Why Portia Cannot Relenquish Garrison.

Conventional wis­dom amongst Jamaicans is that ever per­son from Jamaica sees pol­i­tics through green or orange lens­es . Even the most casu­al com­ment or obser­va­tion in a pub­lic forum draws the most stark and angry attack.

For decades after our so-called inde­pen­dence our peo­ple have slaugh­tered each oth­er to keep politi­cians in office, this is true of sup­port­ers of both polit­i­cal par­ties, hav­ing spent a decade on the front lines dodg­ing bul­lets from the weapons both sides sup­plied to young une­d­u­cat­ed and vul­ner­a­ble youths, I am not par­tic­u­lar­ly endeared to either polit­i­cal gang. At the same time I am rather intol­er­ant of fly by night vil­lage lawyers who have opin­ions based on noth­ing more than par­ty alle­giance. Having spent so much of my life liv­ing and work­ing in Jamaica I am acute­ly aware of the chal­lenges inher­ent in try­ing to change or alter the opin­ions of many Jamaicans, the truth is too many are lost to igno­rance, arro­gance, or both. As a nation, the next best thing is to try to impact the chil­dren in a pos­i­tive way in an effort to change the mind­set going for­ward if the coun­try is to be com­pet­i­tive, or even main­tain some resm­blance to a demo­c­ra­t­ic nation going for­ward. I read sev­er­al blogs and pub­li­ca­tions dai­ly, some of them includes the Jamaican dai­ly and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions from the United States and oth­er parts of the world, on the occa­sions where Jamaicans are allowed to com­ment, I am always dis­ap­point­ed by their inabil­i­ty to sep­a­rate them­selves from the blink­ered hand­i­cap of the nar­row parochial con­straints of PNP,JLP pol­i­tics. Clearly the Orange and Green has evolved from a fun­gus that was vis­i­ble from the out­side to a dis­ease that is now in their blood stream. Those of us who dare point out the prob­lems asso­ci­at­ed with their polit­i­cal idols are attacked as sup­port­er of the oth­er side, even if one has a record of point­ing to the prob­lems of both sides. It is inescapable then to avoid being labeled a par­ti­san, so I am pre­pared when­ev­er I write to be labeled a par­ti­san as long as the argu­ments I put for­ward are sup­port­ed by data and facts.

Miller 

As I have said pre­vi­ous­ly, know­ing this makes me res­olute about not wor­ry­ing about the cyn­ics, and the crit­ics, I remain com­mit­ted to work­ing with and dis­cussing ideas with intel­li­gent open-mind­ed Jamaicans in the dias­po­ra and at home.

Holness

On Sunday October 23^rd 39-year-old Andrew Michael Holness was installed in a cer­e­mo­ny at Kings House as Jamaica’s 9^th and youngest ever Prime Minister. Holness gave a lengthy speech lit­tered with obser­va­tions and vision for the coun­try. One of the things he said he would do is ask the leader of the Opposition to walk with him in a sym­bol­ic show of uni­ty toward dis­man­tling (Garrisons), zones of polit­i­cal exclusions,with a view to end­ing gar­ri­son pol­i­tics once and for all in Jamaica. Garrison Politics has been a shame­ful blight on the country.

WHAT ARE GARRISONS ?

1.

a body of troops sta­tioned in a for­ti­fied place.

2.

the place where such troops are stationed.

3.

any mil­i­tary post, espe­cial­ly a per­ma­nent one.

verb (used with object)

4.

to pro­vide (a fort, town, etc.) with a garrison.

5.

to occu­py (a fort, post, sta­tion, etc.) with troops.

6.

to put (troops) on duty in a fort, post, sta­tion, etc .(source dic​tio​nary​.com)

A gar­ri­son in the Jamaican sense ful­fill all of the char­ac­ter­is­tic com­po­nents stip­u­lat­ed in these definitions,in Kingston and Saint Andrew, as also Saint Catherine, these zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sion lit­ter the land­scape, and as it would for an oppos­ing army breech­ing a gar­ri­son as stip­u­lat­ed above, the con­se­quence of such actions will­ful or unwit­ting will almost result in death. The dif­fer­ence between Jamaican Garrisons and the for­ti­fi­ca­tions men­tioned in the def­i­n­i­tion is that the gar­risons in Jamaica do not need walls, how­ev­er the lines of demarka­tion are fierce­ly guard­ed by well armed punks with high-pow­ered weapons, and a seem­ing­ly unend­ing sup­ply of ammu­ni­tion sup­plied by their bene­fac­tors. The leader of the polit­i­cal Opposition famous­ly said her con­stituen­cy has no walls, in her mind the absence of a wall means it isn’t a gar­ri­son! We’ll get back to that.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A GARRISON IN THE JAMAICAN SENSE?

