assaults on the poor (cf. Schneider & Schneider, 2003, p. 301), then – perhaps – Jamaica may undergo a decline of ‘don-power’ in much the same manner as Italy and the U.S.A. experienced the downturn of the Mafia. In such a case, Jamaica may also encounter a ‘reversible destiny’.    

There are however some noticeable challenges in the achievement of these goals. There is an apparent lack of consensus about the norms and values and principles by which the society is guided. There are colliding music forms, colliding sentiments over human rights and the role of the police, colliding ideas as to the country’s direction embodied in entrenched tribalistic and political divisions. There is also a tendency for sporadic interventions by different groups: each doing their own thing. An alliance or coordination of civic bodies similar to the LIBERA in Italy is mandatory as it will require enormous cooperation, unified collective action and consensus to dismantle the embedded nature of criminality and garrison culture in Jamaica. A revitalised Values and Attitudes programme must be tied to the Violence Prevention Alliance initiative; The Dispute Resolution Foundation, Teachers Against Violence and the raft of other citizen initiatives that share similar goals. These groups would assume the lead role in educating Jamaican citizens and training the young about peace and non-violence. Such groups would go into primary and high schools, community groups, and like LIBERA, involve the children of dons and gangsters or families living in a Mafia-don environment. And like the objectives of the Italian LIBERA, where mothers and fathers are guardians of garrison misvalues, the children can become messengers of positive inputs inside their own family and community.

This paper talked in volumes about the power of civic intervention. Social intervention by the state is also mandatory. The opening up of the Mathew’s Lane community in Kingston, for example, after the arrest and imprisonment of its longstanding don, Mathew ‘Zekes’ Phipps’, and the fact that no successor don has emerged to take his place has been the result of immediate and rapid social intervention by the Jamaican state to fill the space left vacant by rogues. It must be borne in mind that there is genuine affinity for dons amongst the garrison population. Part of this affinity stems from the don’s affluence and his capacity to extend welfare to members of his community. The Jamaican state is obliged to see the urgency of its role in dismantling garrison culture. If it fails to aggressively enforce its laws and to create new ones to confront an ever changing and dynamic criminal environment, outlaw authorities will always emerge and find a ready context for their extra-legal practices and even stronger support in the civil community.

Entertainer Mavado whose lyrics often celebrate dons and glorify killing

In this breath, an initiative such as the state- sponsored Peace Management Initiative is community based, and relies for its success on the drive from below.  It therefore must also be tied to other social goals and state intervention programmes. This is because programmes such as the PMI can only offer real hope if and when it becomes part of a wider process of teaching the disenfranchised to become mobilised on a collective basis, and that their struggles are linked to broader social movements and civil society organisations.

It took a civic revolution led by civil society, particularly in Palermo and Sicily, to undo the power wielded by the Mafia in Italian society for over a century. A cultural revolt arising from the belly of civil society is required in Jamaica. A cultural revolt demands collaboration and consensus – the very hall marks of a powerful civil society. Jamaican women can, as the women in Sicily did – scrawl anti-don slogans on bed spreads and hung it from their windows; they can go on hunger strikes, they can demonstrate; they can call talk shows – they can shame the government into action, shame themselves into action. But citizens are obliged to act, and act together. After all, as noted civil society theorist Benjamin Barber (1984) proclaims ‘where citizens will not act, savants and finally thugs will rush in; where citizens are dispossessed of their power or offer it up willingly, who will be left to rule but savants or thugs; And who can be surprised when the savants come quickly to act like thugs and the thugs claim they are wise men’
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My extended discussion on De-Garrisonisation and Civil Society is forthcoming in Crime and Community Safety, An International Journal

Lymie Murray Rocks Sonoma County; Celebrates release of album, ‘Deeper Roots’

A rapt audience of dancing and screaming young fans packed the Sebastiani Theatre in California’s wine country of Sonoma  on Monday July 6 for a concert to celebrate the upcoming release of Lymie Murray’s fourth album, Deeper Roots.

The inspired Jamaican reggae crooner did not disappoint.  With a scintillating two- hour performance, Lymie Murray stamped his class on Sonoma. 

