SHAGGY MISSES THE MARK:

“The major­i­ty of our pop­u­la­tion is poor; whole heap a dem over deh so have mon­ey. Dem inna bet­ter job, bet­ter sit­u­a­tion. They can engage, but part of the prob­lem is half of them are scared. Dem don’t want to come down here for a cause because they are ter­ri­fied… it’s as sim­ple as that. “Much like how we have lead­ers in Jamaica who take a stand on cer­tain issues and push things, you don’t have com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ers in the Jamaican dias­po­ra that are active… who are just at it. You just kin­da find a man who will say ‘mi a yaadie’, wear the colours and a it dat and big up them­self when Bolt a run. For us to have a strong Jamaican or Caribbean voice we need organ­i­sa­tion, we need peo­ple to be active­ly sup­port­ing caus­es in Jamaica,” These are the word of dance-hall artiste Shaggy as he addressed a press con­fer­ence at the Jamaica Observer where he announced plans for his con­cert to aid the Bustamante chil­dren’s Hospital.

Observer Photo:

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Shaggy has done a great job on behalf of chil­dren, through his Make a Difference Foundation, his work on behalf of chil­dren and the needy is wor­thy of praise. I believe his heart is in the right place and I sense some frus­tra­tion in his com­ments, prob­a­bly because he feels those of us who live over­seas can do more to help. With that said how­ev­er, I believe his com­ments were at best in-art­ful and worse case, smacks of igno­rance. There is an old say­ing that you can attract much more ants with hon­ey than you can with vine­gar. Shaggy cer­tain­ly has enough acclaim and influ­ence to make suc­cess­ful appeals to the dias­po­ra which can trans­late into cash.

That is why his com­ments are so unfor­tu­nate. I hope I am not over-ana­lyz­ing Shaggy’s com­ments but they do smack of some­thing dark and sin­is­ter which many Jamaicans can attest to. It is a kind of deep envy which comes out of even those at home who are well-off and have the option of leav­ing. “whole heap a dem over deh so have mon­ey. Dem inna bet­ter job, bet­ter sit­u­a­tion. They can engage”. Many returned res­i­dents and oth­ers return­ing to vis­it have been killed because of what that state­ment signifies.

Jamaicans liv­ing abroad send sig­nif­i­cant sums of mon­ey home every year. That is for­eign cur­ren­cy which keeps the Jamaican econ­o­my afloat. I under­stand that what he is con­tend­ing is that there is not enough sup­port for char­i­ties, yet the remit­tance sent home is not the only for­eign exchange being put into the Jamaican econ­o­my by the dias­po­ra. The Customs Department rake in tremen­dous amounts of rev­enue each year from goods sent home by the dias­po­ra. As a small busi­ness own­er I see the lev­el of com­mit­ment of our peo­ple in the remit­tances , goods and even the Digicel and Lime cred­its they send home. Many includ­ing myself, make impor­tant con­tri­bu­tions to var­i­ous Charities, Schools and NGO’s with­out the fan­fare of press conferences.

What Shaggy does on behalf of the poor is com­mend­able, more of us real­ly need to engage in help­ing if we are in a posi­tion to do so. However it is impor­tant to note that what each per­son or group does is as impor­tant as what Shaggy and oth­er celebri­ties do, even if of dif­fer­ent mag­ni­tudes. As we aspire to do more to help we must also simul­ta­ne­ous­ly work to change the mind­set of many at home that those who live over­seas are an unend­ing mon­ey-pit to be raid­ed and exploit­ed or even killed. We must dis­pel and dis­cred­it the notion that depen­den­cy is a virtue. Lets hope we will all find a way in 2014 to lend a hand-up to those less for­tu­nate, while avoid­ing the acri­mo­nious and regres­sive demo­niz­ing of others.