The year 1980 saw one of the great­est peri­od of polit­i­cal upheaval in Jamaica’s his­to­ry, over 800 peo­ple were report­ed­ly killed as a result of polit­i­cal vio­lence, these num­bers attrib­uted to any oth­er coun­try would be char­ac­ter­ized as civ­il war in pro­por­tion, not so in Jamaica, killing is a way of life, it is accept­ed , pro­mot­ed in music, glo­ri­fied in the media and on polit­i­cal cam­paign stumps. Killing and maim­ing is a cel­e­brat­ed way of show­ing one’s girth and clout in the streets, this vio­lence begets more vio­lence in order to sus­tain itself, the result up to the end of 2009 by police sta­tis­tics is over 1600 mur­dered in a coun­try of under 2.8 mil­lion peo­ple. So what is a Garrison in the Jamaican sense ? Well after Jamaica was uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly cut from the apron strings of England her colo­nial mas­ter, our peo­ple were asked to gov­ern them­selves after hun­dreds of years of colo­nial dom­i­na­tion, the coun­try received no repa­ra­tions for the assault and abuse , Jamaica like oth­er for­mer colonies was sim­ply cast aside to fend for itself. Scarce resources like hous­ing, and jobs became a bar­gain­ing chip for politi­cians to dole out to those who showed alle­giance to their polit­i­cal par­ty depend­ing on which par­ty is in pow­er, in oth­er word a pseu­do colo­nial depen­den­cy , just on a dif­fer­ent scale.

This manip­u­la­tion of scarce resources for polit­i­cal gain cre­at­ed enmi­ty between the fac­tions aligned to the two polit­i­cal par­ties ‚the (PNP)People’s National Party the brain child of National Hero Norman Washington Manley whose son Michael Manley as Prime Minister was to lead Jamaica through its rough­est polit­i­cal peri­od, and the (JLP) the brain child of his cousin Alexander Bustamante, also one of Jamaica’s nation­al heroes.

Norman Manley a Queens Counsel british trained lawyer and Bustamante a street savvy Trade Unionists are seen as the found­ing fathers of the coun­try after Independence, many old­er Jamaicans devel­oped a love and undy­ing alle­giance to both men depend­ing on their beliefs many would die for them, as that gen­er­a­tion passed a more mil­i­tant gen­er­a­tion of politi­cians emerged in the per­sons of Michael Manley and Edward Seaga, the polit­i­cal rhetoric was ramped up and became more bel­li­cose, this hard­ened the posi­tions of both camps, and their fol­low­ers became more vio­lent, the lines of demar­ca­tion became more stark, and as before many would die for them and many has killed for them. It became com­mon­place for pub­lic funds to be used by those in office to take care of those who did the grunge work to put them in pow­er, this cre­at­ed a vicious sys­tem where peo­ple saw their very sur­vival, their very abil­i­ty to be able to afford food as tied to their par­ty get­ting in pow­er and stay­ing there. Needless to say those on the oppos­ing side are quite pre­pared to do what it takes to expel those in pow­er and install their bene­fac­tors. Politicians of both par­ties were more than hap­py to deliv­er the means for the peo­ple to kill oth­ers who were opposed to their brand of pol­i­tics, as a result the streets were flood­ed with guns and entire areas became no go for any­one even sus­pect­ed of being a sup­port­er of the oth­er side. An inno­cent exer­cise as the wear­ing of the wrong col­or can get one rid­dled with bullets.

