Dr. Garnet Roper in our initial Emancipation Day Conversation revealed the hidden transcript in the very popular Jamaican folksong “Dis Long Time Gyal mi neva see yu”, penned by the Hon. Louise Bennett, satirizing the British Queen in 1966, then visiting her claimed colony (Jamaica) for the first time since her coronation in’53. Louise’s feigned affection for di Queenie gyal is but Anansical strategy to grab her attention before the ‘Peel-head Johncrow’ planter class to which she had ostensibly come, got to her; in order to make surreptitious complaint about their misdeeds and pilferage of economic benefits: ‘Dem si dung pon tree top, eat out di blossom.’
It would take a patient and in-depth reading of Jamaican political history to understand how the Black commoner class represented by ‘Miss Lou’ could ever have conceived that they might find an ally in the Crown, their exploiter- in-chief….or at least chief beneficiary from their exploitation; but especially after the Bogle Uprising of 1865 (or from the British perspective, the Bogle Put Down) such were the vagaries of colonial cloak-and-dagger politics with its constantly shifting enemies and allies, as out of the many, each self-interested class sought to climb over the other crabs in the barrel.
Of greater interest is the notion of an entire generation of school choirs singing songs like Swing Low Sweet Chariot (sotto voce code for Tubman’s underground railroad), and Dis Long Time Gyal with much gusto and purported cultural pride but absolutely no idea nor interest in the historical contexts from which these songs emerge. This is the kind of historo-cultural apoplexy that accounts for a nation of Black and Brown Anglophiles, from Rhode Scholar (considered supreme educational trophy rather than the massive insult to Black dignity it is … not even recognizable by apparently lobotomized Blacks … but try give a Hitler scholarship to a Jew by way of comparison) to Road warrior, all content to defend precious Queen well into the 21st century with not a reparatory token nor word of penitence proffered; loyal to the end, like victims of incestuous rape, preferring to hate themselves than expose and confront their violator.
Is there a Jamaican politician today with comparable intellectual reach, historical grasp, and cultural rootedness to for example India’s Shashi Tharoor? Where are the Eric Williams in modern Caribbean politics? and if our leaders are rootless, what are their leadership credentials besides crab-jostling prowess; their leadership principles beyond ambition? Does it matter who resigns, who wins, who loses? Can a politics of consequence emerge from a climate where stolen planets remain content to continue strange orbits? After all, nothing really changes in the kingdom of crabs … except perhaps who on top a nyam aaf di blossom.
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YeKengalé 