Babylon release de chains, but ...

by Daniel Thwaites

When a judge leans over his gavel in a New York courtroom and asks me if it's true that the Jamaican Government is overrun by a drug lord, I feel acute embarrassment. When my Yankee friend asks me if it's true that "Doo-doos was the 'President' of Jamaica", mi shame and seh, "Yes."

What is this nonsense about whether Portia can represent the people of Jamaica on the international stage? I feel no shame whatsoever when a woman who speaks perfectly fine Jamaican and English represents me in any international forum.

But it's all upside down and through the looking glass when you listen to the gripers. The only real question for me is why there is this mental apartheid in 21st-century Jamaica? The answer: our class system.

The newspapers, airwaves and thousands of veranda prophets are busily explaining away their enormous miscalculations regarding the last election. A simple apology to the reading and listening public would probably be the most appropriate gesture.

What interests me more is that, instead of simply apologising, the commentariat is finding ever more exotic ways of saying that the electorate is either: a) stupid, b) uneducated, c) gullible, d) ungrateful, e) all of the above.

Song over substance

The JLP exercised remarkable discipline and focus. It began with the incredibly smooth transition from Golding to Holness, and continued through to the removal of any candidate that was an obvious loser in a possibly competitive seat. E St Andrew, C Manchester, SE St Mary, E Hanover, ER St Andrew, and E St Thomas all benefited from strong candidates parachuted in to beat the PNP.

The JLP had unparalleled media resources rooting for it. The Observer threw caution to the wind. Clovis was sometimes hilarious, but always relentless. Nationwide sometimes swung us wide.

The JLP had more money - a lot more. Their ads were drilled into my own very hard head. I was walking around humming "vote fah Laayba", and that's a marketing achievement of some note. In fact, I walked right into the polling booth singing it.

The problem wasn't just the marketing. It was the product on sale.

Anyway, Jamaica just hit a democratic sweet spot. I interview the angry whenever possible, and the curious thing is that they seem to be especially incensed at the outcome because they believe that Portia is somehow not entitled to lead Jamaica. I'm waiting for someone to just put it plainly: "How dare the electorate take our election victory away from us?"

The obvious parallel is how the ascension of Barack Obama was greeted with incomprehension by the Tea Party in the United States. How could this man get in?

Reactions to JEEP

Consider the reactions to the proposed JEEP initiative. I was mindful of Ian Boyne's efforts to put the issue of state interventionism on the national agenda as I pored over polling in city Kingston showing that a vast majority of people identify 'jobs' and 'work' as the thing they want most. Furthermore, when asked who is responsible for providing them with a job, the vast majority responds "the Government".

Jamaicans remain stubbornly communitarian, egalitarian, and desirous of an interventionist and activist government. This is despite decades of what used to be called "agitation and propaganda" encouraging them to think otherwise.

These majority views run directly counter to the sentiments of Jamaica's intellectual and social elites who mostly believe that any such proactive government involvement is doomed. Insofar as these elites dominate and control the political parties, the parties act to retard the delivery of what the majority wants.

You see, it's not 'bullo wuk' if it is given to a big contractor, however useless or senseless the project. Nor are industry titans who live off tax concessions 'crash-programme' freeloaders.

Ancient Grecian democracy existed in tension with a slave system. Nowadays the chains of physical bondage have been released, but our democracy still lives in tension with our economic system. In our democratic political system, everybody has a talk, but in our capitalist economic system, "dollars talk and bollocks walk". Not incidentally, it is those same dollars talking when it comes to setting the agenda in media.

Why not adjust the economic system to reflect the political desires of the majority of Jamaicans? To my mind, that is the question and challenge of post-Jubilee Jamaica, but it will be difficult. Because Babylon release de chains, but dem a use dem brains!

Daniel Thwaites is a partner of Thwaites, Lundgren & D'Arcy in New York, and currently qualifying for the Jamaican Bar. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.