Criminal thugs who deliv­er votes to the polit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives by means of intim­i­da­tion, arson, rape, and mur­der became a part of the cul­ture ‚they are accept­ed cel­e­brat­ed and revered, ref­ered to as com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, and even Dons, when in truth these men were lit­tle more than mur­der­ing punks who preyed on the inno­cent and the defense­less. they received Government con­tracts even though they knew noth­ing about con­struc­tion or in most cas­es had no train­ing in the dis­ci­pline for which they received the con­tracts, this has become a cesspool of cor­rup­tion and an immense drain on the scarce resources of the coun­try. Jamaica is in debt to the tune of Billions of American dol­lars, yet the aver­age per­son on the streets has no way of mea­sur­ing how those monies they, their chil­dren and their chil­dren’s chil­dren will have to pay back has pos­i­tive­ly impact­ed their lives. As we speak the Contractor General Greg Christie is fight­ing a los­ing bat­tle in get­ting both par­ties to enact leg­is­la­tion giv­ing teeth to the office of Contractors General , which would enable him to effec­tive­ly inves­ti­gate, issue sub­poe­na and arrest trans­gres­sors in the award­ing of pub­lic con­tracts. They stead­fast­ly refuse to give him and future CG’s that pow­er, the fact is they are the ones who are ben­e­fit­ting from these nefar­i­ous and dis­gust­ing acts of thiev­ery that is bank­rupt­ing the coun­try and are not about to grant any­one the pow­er to arrest them or quote“stop dem food”.

As time pro­gressed the thugs who run the com­mu­ni­ties on a day to basis real­ized they real­ly did not need the politi­cians for any­thing more than polit­i­cal cov­er from law enforce­ment, this result­ed in a dan­ger­ous flip in the bal­ance of pow­er between the don and the politi­cian, the tail was effec­tive­ly wag­ging the dog. The Jamaican film Shottas par­o­dies the sit­u­a­tion per­fect­ly, the pro­lif­er­a­tion of ille­gal drugs , mar­i­jua­na and cocaine changed the dynam­ics in the 1980’s and 90’s many com­mu­ni­ty enforcers became rot­ten rich men who need­ed no hand­outs from politi­cians and as such did not have to lis­ten to them. they con­trolled the politi­cians, hand­ed out treats to com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, whilst at the same time exert­ing tight con­trol over the peo­ple liv­ing with­in these communities,the con­trol includ­ed rape of their chil­dren boys and girls, many peo­ple sent their chil­dren from their com­mu­ni­ties and report­ed them miss­ing to the police in order to save them from vicious sex­u­al abuse at the hands of com­mu­ni­ty enforcers. The pow­er cre­at­ed an aura and a mys­tique of invin­ci­bil­i­ty than caused one Don to over-reach, which may have cul­mi­nat­ed in the untime­ly depar­ture of a Prime Minister from Office. He found out too late that his abil­i­ty to pro­tect an enforcer did not extend beyond Jamaica’s shores.

Golding

Being a Garrison mem­ber of Parliament has sev­er­al perks, some of which means nev­er hav­ing to wor­ry about relin­quish­ing pow­er, con­stant­ly feed­ing at the pub­lic trough. receiv­ing un-earned nation­al hon­ors, con­stant­ly being show­ered with adu­la­tion and praise, and all that politi­cian has to do is pre­tend to care and offer plat­i­tudes to mem­bers of the con­stituen­cy. There is no one that this char­ac­ter­i­za­tion fits more than the leader of the oppo­si­tion Portia Simpson Miller, she insists there are no walls in the con­stituen­cy of south-west St Andrew she has rep­re­sent­ed for over 35 years, from majes­tic Gardens to Whitfield Town, to the bot­tom of Maxfield avenue, west along Spanish Town Road the rot and decay is pal­pa­ble, I am told the con­stituen­cy was a pris­tine place pre-Portia, how­ev­er the brand of pol­i­tics she brought to that area has turned the area into a ghost town that remains so to this day, it has how­ev­er kept her in office, notice I omit­ted the word “elect­ed” .She and her hus­band has also been bestowed with the high hon­or of “Most Honorable”. Only in Jamaica.

This brings us to the Prime Minister’s sym­bol­ic ges­ture to Miller, a let­ter ask­ing her to walk the gar­risons with him, a first step that would show that there is no need to kill each oth­er in the name of politics.

Miller hes­i­tat­ed, I pre­sumed untill some­one must have coined a response for her, in response here’s what she told the Prime Minister, Quote“a mere walk through the com­mu­ni­ties would not achieve the desired out­comes ‚while I am not opposed to par­tic­i­pat­ing in the tour with the prime min­is­ter, such an ini­tia­tive should be sup­port­ed by a pro­gramme of social trans­for­ma­tion.”

Hah pre­con­di­tions ! Simpson Miller has been in rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al pol­i­tics from I was a child, she has risen to the top of the food chain to being Prime Minister the high­est elect­ed office in the land. Even though she attained the Office the same way Holness did , by default she was in office for two years. She has been a part of sev­er­al PNP admin­is­tra­tions , the last last­ed for ¹⁸¹⁄₂ years. Throughout all of this she nev­er saw fit even when she had the ulti­mate pow­er as Prime Minister of the coun­try to effect change, Miller was unable to show the nec­es­sary lead­er­ship that would affect social trans­for­ma­tion.