Dressed in full white regalia and sporting a blood red turban over his long dreadlocks, and a Rastafarian coloured scarf, Lymie sang tunes from his Deeper Roots album – “Rooster”, “Bad Mind People”, “Marcus”, “Captive”, “Troubles I See”  and “Earth Cry” as well as other familiar singles “Break Free” and ‘Love for the People”.

Known for classical lover’s rock ballads, Lymie seduced the majority female crowd with soul-stirring love songs  from the Deeper Roots album – “Love to Love You” and “Suzie’s Birthday Party” as well as bonus singles such as the catchy “ABC” and ‘This Love”.

 When it comes to singing and inspired artistry, Lymie Murray has raised the bar.  Inviting patrons to dance with him, and delighting with a record time wardrobe change, this superb Jamaican singer caressed the crowd with his warm vocals, personal allure and inviting stage presence.

http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/1629026

The melodies Lymie Murray pursues in this album largely depart from the signature lover’s rock genre for which the reggae singer had become known.

Asked whether Deeper Roots was a change of musical direction, Lymie Murray said:  “An artiste work is a manifestation of who he is. Deeper Roots reflects my evolution as an artiste and my own convictions about people, the issues they confront, the challenges and triumphs, the disappointments but also the gift of hope .These melodies were always within me. I didn’t premeditate this album. It came spilling from my soul”.

Produced by the California-based I-Dwell Records, led by brothers Jack and Hap Mapel, Deeper Roots is the first major project with Lymie Murray. “No one does lover’s rock like Lymie Murray and he appeals to people who love music period”, says co-producer, Jack Mapel.

“Mainstream America is afraid of reggae’s revolutionary message. It is the youth who are drawn to reggae; they are not offended by the fire burning. They respect the meditation. With Lymie Murray, they get both classical lover’s rock and reggae righteousness and they love him”.

The concert featured a stellar California-based band – Herb Daley on bass; Johnny ‘Dread’ Nevin on keyboards; Rusty Zinn on guitars; and Bruce Benjamin on drums – themselves no stranger to reggae.

The concert dubbed “An Evening with Lymie Murray” was captured by a five-camera shoot for a live music DVD. The concert also featured live painting on canvass by Sonoma artist, Nathan Valensky.

Deeper Roots is Lymie Murray’s fourth album, following Conversation, Start All Over and Happy Days.

Contact: Hume Johnson, PhD –  humepela@gmail.com

                Jack Mapel, I-Dwell Records,

Ode to “Quasheba”: Resistance Rituals Among Higgler Women in Jamaica

This is an excerpt from my chapter in the book: On the Edges of Development: Cultural Interventions, New York: Routledge, 2009. (eds. John Foran, Priya Kurian, Debashish Munshi, & Kum Kum Bhavnani). The volume examines the struggles undertaken by the subaltern class across the Third World (Thailand, Jamaica, India etc) to challenge the deficits of globalisation and to improve their economic and socio-political status.

My chapter entitled  – ” Ode to “Quasheba”: Resistance Rituals Among Higgler Women in Jamaica” – talks about the modes of struggle and expression undertaken by higglers in the Jamaican informal economy. On the Edges of Development is a must read for those interested in development studies, history, participatory politics, globalisation & civil society from a Third World perspective.

 Get your copy at Amazon.com! You will be able to see inside at other chapters!
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Excerpts from Chapter 2, – by Hume Johnson

The name “Quasheba” recalls the popular nineteenth century colonial stereotype and caricature of the Afro-Jamaican slave woman. Quasheba was synonymous with “warrior woman” or “queen of the rebels,” and was used to describe an independent, outspoken, feisty female slave; a noisy and aggressive troublemaker. But beyond literary satire, Quasheba was the public voice of female leadership and a pillar of active resistance in the Jamaican slave community. It is therefore through a theoretical resurrection of the symbolism of Quasheba during the slavery and post-emancipation periods that we may be able to gain a better understanding of the political economy, continuities, manifestations and symbolic meaning of contemporary women’s activism in Jamaica, particularly, the disguised and overt forms of popular protest carried out by higgler women in the informal economy.
Significantly, it was street/market context which facilitated the materialization of “Quasheba” and her transformation as a central actor in both historical and contemporary cultures of peasant resistance. This is because the street in the contemporary period is home to an expanding informal (or “hustle”) economy which has emerged in peripheral countries such as Jamaica. This economy finds its bases and is contextualised by modern capitalism, globalization and transnational trade as well as the failed development experiments of Structural Adjustment  and economic liberalization.

