The '60s: A missed opportunity?

Keith Noel, Contributor

The late 1960s marked a pivotal moment in Jamaica's history. The philosophy of Marcus Garvey had begun to influence more black thinkers throughout the world and was returning home in the words of the American Black Power movement. But the revolutionary thinking had already found another root in the budding Rastafari movement.

So the burgeoning international protest against the exploitation and brutalisation of the poor black masses of the world found fertile soil in Jamaica. Much of this protest was expressed purely as a rebelliousness against an authority that was stifling the black Jamaican's selfhood that denied dignity to all that was black.

The protest had two types of voices. There were those who wailed: "We a sufferer, a sufferer ... We nobody, nobody ..." Then there were those like the young Bob Marley and Peter Tosh who praised the 'rude boy' as a hero, an inspiration to those who rejected the status quo. Of course, there were those who feared the rebelliousness and the seething violence that lurked below the surface. This, in fact, marked the animosity between Marley and Alton Ellis.

It was truly a class struggle. I remember the sneering dismissal of ska and the music of groups like the Skatellites as 'boring and nauseatingly repetitious', by those who enjoyed the 'better' American rock and roll.

Extremism

I also remember the furore at leading girls' schools at the 'unkempt' look of the 'afro', the incredulity when educators started to speak about teaching English as a foreign language followed by the shrieks of horror when some went on to say that Jamaican patois was a language in its own right and should be treated with respect.

The Rastafari movement became the clearest voice of protest. Its very extremism was the reason for its attraction and at the same time why some rejected it. Its call for a new look at religion, at God himself, caused many to baulk. But at the same time the movement's continuous calls for people to recognise the beauty of blackness, to reject what centuries of colonialism and slavery had drilled into us, to celebrate our colour and our ancestral culture, had a serious effect on how we have viewed ourselves ever since.

A more clearly revolutionary aspect of this protest was developing at the University of the West Indies (UWI) among its intellectuals when the New World Movement came into being. Individual lecturers like Edward Brathwaite began to disturb with the ideas expressed in his poetry. Then at the student level, a number of youth began to articulate a new vision, a new attitude to self, to race, to culture.

But the next move was problematic. Internationally, the protest against oppression of the poor had found its voice in the communist movement. It was a ready-made vehicle through which the young intellectuals could forge a genuine revolution out of the widespread need to rebel against the status quo. But hindsight has shown us that the communist 'solution' could not be ours. Our socialism had more to do with attitudes brought with us from Africa, which did not always mesh with European socialism.

Natural discomfort

We do not know where this movement may have led. When the communists among us took leadership, the old 'divide and rule' kicked in and our natural discomfort with communism was wed to the ignorance of many of our people, and the People's National Party (PNP), which had been swept into power on a tide of racial and national consciousness, was voted out of office, and slowly much of the edge of the revolutionary movement was worn away.

So, now, Marley, the anti-establishment, rastaman, has become an icon accepted by the very establishment he railed against; the erstwhile communist leaders have become among our most respected political commentators; the revolutionary youth of the late '60s who were at the vanguard during the Walter Rodney 'crisis' have become prominent politicians, respected musicologists and school principals. But that might be a sign of the society's political maturation, except that young women are once again straightening their hair and bleaching their skin, the sneering is now aimed at dancehall music, the debate about our nation language still rages and Bounty Killa can say "break down the barriers and pull all de door, for nobody out deh nah defend de poor ... Many decades de yout a suffer."

Keith Noel is an educator. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com

noel