A City Under Seige

“Writers imagine that they cull stories from the world. I'm beginning to believe that vanity makes them think so. That it's actually the other way around. Stories cull writers from the world. Stories reveal themselves to us. The public narrative, the private narrative - they colonize us. They commission us. They insist on being told. Fiction and nonfiction are only different techniques of story telling. For reasons that I don't fully understand, fiction dances out of me, and nonfiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning.” ~ Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things 

 

 As we ride through the intense heat and crime wave washing the city in tsunami like fashion, the schemes, shanty towns, communities are erupting as the victims of poverty, global financial warfare, IMF debt, personal debt, urban and spiritual decay begin to break out violently and virulently. Sometimes I wonder if the public knows what is happening... do you know what is happening in Paradise, in Norwood, in Flankers, in Meggy Top, in Salt Spring, in Granville, in Cambridge, in Orange and Sign? Peoples lives are shattered, men are in splinters, women in despair, children losing fathers and mothers to guns and disease. Children living with the faint anguish of hunger in their little eyes. Then there are the unknown valiant heroes, the ones who with out pay, not given the respect due, the ones running youth clubs and residents associations, not in the name of politics, but simple activism, to simply take up the challenge of building a better community, trying to safeguard the future, some conservative, some vanguard, but all unknown heroes who are not worshipped on facebook or instagram, the ones the media and the press miss. And rising fast out of the shadows, brooding in these dire economic times, the evil, the misguided, the perverted... spreading its tentacles out into communities, spreading warfare, spreading rumors, spreading mental diseases, ruining young children. 

 

Do you get the picture? Or is your mental image of Montego Bay still pretty girls at parties on twitter, youtube and instagram, is it Burger King and the HipStrip, is it romanticized garrisons through Samsung lenses and photo effects? Is it escapist worlds that Fairview and Ironshore and Coral Gardens can be? Is it Casinos and taboos? Is it playing politics on FB? Did you miss the bodies at KFC, at Whitter Village, in Paradise, in Cassava Walk, in Gulf, In Waltham, in Salt Spring, Sam Sharpe Square, Taboo parking lot, Pier One... or was your time spent on 50 Shades of Grey, Avengers 2, rum bottles, chasing skirts, stroking your own ego, taking selfies, posing, posturing... not really doing anything? I know I do the FB and IG thing but life is more than that. I know I seem filled with righteous indignation or some righteous anger, but it isn't that, I am writing from a place of utter despair and brokeness hoping someone hears, that more of you step out into the battle field and fight to change our future, that more of you commit your brains to good ideas and spend your computational and processing power in productive and positive fashion. Surely I am not prososing that we all become good little socialist working for the common good that everything will turn out to be sunshine and roses... but he have to commit ourselves to the hard challenges that confront us now. 

 

The last two years was a year like no other for me in Paradise... I have watched Chik V decimate the community, as well as cancer, AIDS, gunshot, heart attack, strokes, diabetes and the list goes on. The passing of community members and staple in what seems to be an unending cycle of trauma. The trend continued into the new year as people whittle away... as violence continues to visit the community, as people come to realize Marcus Mosiah's prophecy, not knowing themselves till their back is against the wall, as they can't no food to eat and no money to spend. Now to have Zik V at our doorsteps! 

 

Somethings like Youth Club and Residents Association prove to be a glimmer of hope, but the wider circumstance of Paradise, it's surrounding Norwood and even Montego Bay. The economy isn't exactly stagnant, the ratings from international agencies show that, so now how does government and the private sector pass the savings of lower light bills and oil prices to the consumers, as children are missing school more often, children are becoming parentless, the population is thinning, not through conscious effort but through owing to the economics of living, the simple costs of living. More people are applying for ways to leave the country. As the maddening crowd hurries on into elections and carries a season of irrational debates to communities, whilst the unsung heroes, suffer and wilt away. 

 

As we see what seems to be an epic crime wave washing the city and western Jamaica with reports of shootings in the city almost daily. One can say without a doubt that this epidemic of cancerous crime is out of hand, radical approaches to joblessness and unemployment have to be put in place, the economy addressed, the culture fixed, religious institutions doing more social outreach, more entrepreneurs and solopreneurs, then better crime fighting techniques, 21st investigations and forensics!

As a people we need a serious and comprehensive and dynamic coming together, pooling of resources and ideas to secure the future of the community. Homework programs, safety nets and cheap solutions for children who are skipping schools, more culture and cultural events, we need to bolster the effort in youth club, in residents association in the senior citizens associations. Support entrepreneurs, buy local more, clean up our hearts and seek a more spiritual life... not religious but spiritual... inject more love into the youth into our families... we need now an in-gathering... build back, rebuild. We need a new and revitalized "Save-the-dollar" Initiative, one that is robust and encompasses, social media and online crowdfunding, pooling members of the diaspora, reaching out to grassroot, involving conventional banks and the private sector being patriotic... at least a few banks. This bolstered with novel ideas like local community or parish currencies like the "Bristol Pound" and Bitcoin. 

 

Let us meditate on the successes of the Sunshine Girls, Reggae Boys, Merlene Ottey, Herb Mckenley, Shelly Ann Fraser, Cuthbert, Campbel-Brown, Asafa, Bolt, Swimmers, Special Olympians, Onandi Lowe, Walter Boyd, Tessanne, Marcus Garvey, Bob Marley, Harry Bellafonte, Andre Mcdonald, Claude McKay, Shaggy, Sean Paul, Dustin Brown... So much so much... IF ONLY WE HAD POLITICIANS that performed to the same standard and calibre that ordinary citizens step out to achieve... JAH we woulda be capital of planet Earth! 

