Backra work never done?

Our annual celebration of first Emancipation and then Independence has come and gone. But the legacies of our tortured history remain. It's completely naive to expect that in 49 years of so-called 'independence' we could escape the enduring consequences of the fundamental inequity on which the colony of Jamaica was established by Spanish conquerors more than five centuries ago.

Many 'modern' Jamaicans passionately refuse to revisit the 'dark ages' of our colonial history. But as Marcus Garvey so famously said, "A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture are like a tree without roots." So what if 'past history' is a redundancy? Garvey's insight itself is not at all redundant.

What are the lessons that history can teach us? What are the roots of our current social and political institutions? At Emancipation, how was Jamaican society structured? Who were the people with economic power? Who received reparations and who did not? What opportunities did 'emancipated' people have to survive outside the plantation?

One of the facts of Caribbean history that is not well known is the extent to which enslaved Africans across the region worked for themselves on provision grounds and gained a measure of economic independence. They produced food for their own consumption, as well as a surplus that was sold to their supposed 'masters'.

Africans recreated ancestral markets in Jamaica and established networks of food distribution that can still be seen today. They even exported food to other islands. And it was the women who controlled the market trade. This is the noble pedigree of the modern Jamaican higgler.

Naturally, at Emancipation, the right to cultivate provision grounds was rescinded. In an attempt to force the ex-slaves to stay on the estates, the former slave masters, now 'employers', rented land only to those who were willing to continue in virtual slavery on the plantation.

Jamaican work ethic

There are several Jamaican proverbs that give clues to the origin of an entrenched, counterproductive work ethic that is the by-product of slavery and its aftermath. If workers feel that reward doesn't measure up to effort, very little energy will be expended.

Just look at these examples: 'Dog say before im plant yam fi look like mosquito foot, im satisfy fi turn beggar.' The identical sentiment is expressed in a related proverb: 'Dog say before im plant potato a pear tree bottom mek it bear like mosquito shank, im wi sidong look.' The most clearly evasive of the three: 'Dog say im won't work, im wi sidong an look, for im must get a livin.'

At the core of these proverbs is the underdog's perception that work does not always yield benefits for the labourer. Thus the cynical proverb, 'Backra work never done.' The Dictionary of Jamaican English notes that backra comes from the Ibo and Efik word 'mbakara', meaning 'white man, he who surrounds or governs'.

Since the white man's work is never done, there is no point in attempting to do it. The proverb also implies that work is seen as backra's business. Work is the act of working for somebody else. In a perverse way, wholehearted work becomes a betrayal of the worker's own interests. So it simply doesn't make sense to engage in futile activity.

Many government employees in Jamaica seem to have adopted this philosophy of non-work. The government as employer is somewhat like backra: an anonymous, faceless factor X to which one is not personally accountable. Government's work is never done, so why bother to even try. Pity the poor person valiantly struggling to do business with a government employee who knows that 'government work never done'!

Since honest labour is not fairly rewarded, trickery becomes a strategy for survival. The following pair of proverbs makes it clear that work will just never be done willingly by some 'ginnals' who always try to beat the system: 'Yu never see empty bag 'tan up'/'You never see full bag bend.' The hungry worker is too empty to stand; the well-fed worker is too full to bend. This proverb, which has German, Italian, Haitian and Martinican variants, suggests that avoidance of work is not peculiar to any one 'race'. It seems to be a universal response to perceived exploitation.

'One-one coco full basket'

But attitudes to work are obviously not static. People respond accordingly to dynamic changes in the labour market. The very same Jamaican worker who refuses to do 'slave' work at home will take on several back-breaking jobs in the US because he or she can see the benefits of this labour: saving money to build a house; finding the airfare to bring other members of the family to the US, and so on.

Though the proverbial dog may refuse to work for little or no reward, many poor people in Jamaica do engage in 'therapeutic labour'. Working to keep in practice. An excellent example is the self-employed sidewalk higgler with a small stand stocked with a dozen oranges, two dozen bananas, some cigarettes, 'Rizzla' paper and what else? The value of the stock is rather small, but the psychological benefits of engaging in the economy at however rudimentary a level are great.

The proverb 'every mickle mek a muckle' summarises the motivation for this kind of small-scale activity. Incidentally, this proverb is not Jamaican but Scottish. And, oddly enough, both 'mickle' and 'muckle' mean the same thing: a large amount. It all adds up.

Similarly, the Jamaican proverb 'one-one coco full basket' reminds us that the benefits of certain modest activities are long term; the immediate results may be negligible, but the cumulative gains can be substantial. 'Emancipation' and 'Indepen-dence' will only make sense when every Jamaican learns that the benefits of work don't belong only to backra. Work is everybody's business.

Carolyn Cooper is an ideator. Visit her bilingual blog at http://carolynjoycooper.wordpress.com/. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and karokupa@gmail.com.