Declare war on T&T, Barbados

Daniel Thwaites, Contributor

Having read Ronald Mason's blast against CARICOM, and the insipid reply by Hilbourne Watson, I must intervene. The whole thinking about CARICOM has gone off track. This business of whether Jamaica should be in or out is beside the point. Who told Trinidad and Barbados to set up shop in our backyard? After all! I say we declare war on them and colonise them well and proper.

Never forget Morris Cargill's wonderful suggestion that the answer to Jamaica's economic ills is to declare war on the United States. The US might punish us a little, but afterwards would come in and spend lots of money and develop great infrastructure. The hawks fly in first, but the doves follow with liberal outpourings of coin, marvellous social programmes, and the Army Corps of Engineers.

I think Mr Cargill's strategic vision was too short-term, though. Long-term, it's real estate that matters, and we can use the additional territory.

A few years ago, I stepped off a sailboat and on to a pier at Marina Cay in the British Virgin Islands. Within moments I heard an unmistakably Jamaican voice shout what, in retrospect, I recognise as an unmistakably Jamaican saying: "Aye, bwoy! Yuh waan mi stab yuh inna yuh eye wid a ice pick?" Of course, I felt right at home, but the object of my fellow countryman's intentions wasn't happy to be threatened like that. Cowering in fear, he emerged on to the pier using Kingston mayoral utterances: "These effing Jamaicans so damn aggressive, man."

The earth-shattering dispute that almost caused ice pick to reach eye stemmed from the epic question of which of these men, both employees of the pier, was to carry a particular bag of ice to the boat.

Prone to savagery

That was when it began to dawn on me that, perhaps, the small islanders aren't congenitally opposed to Jamaicans as a class of human beings, so much as that they think of us as prone to savagery because of our collective behaviour. Now obviously that is a stereotype, and very many Jamaicans are peaceful and peace-loving. So please introduce me to one such Jamaican if you know of one.

Anyway, I figure it's too late to turn back now. Since we're so "damn aggressive", it's time to double down and open up the Southern Front in the Great War of Caribbean Liberation.

I'm fingering the Bajans as the ones who broke the camel's back. But once we've determined "we vex", no need to draw long bench at CARICOM. Go straight for the thing! If we don't like the Trinis, and the Bajans gettin' on bad too much and fingerin' off de woman dem, why not just take them over?

The JDF has to be for something other than the periodic storming of Tivoli Gardens. Additionally, we have hordes of youth that require direction, discipline, and a sense of purpose in life. Check that up with the ample boats on the ready to transport our liberation fighters. It would be good for us. They even like flying fish down in that part of the world, and remember we have parliamentary fish to take care of.

The JDF battalions might be limited to conventional warfare and tactics, but properly supplemented by JLP and PNP militias with expertise in urban guerrilla warfare, I don't see them standing a chance. There may even be the 'what-lef' of a WPJ force that can assist. Cho, let's say we have a Hart and keep it simple stupid and have Denham Town vs Bridgetown and Spanish Town vs Port-of-Spain. Better than that: St George's College vs St George's, Grenada. Wi cyaan lose!

I know that for Jamaicans as a people to undertake this great work of Empire building, we have to get over an instinctive revulsion to imperialism. Unfortunately, too many of us have been brainwashed into a reflexive hatred of Empire because of Britain. It's part of the ground-floor training in nationalism given to all Jamaican students nowadays. But I think we've grown up and can peek over that self-limiting border now.

Taking Trinidad & Tobago would be no great task. Ask yourself the following question: what are they doing down there, making children with our Trini-women, drinkin' our Trini-rum, and sitting atop our Trini-oil? And then they have the nerve to sell our Trini-oil back to us. Ponder that for a moment!

Immediate benefit

It will become readily apparent that it's past time to assert authority and take our property back. First immediate benefit: we would thereby liberate C.L.R. James into Jamaicanhood. And who's that lady again ... the one who seh Jamaica lookin' ATM? ... Kamla Malahoo-Forte? We gwine give she a wuk as a teller in a country bank branch.

Of course, we should capture Barbados along the way. There are some splendid beaches, and it's a decent spot to stop and rest. Plus, we can use their educated workforce for clerical and administrative matters.

I see Dominica as a tourist hub, but also a place where Jamaican students can get exposure to an unspoiled environment. There's no point in pretending that we haven't already degraded ours beyond recovery, so let's liberate an island where there are still some trees and clean rivers, and where the surrounding oceans haven't been completely depleted.

St Lucia is in need of immediate attention. Apart from anything else, they have captured OUR poet, and hold him hostage. Liberate Derek Walcott! What is a great people and new Empire without spiritual sustenance?

Naturally, Antigua, St. Kitts, St. Vincent, and Grenada will be part of the deal also. We need sailing grounds and resort areas. Viv Richards is a Jamaican, after all. And regarding Grenada, will we ever have an honest account of what happened there in 1983 and the Jamaican Left's involvement? Who cares? If we own them, we can let bygones be bygones.

We Jamaicans can channel our inner Genghis Khan, which (as the man who ended up carrying the ice knew) is never too far below the surface. It was he who said:

"The greatest joy for a man is to defeat his enemies, to drive them before him, to take from them all they possess, to see those they love in tears, to ride their horses, and to hold their wives and daughters in his arms."

Either that, or we can wait till next carnival, behave like Genghis in a costume, fog up di place, come home safe and sound, and get back to our real work (which involves blaming the other islanders for our inability to put our affairs in order).

Daniel Thwaites is a partner of the Thwaites Law Firm in Jamaica, and Thwaites, Lundgren & D'Arcy in New York. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.