YeKengalé

Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness has backed down. These anxious times of power-trumping-justice have been the assumed source of the knee jerk reaction of the island-wide conference of judges….and highlights the number one social deficit that Ian Boyne‘s life-seed can hopefully grow, blossom and fill – the deficit of TRUST in normal social relations….. in marriages, families, church fraternities, neighborhoods, workplaces, leadership and commerce.

Nations founded on the principle of coercive rather than cooperative force; and on the practice of treachery rather than covenant will all have the same challenge. How do you overcome your past and construct a new future?

The answer is simple. How do we tell our story? Who is the villain, the victim, and the victor? Every good plot must have these…and we Jamaicans are among the world’s greatest griots. We broadcast daily from pulpits of all sorts – veranda, talk radio, marketplace, workplace etc. In every conversation we are telling our story – on some level.

And every story is about Power:

• Who has it?
• Who lost it?
• Who gets it?

and Justice

• What is it?
• Who deserves it?
• Who has been denied it?

These questions define the relationships between villain, victim, and victor.

I have been very conscious for a number of years of the impact of storytelling and the moral responsibility to be the authentic, self-aware and self-determined script-writer of my own.

I remember, after reflecting on general public conversation, becoming aware that most of us Jamaicans (consciously or unconsciously) see ourselves as victims. When we speak about the ‘system’ – (Peter Tosh says Shitsim) we always endow that construct with power, thereby accepting the role of victim.

In Jamaican cosmology there is the system and the victim. The system has no need to talk. Its voice is enshrined in the institutions of power. The victim’s language is complaint. And that may explain all talk radio, most Jamaican media, and most of our religious and psychological propensities.

The most significant give away word that enlightens our mindset however, is the use of the pronoun ‘them’ or ‘dem’ in patois. ‘Dem‘ is given much more prominence than ‘we‘ and is always…every time….invested with power….and mostly, that power is evil….and always, exercised against ‘me’.

Upon recognizing this, I eliminated that pronoun altogether functionally from my speech, and elevated myself to the neglected ‘we’. The I speaks for us. – the inner meaning of the Rasta man’s creative construction of the new pronoun, I an I. (There is no dem as a pronoun its own right; just a whole heap of I dem. Dem becomes the pluralization of both subject and object – personal or impersonal.)

Jah Jah see dem a come, but I an I a conqueror.

In the 90’s, some of my Rasta bredrin started a national campaign intended to impact the national consciousness to reflect on, and practice the way of honor. – A tall task in a society seeded by treachery where ‘dem’ is always lurking on every side to trick and defeat di I.

But every story is simply a thoughtful construction of words. And every story changes with angle of vision or perspective.

It is almost an artistic impossibility to construct a lengthy narrative which gives every mentioned character equal voice (that should not prevent striving – all ideals are perfectly practically improbable.)

We should begin to follow the biblical injunction to measure our words.

After we have told our story, after we have pronounced our sentence – who have we honored / glorified /ascribed dignity to and who have we condemned /accused/ belittled/ assassinated?

Many of us do not even yet recognize that for most Jamaican talk, dignity (glory, honor, respect) is only imputed to I…….. and I alone. Usually, every other mentioned character   is either impugned in word or tone (including God himself at times) or only conferred with dignity because of direct association with me and my viewpoint.

This does not help. Where a powerless I is glorified, victimhood is eternally enshrined.