PNP Upstart Senator Wants To Add To The Coarseness In Our Culture…

People’s National Party Senator,Andre Haughton a young and upcom­ing star of that polit­i­cal par­ty has decid­ed that his con­tri­bu­tion to nation-build­ing will be to fur­ther erode stan­dards of decen­cy and deco­rum.
Haughton believes that penal­iz­ing dance­hall artistes for curs­ing dur­ing their per­for­mances is out­dat­ed and in some way vil­li­fy­ing words which oth­er coun­tries find unique and enter­tain­ing about Jamaica’s cul­ture.
Speaking to local media enteties the up and com­ing nation­al leader who has a [Dr]. beside his name insists, “There are a lot of peo­ple who these words don’t affect in a neg­a­tive or pos­i­tive way. If a man seh ‘b****cl**t eedi­at’ is not the b****cl**t doing the harm is the eedi­at, if a man seh ‘f*****g fool’, is the fool that have the impact. It’s words like cor­rup­tion and eedi­at that are the bad words.”

In mak­ing his argu­ment for the nor­mal­iz­ing of more course­ness in the soci­ety, the sen­a­tor point­ed to the July, Reggae Sumfest’s Dancehall Night which was halt­ed by police due to pro­fan­i­ty dur­ing the per­for­mance of dee­jay Javillani. In the past, hip hop artiste Nicki Minaj was fined at that show for using b**c**t on stage dur­ing her per­for­mance.
The term bad-word has been affixed to cer­tain ter­mi­nolo­gies with­in the Jamaican col­lo­qui­al ver­nac­u­lar for as long as our coun­try has exist­ed as an inde­pen­dent nation or longer.
These words are not part of any dic­tio­nary, but are words put togeth­er to dri­ve home a point when we Jamaicans want to express a range of emo­tions.
Over the years they have been used when we are hap­py, sad, angry, fraus­trat­ed, excit­ed or expe­ri­enc­ing any oth­er feel­ing with­in the range of emo­tions we may be expe­ri­enc­ing at any par­tic­u­lar time.
For exam­ple, the word [blood], is a part of the eng­lish lan­guage. So too is [cloth], pieced togeth­er [blood-cloth], or rather the col­lo­qui­al­ized ver­sion [blood­claat], is a nov­el­ty to for­eign­ers who like every­thing about our cul­ture.
In the United States, there are terms which are deemed not to be prop­er lan­guage, so too is it in Canada, England ‚as well as oth­er nations.
Though these terms are used loose­ly in the streets, as the so-called bad words are uesd unspar­ing­ly in Jamaica, yet stand­ing before a American judge, or deal­ing with the police would not be a good time to be ref­fer­ing to them as a [moth­er­fuck­er].
There is a rea­son cer­tain guard-rails are in place, which this young sen­a­tor would be wise to first be edu­cat­ed on, before he goes charg­ing for­ward like a bull in a chi­na shop.

There are strong points of views on this sub­ject from both sides.
Do these words real­ly harm any­one, I guess there is a strong argu­ment to be made that at face val­ue they don’t?
Nevertheless, there is the ques­tion of whether they do any­thing to advance deco­rum, par­tic­u­lar­ly in pub­lic spaces, the very place this sen­a­tor wants them to be freed up?
What’s more, it seems that these younger politi­cians are more inter­est­ed in [an any­thing-goes strat­e­gy] which would open Jamaica up as a place where one could feel free to go and do what­ev­er they please and once done, go back to their respec­tive coun­tries of law and order.
That Hedonistic approach is seen as a means toward attract­ing more vis­i­tors and inex­orably more for­eign mon­ey regard­less of the harm it does to our coun­try. This sen­a­tor seems a will­ing schill for the dance­hall indus­try, he says he and a team intend to go through the Town and Communities Act to decide the next move to get things in motion. He urges Jamaicans to embrace what is their prof­itable cul­ture.

The police have a duty to enforce the laws. Police offi­cers have to be dis­cre­tionary gauges with their ears primed for [trig­gers]. Those trig­gers, some­times deter­mine whether an event is about to go south pret­ty fast. If not addressed imme­di­ate­ly, those events may dete­ri­o­rate rapid­ly, result­ing in greater prob­lems for them­selves and the wider com­mu­ni­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly, in sit­u­a­tions in which large groups of peo­ple are gath­ered and alco­hol has been con­sumed.
At a time when crime and law­less­ness are at all time highs, it is regret­ful that these upstarts want to cre­ate more lever­age for more crime and law­less­ness rather than arrest­ing those neg­a­tive traits.

The idea that words are not bad is an infan­tile con­cept which this much vaunt­ed Doctor ought to be con­ver­sant of. True to form how­ev­er, he is demon­strat­ing that hav­ing knowl­edge in one area does not mean smart in anoth­er.
Freedom of speech is essen­tial. Nevertheless we must be cog­nizant that our free­dom to say what we feel has con­se­quence.
That is the rea­son we do not shout [bomb] on an air­plane or in a crowd­ed the­ater. That is the rea­son we do not go up to a cop and shout gun, that could get you killed.
In the United States traf­fic stops are used to stem the flow of ille­gal guns and drugs across states lines.
Through the use of traf­fic stops untold amounts of drugs and ille­gal guns are con­fis­cat­ed and sus­pects arrest­ed each year, count­less lives are saved as a result.
All because offi­cers stay vig­i­lant and observe traf­fic vio­la­tions.
The police should be able to use a strength­ened Town and com­mu­ni­ty act to tamp down cer­tain behav­iors, poten­tial­ly sav­ing lives in the process.
What they do not need is for some upstart seek­ing a hype to cre­ate more hav­oc in the society. 

Of all of the dif­fi­cul­ties fac­ing the nation, this is the issue this wun­derkind has come up with toward nation-build­ing.
It is near­ly impos­si­ble to get some of our peo­ple to think crit­i­cal­ly.
Does the use of these terms phys­i­cal­ly hurt any­one? The answer is no!
What are the ben­e­fits of leg­is­lat­ing fur­ther coarse­ness into a coun­try which is already unnec­es­sar­i­ly coarse? This does absolute­ly noth­ing to to enhance Jamaica’s image.
It is one more attempt to turn over the last bas­tions of decen­cy or nor­mal­cy to the ret­ro­grade hedo­nism many crave.
Here is a sit­u­a­tion in which law-enforce­ment cor­rect­ly end­ed a show because the laws were being breached and a moron­ic upstart decides he wants to change the laws to usurp the author­i­ty of the police.
If this is an indi­ca­tor of what the PNP has to offer, the nation will be in for a whole lot of hurt because the gov­ern­ing JLP is doing as much harm to our estab­lished norms as this upstart would.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police Detective cor­po­ral, a busi­ness own­er, avid researcher, and blog­ger. 
He is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al web­sites.
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