Taking sides against logic

One of the biggest problems affecting Jamaica is our inability to think and act rationally and objectively once we are emotionally connected to a subject matter. I don't know to what extent this is a worldwide phenomenon, but I struggle to believe that anywhere else on earth, people can be so blindly loyal.

Our politics is probably the most graphic demonstration of this. Once you switch political allegiance in Jamaica, you are deemed a flip-flop. You are supposed to be loyal to a party for life and, once you support that party, you are expected to defend them come what may.

How often do you hear of a high-profile politician publicly endorsing ANYTHING done by the other side? The unspoken tenet is that one has to support one's chosen cause to the hilt, no matter how illogical, while bashing one's rivals is supposed to be fair game.

This tendency by Jamaicans to be myopic is also graphically demonstrated in our music, especially in dancehall. When Beenie Man and Bounty Killer were in the early stages of their never-ending feud, as youth we had to 'choose a side'. The youth who tried to be rational, and weighed the merits of each artiste equally, and didn't take a partisan stance, was never the most popular in the group.

When Mavado and Vybz Kartel were going at it, you had to be Gully or Gaza, and you had to remain on the side you started with. To suddenly voice support for the other side puts you at risk of being called a traitor, or a sell-out.

CHURCHES CAUGHT UP

Even our churches aren't blameless from this tunnel-visioned approach to logic. The 'my side is always right, and your side always wrong' principle doesn't escape the hallowed halls of religion. How often do you hear a pastor or devout Christian speaking glowingly, in public, about the merits of another denomination? Sometimes I wonder if they praise the same God.

Sports, which is supposed to be the purest form of human expression, doesn't escape this silly and even dangerous tendency that ails us. We have to support the same team forever and ever, amen. If 'your' team isn't doing all that well and you decide to throw your support behind another team, you are branded as a 'wagonist'.

That is bad enough, but once you support one team, then bad-mouth their chief rival. That's not only accepted, but genuinely encouraged. So as an Arsenal supporter, you could NEVER become a Manchester United supporter without being openly ridiculed. And, of course, if you support Arsenal, you have to cuss out Sir Alex Ferguson every chance you get. It's simply the thing to do.

STICKING TO MY SIDE

In basketball, if you are a Kobe Bryant supporter, then LeBron James' merit will never be properly and fairly analysed. No matter what his accomplishments and skills are, no self-respecting Kobe supporter in Jamaica will EVER agree that, perhaps, LeBron has stepped up and is now a better player.

As for the stalwarts of sports, like the Muhammad Alis, Michael Jordans and Peles, you argue that someone is better than them at your own risk, because, as Jamaicans, once we hold on to a hero or a cause, logic and reason go through the window.

In track and field, many of us write off the Americans as nothing but systematic dopers. Flo-Jo, and others from the United States, will never get due respect from Jamaicans because we 'know dem nuh clean'. We don't want to know what their reasons were for taking banned substances. Drugs are drugs!

When our big athletes are found with prohibited substances in their system, as is the case right now with Veronica Campbell-Brown, we take a diametrically opposite view. Either it's 'because dem train over America' or 'why dem a pressure the people dem so? afta the little things dem a take nah make dem run faster'.

Reason and logic and objectivity go through the window once a Jamaican believes in a cause. I used to find it frustrating when otherwise perfectly rational beings got all bent out of shape intellectually when reasoning about things close to the heart. I have now come to accept that 'a jus so we stay'.

Orville Higgins is a sportscaster and talk-show host on KLAS FM. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.