Andrew Holness has been in office for all of 3 weeks, yet Portia Simpson Miller wants him to ensure social trans­for­ma­tion before she can agree to a sim­ple and sym­bol­ic walk of unity.

Portia Simpson Miller has rep­re­sent­ed the south St Andrew con­stituen­cy since Andrew Holness was 4 years old, today the peo­ple in that con­stituen­cy who may have sur­vived the killings and pover­ty that is the norm there are worse off than they were 35 years ago before the arrival of hur­ri­cane Portia. Miller has had the lead­er­ship reins of the coun­try and we have seen noth­ing to point to that would cause us to believe she under­stand the chal­lenges of the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry or has the req­ui­site skills to nav­i­gate the com­pli­cat­ed waters of inter­na­tion­al diplo­ma­cy nec­es­sary to secure fund­ing, and devel­ope­ment for our people.
Social trans­for­ma­tion is impor­tant, it was impor­tant when Miller entered the polit­i­cal game, it is impor­tant today, but it cer­tain­ly will not be achieved overnight, nei­ther will launch­ing a so-called ini­tia­tive change the cir­cum­stance of peo­ple need­ing inter­ven­tion in their com­mu­ni­ties. A leader must be able to attend to sev­er­al things at the same time, a sym­bol­ic walk through the gar­risons and a social inter­ven­tion pro­gramme are not mutu­al­ly exclu­sive, they can be accom­plished simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, (ride and whis­tle). This leads us to the con­clu­sion that Portia Simpson Miller talks the talk but when the time comes for her to walk the talk she is nowhere to be found. It is imper­a­tive that the Jamaican peo­ple and more so those who are encap­su­lat­ed with­in those zones of exclu­sions under­stand that their future is, as it has always been, in their hands and their hands alone. Neither Sister P nor Prince Andrew has the solu­tion to their prob­lems, peo­ple liv­ing there for over 50 years have seen Andrew Holness come into this world and attain the office of Prime Minister at the ten­der age of 39 and their cir­cum­stance remains the same , it is time for them to shrug off the bondage of alle­giance they have to both par­ties and decid­ed­ly carve a path for them­selves and their children.

As I have stat­ed before, Garrisons are the same as slav­ery, those caught with­in the psy­cho­log­i­cal walls of those com­mu­ni­ties are deprived of the every­day ameni­ties oth­ers take for grant­ed. clean drink­ing water, afford­able hous­ing, education,health-care, clean air, prop­er police and fire ser­vices, these are some of the most basic things that most peo­ple take for grant­ed but are absent from most gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ties, in Jamaica gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ties and the police have a need­less acri­mo­nious rela­tion­ship that is built on dis­trust of each oth­er, a dis­trust foment­ed and fed by the very politi­cians who rep­re­sent the garrisons.

Poverty is not hered­i­tary, it is not genet­ic, peo­ple from the rur­al parts of the coun­try has proven that, left alone to be all they can be Jamaicans from all parts of the coun­try have escaped pover­ty , and have risen to the halls of pow­er and the zenith of suc­cess in Education and Business, cows do not feed and wait for the grass to grow under their feet so they can eat again, they keep mov­ing, no one should allow geo­graph­i­cal bound­aries set by oth­ers who do not live with­in those said bound­aries to dic­tate how they live their lives. Untill peo­ple edu­cate them­selves and make politi­cians like Simpson Miller per­sona non gra­ta (not wel­come) in their com­mu­ni­ties they will con­tin­ue to be behold­en to the dic­tates of those invis­i­ble walls. And yes Portia your con­stituen­cy has walls you are just unable to see them.

Andrew Holness if he is seri­ous must under­stand that the change he seek will not come from the likes of Simpson Miller ‚the old guard,they were schooled in the old ways , they are a part of the prob­lem ‚not the solu­tion , if progress is to be made the train must be rolled around them,begin with a mas­sive pro­gram of mobi­liza­tion to a nation­al awak­en­ing, love of God pride in coun­try and duty to our fel­low-man , if you can inspire the nation you will have a chance to make difference,do not wait on Portia, or you wait in vain , Portia is the Garrison, the gar­ri­son is Portia.

have your say.