jamaica calling
by graham brown-martin on jun 2, 2004, 01:29
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the initial suggestion that i may live and work in jamaica received mixed comments from friends and acquaintances. some responded with keen encouragement while others genuine concern. for it appears that jamaica is an island full of contradictions.
less than 3 million people live there yet it exerts tremendous creative and cultural influence on the rest of us. the flipside is that it also has the worlds 3rd highest murder rate with 2004 registering an average of 6 a day.
by the time you read this i'll be there. having lived and worked in the u.k. all of my life, i felt i needed a different view.
the opportunity to experience a new country has made me think about the many different ways that jamaica and jamaicans are perceived by my fellow brits. there's nothing middle of the road here as views are polarised between the extremes of paradise and hell with very little in between.
the mainstream media also seems unable to pin jamaica down.
every so often british media will run a yardie special, a "yardie" in media speak being anybody who is black with dreads and therefore a jamaican gangster. they drive flashy cars, smoke ganja, carry guns and deal crack. apparently.
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| pic: air jamaica |
turn on the television for a continuous feed of dancehall video's with obligatory bikini clad dancing girls demonstrating their spectacular bum gymnastics. change station and we have jamaica the tourist resort full of happy smiley people to look after you in a gated community. another shows the island as a hotbed of recreational sex and high octane clubbing.
despite being part of the british commonwealth replete with the queen as the head of state and vague promises of "we'll see you alright, jack", jamaicans now entering the u.k. must have entry visas. this legislation was brought in during 2003 as part of a british government crack down on u.k. street crime.
even in the advertising world, a sports shoe manufacturer uses jamaican imagery, themes and sponsorship to promote their products and position their brand at the leading edge of cool - by association only, of course. imported puma's are more expensive in jamaica.
and so it goes on as society and it's media is unable to agree on the dionysian vs apollonian nature of the jamaican experience. it's difficult not to be curious about how this culturally diverse society arrived here but few trouble to find out.
the u.k. has had a special relationship with jamaica ever since henry morgan, buccaneer, pitched up in 1655 and started running things in what would today be described as a globalisation strategy on behalf of king charles ii. african slaves were introduced to the island originally by it's previous spanish landlords after the supply of native arawak indians were exhausted.
those were the plantation days when the island was an important agricultural exporter supported by the ultimate in cheap human labour. the trade continued until emancipation in 1834 but it wasn't until 30 years later that the british accepted the now less profitable island as a crown colony, i.e. provided proper support. nearly 100 years later in 1962 jamaica became independent and a member of the british commonwealth.
by the 1960's, of course, the british had given up on the notion of empire finding the maintenance payments somewhat daunting but there was a thrusting new pretender to the throne in the form of america. in those days the satanic foe of the west was communism and political uncertainty in the caribbean made the u.s. administration uneasy.
during the 70's michael manley served two terms as prime minister in jamaica. a left wing visionary, manley was a powerful advocate for democratic socialism, effectively a democracy with a social agenda. the pitch at the time was to provide an alternative to puerto rico's capitalist model and cuba's communist philosophy. but all this smelt a bit too much like commie talk to the nixon and ford administrations. manley's neighbourly friendship with cuba's fidel castro proved too much resulting in the cia being deployed to create economic instability and political unrest (as revealed by dissident cia agent philip agee). already suffering from a sudden increase in oil prices in the mid-70's jamaica was plunged into a financial crisis.
so now you should be getting a picture of a nation struggling for the door marked "entry" on the globalization board game where they start laps behind everyone else without sight of the rules. which eventually lands you to the imf square. the international monetary fund and the world bank provide the loans that bail out developing world countries or those that have got into financial problems. they are run by all the "big" wealthy countries i.e. the ones laps ahead, and are keen that it stay's that way.
we're talking big numbers and in jamaica's case it's $4.5 billion. like most loans there are terms and the more you need the cash the tougher they are. open markets that allow foreign imports, free trade zones that exploit labour and trade tariffs that obstruct exports are de rigueur. initially defiant, "the jamaican government will not accept anybody, anywhere in the world telling us what to do in our own country," manley declared. "above all, we are not for sale", the manley administration was forced to take the imf medicine.
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the medicine's side effects are only too obvious, high unemployment, lawlessness, social turmoil and poor investment in social services. farmers who can not compete with cheap imports of fruit, vegetables, milk and meat from the u.s. whilst interventionist politics ensure that tariff free trade agreements with europe are no longer valid thus devastating the banana trade, for example. in the land of jerk chicken, kfc sell 5 million chickens a year.
the external intervention in jamaica's domestic affairs and it's resultant slide into the financial abyss paved the way for a new pro u.s. administration in the form of edward seaga who with the support of reagan replaced manley in the 80's. the seaga-reagan pact ensured that jamaican troops were sent to support the u.s. invasion of grenada and jamaica got into line on the new vision for globalization. the reagan led "war on drugs" (being the interim war between communism and terrorism) meant that seaga was pressured to eradicate the ganja trade supposedly forcing the ganja dealers to look for more constructive sources of income (burger flipping, perhaps?). instead dealers took to selling more lucrative hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin.
which conveniently brings us back to the start and the international perception of jamaica, a country put in it's place by those that would like to keep it there, criticizing it's violence whilst doing little to alleviate the cause.
i'll let you know how i get on in jamaica but lets hope that its irie! (sic)
article originally published in trace magazine
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