The poor, including vast networks of women became the major casualties of global recession and austerity policies. Informalization has been an almost organic response to chronic joblessness, growing destitution and a way out of misery for massive numbers of poor in the urban slums who were driven to rely on their own devices and to seek imaginative ways to eke out an existence . This street-turned-economic space became dominated by hordes of sidewalk vendors, higglers, mobile hawkers, peddlars and hustlers determined to stitch together a livelihood, and confront/resist their marginal status.

I illustrate the ways in which gender, social class and economic status intersect and collaborate to structure these women’s interest and participation in popular political action and establish/project their identity as feminized power-holders in this economic public sphere. Without romanticizing these struggles (or abstracting them from their counterpoint to the quest for “law and order” by the Jamaican State), I examine the combination of circumstances which drive inner-city women from a focus on their routinized economic activities to become “disorderly” figures at the forefront of spontaneous and episodic protestations and collective action.

For these poor women, resistance is a must against what they see as the encroachment of the modern capitalist state, big business and other super-ordinate groups on their livelihood. The development orchestrated by the state has failed them, by not serving their interests and taking account off their struggles. But rather than succumbing as victims of inequity and marginalization, these subaltern women have “refused” development. In so doing, they expose its flaws and calamitous effects on the poor, revise the terms dictated by globalization and effect development on their own terms and at their own convenience. Indeed, rather than necessarily “buying into” the trappings of modern capitalism by merely selling consumer goods, they see it as an inescapable, requisite aspect of the struggle to survive poverty and improve their lives. By resisting efforts by the Jamaican state to streamline their operations and remove them from the street, these women unconsciously re-imagine development. They demand that it become more equitable and livable.
THE STREET AS ECONOMIC SPACE: HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS OF QUASHEBA

The antecedent to the modern informal economy in Jamaica was the plantation market culture which emerged during slavery. The market and the street, for example, acquired prominence during the transitional apprenticeship (period of “half-freedom” between 1834-1838 aimed at preparing slaves for “full freedom”) and post-emancipation phases. British planters and estate owners, aiming to escape the enormous costs and burden to feed a massive slave population, allotted both male and female slaves plots of land (later called “provision grounds”) on which to cultivate their own crops, on their own time, for their own consumption.

Both male and female slaves sold the surplus from their provision grounds at weekend markets (Sherlock and Bennett 1998; Momsen 1996; French 1995) . It was, however, women who dominated marketing and effectively claimed ownership of this economic domain. Although many worked in the urban domestic services as nannies, cooks and washerwomen, a large majority became involved in higglering and hawking goods about the streets almost exclusively for profit. Indeed, as early as 1672 in Jamaica, slave women were involved in buying and selling the surplus production from their provision grounds on Sunday mornings in public markets.

The very exercise of planting, harvesting and selling their own crops transformed the (still estate-owned and controlled) provision grounds into an arena of independence and material betterment as well as a source of personhood. In other words, the mostly illiterate slave women had officially entered the money economy as skilled entrepreneurs and autonomous financial brokers (SEE Sherlock and Bennett 1998; French 1995) . So important had the Sunday market become that the otherwise stringent laws restricting the mobility of the slaves were relaxed during the apprenticeship years (1834-1838), at least where marketing activities were concerned.

According to Sheller (1997), the presence of the vast and highly visible networks of women facilitated crucial flows of information between town centres and the countryside and between markets and fields which enabled the slaves to orchestrate and execute collection action. Indeed, given their numerical dominance in urban public spaces, it was also women who filled the streets and squares during popular mobilizations or demonstrations and played impressive roles in some of the most violent public disturbances and riots.

The historical record reveals the heavy involvement of women in popular petitioning, court-based contestations as well as open and violent rebellions and demand-making urban riots over social, economic and political rights. A bulk of the popular protestations and collective struggles focused on the rights of the free peoples to practice their indigenous religions. However, in the main, the issues over which women protested include low wages, unfair terms of unemployment, growing destitution and a deep sense that justice was unavailable through the courts (see Wilmot 1995, 284-287; Reddock 1995; Mintz 1996; Momsen 1996; Sheller 1997).

