Jamaica

new internationalist
issue 213 - November 1990

Jamaica

To the British, Jamaica was the 'key to the Indies' when they captured it from the Spanish in 1655. Three centuries of colonialism were then imposed on the peoples seized from Africa to work the plantations. Yet the Jamaicans emerged as the most culturally dynamic of all Caribbean peoples. In Kingston, as in the tourist strips of Montego Bay and Ocho Rios, the thump of reggae is everywhere.

Reggae is to Jamaica as calypso is to Trinidad. But whereas calypso now only rarely contains a political message reggae almost always does. For it was born out of a long history of protest. First there were brave and tragic slave revolts, recalled in folklore. Then there was the message of Marcus Garvey, whose writings and activities laid the foundations of what became Black Power.

Rastafarianism, or the building of a spiritual sense of Africa in oneself, was born in the horrors of the West Kingston slums. Deliverance is its message. 'There can be no liberation without revolution, sang Bob Marley. But he died young and other reggae singers such as Peter Tosh have been gunned down, a reminder of the violence just below the surface.

Social divisions are stark in Jamaica. Lifestyles copied from Miami and Fifth Avenue are enjoyed in closely guarded compounds well away from the misery of the slums. It seems that only music and Red Stripe beer unites Jamaican society.

Singers and poets alike have much to denounce. After over eight years of rule by the pro-US Jamaica Labour Party, a period marked by great hardship as the economy was forcibly 'restructured', the 1989 election returned Michael Manley's People's National Party. Popular expectations that 'Joshua' would lead Jamaicans towards a better future were impossibly high, especially after the devastation caused by Hurricane Gilbert in September 1988.

Manley stood for social justice despite the failure of his earlier administration in the 1970s which was derailed by powerful domestic and US opposition. But by 1989 Jamaica was heavily indebted, and Manley could not afford to antagonize Washington again. The textile industries that had sprung up in Kingston's poorer areas relied on cheap female labour. Their wages are held down as much by non-union agreements insisted upon by the Asian and American employers as by progressive devaluation. Agriculture remains neglected.

There are very few bright spots. The market prospects for bauxite are improving and the industry is being redeveloped. The tourist industry is booming. But little of the earnings trickle downwards: most of the foreign currency earned goes on imports of food and goods demanded by the predominantly white and affluent visitors. As in the days of slavery there seem to be two Jamaicas divided by class and colour, No wonder the island needs its music.

Tony Thorndike

				Highly unequal. Richest 5% have 32% of the national income. 1982: *		Nearly all basic foodstuffs imported in what is a very open economy. 1982: **			In a strongly matriarchal society women have to be active in commerce and industry. 1982: ***
	Centrist. Parliamentary democracy.		Still good: 97% of children attend primary school. 1982: *****			Widespread respect for human and civil rights. 1982: ****		73 years (US 76 years). 1982:****