Mark Wignall | Just for the celebration

It is August 1 as I write this column. Emancipation Day. Feeling nice and sweet after all that freedom. We who live in these times were never roped by the neck and we were never forced to hear the screams of our mothers and sisters as they were abused by the big boss Massa. We get to celebrate the annual niceness: the dance, parts vertical and horizontal, the music and the rum and the carnal awakenings.

Of course, we know that something is morally right with celebrating the removal of our shackles, but some of us do not know that, in the bigger equation, we have not quite figured out how to remove that mental fixation with the chains that once weighed us down.

At its simplest, it is one man of black skin saying to another, “Anything black nuh good.” And having all compatriots within earshot agreeing with that piece of self-hate and social tragedy. There are two politicians I know, men with deeply black skin, who have told me that the sentiment has living meaning.

In 2009, at the height of the Gully/Gaza ‘war’, many youths from depressed communities had allowed themselves to be tribalised into two camps that were notionally headed by expert messengers and men of note in the society, Mavado and Kartel. At the time of the tribal nonsense, no information came to me to indicate that Mavado and Kartel were telling any yute man to go out and make dangerous fools of themselves.

SENSELESS ANGER

In 2009, a burst of senseless anger and violence exploded on Mannings Hill Road when youths from both camps clashed. Knives, machetes, wounds. Those youngsters were totally captivated by mental slavery, as their brains were finely tuned to the raw sex and general social rot, and the violence in the music pushed out by Mavado and Kartel.

It took the involvement of top policemen and the prime minister at the time, Bruce Golding, to arrange and have a confab with both artistes, so that the tribal temperature could cool somewhat. At that time, it was driven home strongly that, in the competition for ideas, party politics and what it pushes can be overtaken by the stronger ideas embedded in the urban subculture.

At the time when Kartel was initially on trial, a common theme in certain ‘class’ settings was that decisions had been made by big power players in the society to put him away. Just as how, in previous years, Dudus had reversed the power equation where his previous bosses were doing more listening than talking, there were fears that Kartel saw a way to use his power to disrupt and dislodge. Maybe it was just all verandah talk.

KARTEL AS PEOPLE’S HERO

Older people don’t necessarily like Kartel. Younger people below age 40 and poorer people in the society idolise him. Many people in inner-city areas feel a bond with him, but it is not the Jesus-help-me-through-this-prayer sort of a bond. It is more of his message, his music tearing out the unkind parts of their lives.

Maybe they are emancipated by that. What if it turns out that Kartel is simply working, like everyone else, to make money and his fans are purely those whom the movie director needs for the crowd scene and are of no further consequence?

My lawyer friend, a Jamaican who lives and works abroad, emailed me recently about Kartel’s release.

“I am not sufficiently informed to proffer an opinion as to whether the ruling by the Court was proper. But I can say that he was found guilty by a jury of his peers. He had talented legal representation, as I recall, Mr Tom Tavares-Finson. He appealed to the appellate court in Jamaica and his conviction was upheld, and then he was granted leave to appeal with the Privy Council (PC). The PC vacated his conviction.

“A court that sits thousands of miles away in England, the former colonial ruler of Jamaica. So Jamaican jurists opined the conviction should stand and non-Jamaicans opined it should be vacated. Either the Jamaican judiciary is to be trusted and respected or it is not to be trusted and respected.

“The PNP wants the PC not to be the final court of appeal. The Jamaica Labour Party seems, although they are opaque with their position, to want to keep the PC as the highest court of appeal. How about letting the people of Jamaica decide? After all, they are the ones subject to the court’s jurisdiction.”

EMPTY POLITICAL PROMISES AND MENTAL SLAVERY

We celebrate the end of our old shacklement but willingly allow our political masters of the present times to fleece us and hold our heads long under the water.

When the massive salary increases were announced for Parliamentarians, Cabinet and other members of the political class, I clearly remember the PM stating that, along with the large increase, parliamentarians would have to be accountable and, in fact, a code of conduct would be drafted and put into effect. There has been no such code of conduct put in effect, to my knowledge.That is disappointing. Another promise the PM has not kept.

What has also caught my attention is that, in The Gleaner recently, there have been numerous articles about various committees of Parliament not being able to do their work because of a lack of a quorum or enough members/attendees for the committee or group to do their work. That I find stunningly offensive. Why are the members of the committees or groups not attending?

It has been over a year since their pockets were filled and their bellies fattened. It is no longer in question that the people of Jamaica are paying them handsomely to do their jobs. That is a waste of money if they are failing to show up for work.

Surely this must be hampering good governance. If the committees cannot do their work, then oversight is lacking and, of course, mismanagement and corruption can prevail. I also find it curious that not one word has been uttered by the PM in public, admonishing this slackness.

Mark Wignall is a political and public affairs analyst. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and mawigsr@gmail.com