Significantly, however, it was this arena of small-scale entrepreneurship, marketization and informalism, dominated by a ready and active network of women exhibiting elements of civic engagement and social capital which ultimately created an enabling environment for organized slave resistance in Jamaica. Recent historical scholarship on slave resistance is awash with evidentiary transcripts of the impact of Quasheba in this domain during and after slavery. Together, these analyses confirm that it was the near permanent presence of black women in the public spaces of towns, and notably, their monopolization of the public spaces of the markets which played an important role in the ultimate development of a politically active Afro-Jamaican public.

PROTEST PARTICIPATION BY WOMEN HIGGLERS- MEANINGS AND LESSONS

There is widespread agreement that “participation in social protests raises the political consciousness of women, sometimes, but not always contributing to a revised view of their subordinate status in society” (West and Blumberg 1990, 31). It is unquestionable that the cultural and political dimensions of the informal processes described in this essay hold potentially transformative effects for those engaged in them. In the first place, it is important to acknowledge that the informal economy, as an economic site, in a context of capitalism and the free-market, facilitates small-scale entrepreneurship and thus provides a thriving source of income and a better way of life for a vast number of women, many of whom, based on their social identities as members of Jamaica’s disadvantaged and marginalized underclass, are unable to claim real access to resources through the formalized, recognized channels of the society.  Through free enterprise, higgler women 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. 

But beyond street entrepreneurship, the informal economy is also a space of political negotiation and resistance as well as social and cultural engagement, and thus provides the enabling environment for protest participation and performance. Here, the power of the street demonstration offers higglers real weapons by which to “refuse development,” as defined by their counterparts in the formal economy as well as launch a counter-war against the encroachments of the Jamaican State and other super-ordinate groups and structures. Therefore, while higgler women retain an interdependency with global capitalism in their quest to survive poverty and improve their social standing, they simultaneously utilize the political/cultural arena of the street to physically, materially, symbolically struggle against the efforts to deny them this way of life.
 
At the same time, the higglering and vending class are left with limited options. For example, they can continue to resist the moves of the state to remove them from the streets and invite the seizure of their goods and hefty fines. They can relocate to the allotted vending areas and face a loss in profit or, although unlikely, they can seize operating informal trading altogether. Clearly, imitating large-scale merchants/store owners whose businesses are defined by statis is not an option for masses of higglers who operate more roaming enterprises. It also goes against the interests of these informal folks whose lives often demand flexibility, innovativeness and constant change (of places and priorities). Interminable mobilization may seem unrealistic but based on the empirical evidence, there seems to be general agreement among the higglering sector that disruptive, confrontational tactics cannot be abandoned.

These deliberately offensive challenges illustrate the higglers’ physical and moral dominance over the street as public sphere and assert/consolidate their right to inclusion and voice participation here. At the very least, it forces the state to rethink its position, change its objectives and consider alternate/subordinate voices in decision-making. Within this process of struggle, Afro-Jamaican higglers, like their traditional Quasheba counterparts, are learning the importance and potency of unity. This means networking, supporting each other and acting together in opposition to a common enemy – the Jamaican State as embodied in the police and removal officers of Metropolitan Parks and Markets. Rather than passive victims, they are increasingly recognized as empowered actors. Their confidence and esteem has also increased enormously as they realize the power of (violent) protest. Many are increasingly unafraid to defy the law, challenge the police and, in instances, accept the assistance and commanding influence of extra-legal actors – criminal gangs and dons (see Johnson 2005). Based on the argument presented in this essay, it is clear that Jamaican women have always challenged traditional views of poverty.

For centuries, higglers and street vendors have been mobilizing hundreds of their colleagues in the streets in popular collective struggles aimed at resisting encroachments on their livelihood by super-ordinate groups led by the Jamaican state. The reasons for their persistence and contemporary success are manifold. Perhaps most fundamental is that the vendor protests of the last decade were operative at a time when the Jamaican political climate has been overwhelmingly tolerant of protests. For the massive numbers of higglers and vendors, this means that the momentum of resistance can be maintained even in the face of sporadic state clampdown. Secondly, there is no disillusionment among higglers regarding their ability to maintain long term invisibility on the streets and guarantee the continued existence of this way of life. 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. The attempt by the Jamaican state to introduce renovated market areas does not therefore reduce the incentives for protest and the vendors’ commitment to defend their means of livelihood. Thirdly, public opinion, while at times highly critical (of their sometimes uncivil/illegal) behaviours, has largely been in the favour of the need of disadvantaged classes to survive poverty and better their lives.

