We are still stifled by the euro-centric episteme which tells us that ontologically we are nothing unless we are able to ape European ways of existence. – Prof Clinton Hutton
In October 1982, Edward Seaga, then Prime Minister of Jamaica hosted a revival table on the lawns of Jamaica House. As was the case when he declared Marcus Garvey Jamaica’s first National Hero, this opened him to the ridicule of much of Jamaica’s ultra conservative, reactionary upper classes, who in the early sixties, still considered Garvey somewhat a charlatan and public nuisance. In twenty years, from elevation of an obnoxious cult leader to elevation of an obnoxious cult, were he not regarded as a shrewd politician with populist tendencies, he would have been a total disgrace to his white skin.
Jamaican society has never fully exorcised the spirit of the plantocracy from its soul. A certain section of influence has consistently heavily resisted initially every effort to dignify the Black African episteme and experience, and only conceded reluctantly when overwhelmed by power of people or purse.
The recent National Conference on Revivalism was the latest effort to drive that duppy further afield into whatever remaining reactionary body of swine that will run with it into the sea.
Here are some excerpts of interest:-
YeKengalé 