 

Yes the politicians are inept, yes some police corrupt, yes lots of exploitive businesses are there and yes some business leaders join Chamber of Commerce to advance their personal missions and as personal platform. Yes this country and this city is a mess, a tangled web. Yes yes yes, but wasn't our god Anansi? Were'nt we the first storytellers... so it is time we imagined a new tale... one where we survive, where we are the victor and there is no armageddon. Isn't it time we committed truly in our hearts to be agitators for change, to begin to curb the potential disaster of the things we do and things we create. 

 

I don't know about you, but I cannot close my eyes to these things... I will not! There are couples living in hovels, Rasta Elders and shut ins living in leaking houses and rotting board, children hungry and every fast food place throws away unsold food at 10-11pm. This city has broken heart, it is filled with a history of injustice, sons and daughters of slaves that ran up and down on the Barnet Estate, Jarrett Estate, scions of insurrectionists that participated in the Christmas Rebellion and the others, generations of uncompensated families, a cycle and trend that if you don't know history, you wont see it carry on into today. I don't want to ever become numb to these things, comfortable with human suffering and injustice, but some I worry that it may make me bitter and angry. I wonder if this is just the vestiges of idealism in me and the dying flickers of youth. But until the flicker of every last revolutionary fervor dies in me and no ember or spark is left, let it be known from Maroon Town, to the Hill on which Sam Sharpe teacher's College stands to the Clock, up Jarrett Street and on to Sam Sharpe Square...

Jamaica and the Trans Pacific Partnership

America's New Secret Nafta!

Jamaica needs to urgently start examining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). I am imploring that both the Ministry of Finance and Planning and the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce, consider the future implications of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In November 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Washington’s official pivot to Asia. Outlining a vision for an Asia-Pacific Century, Secretary Clinton described a desired symbiotic and unfettered relationship between the two regions that will provide “unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge technology.” At the center of this pivot has been the TPP, an enigmatic trade pact that has been hailed as a true “21st century agreement,” a purported free trade deal between 11 countries, including the U.S., Canada and Japan, which has been in negotiations for some years.

As a centerpiece of President Obama’s pivot to Asia, which includes Latin America via the TPP, the trade pact sets a powerful, if not potentially dangerous, precedent for future trade agreements in the emerging region. But instead of encouraging sustainable economic trends and responsible transnational relations, the TPP could enact the same policies that have been proven detrimental in past smaller-scale agreements like NAFTA. The TPP rhetoric misrepresents the potential of free trade as it encourages, through greater international regulations, such as those seen in the intellectual property and investment chapters, the creation of domestic policies to manipulate the international market. Often, these actions strengthen the economically powerful, particularly by granting to the leadership the right to set its own nation’s course of action and implement its own visions, while those at the margins suffer. Thus, the TPP presents a troubling case of free trade being purchased at too great a price.

Let us remember that after the United States, Canada and Mexico agreed to become a single market as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement, their exports to each other boomed. But here in the Caribbean, the economies of America's much smaller neighbours reeled from the impact of that success and found it almost impossible to compete. From the apparel plants of Jamaica to the sugar-cane fields of Trinidad, Nafta  resulted in the loss of jobs, markets and income for the vulnerable island nations of the region.

Nafta's devastating effect on the Caribbean was widely fore-casted before the treaty's passage in 1993 and Washington had suggested it would cushion the blow by extending similar trade preferences to the island nations. However, the Clinton Administration's proposals to give the Caribbean ''Nafta parity'' was twice foundered in Congress in election years. It is then easy to see the troubles of the TPP which seems would come into effect vrey close to the U.S. election season.

When Nafta went into effect, the creation of new jobs in Jamaica stopped altogether and overall unemployment rose to 16 percent from 9.5 percent, according to the Statistical Institute of Jamaica. In Mexico it failed to provide equitable stipulations for labor conditions, environmental protection, or investment regulations. Laborers on both sides of the border saw their collective bargaining powers diminish after NAFTA.

Critics of Nafta then, contended that NAFTA should have been transformed from a “free” trade agreement to a “fair” trade agreement through revisions that create jobs instead of destroying them, protect workers, and create an environment that allowed citizens to stay in their home country and earn a fair living wage.

So it is no surprise then that critics of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement have noted that the deal has little to do with free trade. Rather, the TPP is about limiting regulation, helping corporate interests and imposes fiercer standards of intellectual property (to, again, largely benefit corporate interests).

Noam Chomsky has decried the TPP, he told HuffPost Live that the deal, which is not yet finalized, is “designed to carry forward the neoliberal project to maximize profit and domination, and to set the working people in the world in competition with one another so as to lower wages to increase insecurity.”

Chomsky said it was “a joke” that the deal is designated a “free trade” agreement. “It’s called free trade, but that’s just a joke,” Chomsky said. “These are extreme, highly protectionist measures designed to undermine freedom of trade. In fact, much of what’s leaked about the TPP indicates that it’s not about trade at all, it’s about investor rights.”

On reviewing the leaked draft TPP chapter, intellectual property law expert Dr. Matthew Rimmer called the deal, “a Christmas wish-list for major corporations.”

This so-called trade pact of the future covers far more than just trade, with chapters addressing modern topics such as an extension of investment past real property, intellectual property rights, and environmental standards among others. There is no question that the agreement would positively affect many signatory nations’ economies; however, many of the proposed regulations pushed by the U.S. would violate regional domestic laws while compromising national sovereignty.

As a Jamaican I am asking in particular the Honourable Anthony Hylton, Jamaica's Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, to be cognizant of the impact of the TPP and its implications for International Law and our domestic laws. I also ask that in any international bargaining that we be put on a level playing field with other international players, and to secure strong lobby and collective bargaining power to secure our owning international commercial future! I ask that the Minister secure us  the opportunity not to be prevented from taking full advantage of the International markets now and not when we begin reeling from the impact of the TPP.