‘We Jammin’ – A Note to IOC Chairman Jacque Rogge

 You may have to check out this link first in order to fully appreciate the interventions I make here:

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/track_field/news?slug=dw-rogge082108&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

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!

Lest we forget ASAFA POWELL !

Congratulations to Usain Bolt! He has renewed our nation’s confidence, and reclaimed respect for Jamaica’s long and proud history of achievement in World Athletics, and our historical place and presence among the global community.

But lest we collectively forget, in our (justified) stampede to crown Usain Bolt our new black King of the track, it was Asafa Powell’s extraordinary talent that first returned glory and pride to Jamaica, after decades of American dominance in track and field, particularly the 100m. While we heap praises on Usain Bolt, let us acknowledge the ambivalent position in which this 100m final placed the country – to support one or the other of our country men while hoping that they both medal.

I, personally, supported Asafa, and naturally felt an enormous surge of sadness when he failed to place. Many Jamaicans, as I did, would have been delayed in their own own joy for Jamaica and for Bolt as a result.

Asafa Powell is to be praised for making the finals, in a race with superlatively strong competitors, and where the World Record holder, the celebrated Tyson Gay, failed to make. The 100m is a high pressure race, more so because of the attention and promotion given to it as the stellar race of the Olympics.

To have had three Jamaicans in the final is a mark of Jamaica’s greatness in athletics, and a mark of the composure and innate mental strength of our athletes. Asafa Powell, plagued over the last few years by injury, loss of form, nerves and anxiety as well as his own self-doubt, managed to retain his composure to the end. That his legs/mind failed to offer him that final push does NOT take away from his prowess as an athlete. When the history of World Sport is written, he shall go down as one of the greatest athletes of his generation.

Records were made to be broken. He broke records, and then broke them again,and finaly had it taken off him. The burden upon him has finally been lifted. Now he can run his true race. God bless Asafa Powell. May God bless his parents, the Reverend and Mrs Powell for giving our nation this gift. Asafa Powell remains MY champion, and ought to remain Jamaica’s other King of the Track.

To my respected friend and colleague journalist, Tony Morrison  who refers to Asafa Powell a “wus”, I say this:

To call Asafa a ‘wuss’ is just DISRESPECTFUL and irrelevant to this discourse.

A ‘wuss’ cannot ‘redefine 100m sprint” as you so articulately put it.

A ‘wuss’ cannot break a world record – albeit his own – 9 times in one season (prior to Athens 2004).

A ‘wuss’ cannot/WILL NEVER make an Olympic final in the 100m consecutively.

Asafa is a wold class athlete! He was and IS a champion. History will more than recall him! It has recalled lessor champions ( Donnovon Bailey, Linford Christie) over the 100m.

Celebrate Usain, but do not undermine the value of  Asafa- the athlete who gave us much to celebrate over the last four years.

Lest we forget, it was Asafa Powell who resusitated Jamaica’s Olympic hopes during the 2004 Athens games when the runner on the third leg of the 4X4 relay stumbled and fell. It was Asafa Powell who met him on the ground, retrieved the baton from his sweaty palms – and just when – we thought our chances of medalling had been lost – sprinted with all his might to catch and surpass some five athletes to secure for Jamaica a medal. It was blessed day in Athens and it was Asafa who gave Jamaica that moment to celebrate.

Maybe Asafa is the sacrficial lamb who was meant to cosmically surrender the 100m in Beijing 08 to pave the way for history to be recorded by Usain Bolt and for Jamaica land we love. 60 years we had waited for this moment. A nation never achieve this kind of glory without giving up something significant. As an early Quaker missionary to Jamaica had declared “Jamaica is destined to exert an influence upon humanity, disporportionate to its territorial extent”.

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.

Jamaican Dons, Italian Mafias and the Chances of a ‘Reversible Destiny’.

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