Willow Walk

what can’t be refused

the turning circle of the years

is so set up that we must fail

must fall into the grinding gears

 

give up and go with one last wail

lift up our eyes and see our friends

heads bent with tears and then set sail

 

there's no great purpose that commends

itself to us no message sent

in the pale wintry light that bends

 

upon our heads and won't relent

lying on the floor in solemn bars

where the sole word is discontent

 

at night the clouds will hide bright stars

melted type

the message failed it was not sent

our golden gospel dies unheard

another paradise deferred

 

on other missions we are bent

for stranger purposes conferred

the message failed it was not sent

 

to where we wanted where we meant

the sign to go each silver word

fell into silence was deterred

the message failed it was not sent

A Tax on Bullas

John Maxwell

We never listen to good advice. Somebody, possibly a few dozen, including me, must have warned Audley Shaw to be careful what he wished for – because he might get it. He really wanted to be Minister of Finance. I was a few thousand miles away from Gordon House on Thursday, yet I could have sworn that despite the sound deadening effect of snow, I could hear, far away in the gathering darkness, the unmistakable sounds of the heart of another Jamaican Minister of Finance, breaking. As we contemplate the acrobatic expertise of Jamaican politicians doing the fiscal limbo dance (How low can he go?) it seems that Mr Shaw has outdone even Mr Patterson. PJ imposed a tax on knowledge, on books and periodicals. Mr Shaw has imposed a tax on bullas! It now appears that higglers, the unsung engines of Jamaican development will now be forced to collect taxes on behalf of Mr Shaw. How Mr Shaw, in his turn, will collect tax from the higglers will need to await the next issue of the comic book anthology of the Mighty Atom and Dan, the Dynamite – mythological heroes of the mid-twentieth century. I can just see Mr Danville Walker's emissaries at the Old Harbour Bay Fishing Beach – once represented I believe, by Mr Golding's father – attempting to calculate the tax on last night's catch. They will soon be wearing bullet proof vests and armed with M-16s Nothing better expresses the vapidity of Reaganite-Thatcherite-Seagaism than Shaw's announcement taxing bullas and crackers but sparing used cars It is at moments like these that I really miss my late great cousin Richard Thelwell. I can hear him now: "I mean, is this cat for REAL?" As Groucho Marx might say, "That is a good question.… a very good question!" We have watched the worldwide mindless progression into dog-eat-dog globalisation, into the nirvana of neocon nihilism and the recent European Union preference for Central American slave-produced bananas over free enterprise bananas from the Caribbean. None of that has surprised us. But a tax on bullas! A tax on coconut drops? A tax on the famously malleable sweeties called Bustamante Backbone? "You cannot be serious!" as John McEnroe is reported to have said. They'll soon be installing parking meters on Skyline Drive and on the road to Port Royal!

the fury and the mire

believe the voices falling down the rift

of fading memory all lost to time

recall the faces touched with soot and grime

in days so clear and calm they seemed to drift

through subtle air and now all is too swift

hardly a moment between every chime

the downslope now but we were on the climb

and had not valued the taste of the gift

so here the choice is made and in the cold

dark of the rainy afternoon each deep

cutting word is truly cruel in its burn

the message is expected we turn old

and each day must bring reasons more to weep

even this day at eve of sunreturn

Student Bloomers Fall 2009

The issue I have is the same one we are facing now, in the year 2734 how are we going to make sure that rules and regulations are being enforced in the court system.

In doing this the court condemned blacks to endure to mare that a half century of more social inequality.

Congressional oversight is practiced by Congress.

Jamaica – the Blasted Isle

John Maxwell

I have decided not to retire. If retirement does to me what it has done to Mr Edward Seaga the risk is too great, I fear. Last weekend Mr Seaga was reported as saying that partisan politics has slowed Jamaica's growth. "Meanwhile, Seaga said that one of the issues that many of the country's leaders have not been able to fully address is "the cultural underbelly" of the society. "The two-Jamaica syndrome. That is what sets the tone for the social conditions and eventually what sets the tone for economic progress or no economic progress," Seaga said. He argued that many persons in diagnosing problems facing Jamaica fail to realise the cultural dichotomy. "The two worlds that we live in - one Afrocentric, one Eurocentric - have different standards and different value systems," Seaga said. Seaga said that it was at the level of representational politics that it is assumed that the people who come from the folk society will understand what their people are like, and work towards helping their conditions.

I remember writing a column entitled "Sieg Heil! Heil Seaga!" in Public Opinion in October 1965 addressing that very problem. In that column I denounced Seaga for plagiarising the words of (National Hero) Paul Bogle and using them to threaten (National Hero) Norman Manley with "Blood for Blood and Fire for Fire" simply because PNP supporters had booed Mr Seaga at a public occasion in honour of (National Hero) Marcus Garvey.

That speech of Mr Seaga's epitomises for me more than any other single thing, the damage Jamaica inflicted on itself when it elected the first government of independent Jamaica.

According to Thursday's Gleaner "Seaga said that having served under the leadership of former prime minister Sir Alexander Bustamante, he is convinced that the government [Bustamante] formed in 1962 had the best mix of leaders. He also said that there were marked similarities between Bustamante and People's National Party president, Portia Simpson Miller."

It is a sad fact that of that 'mix of leaders' four died prematurely – Ken Jones, Clem Tavares, Donald Sangster and Victor Grant; four had career-ending differences with Mr Seaga – Hugh Shearer, Wilton Hill, Robert Lightbourne and Ronald Irvine, while L.G .Newland, Edwin Allen and Tacius Golding were simply dumped by Seaga. Of their successors the major casualties of Seaga were E.K. Powell, Frank Phipps, Ian Ramsay and later Bruce Golding, Brascoe Lee, Tony Abrahams and above all, Pearnell Charles, beaten for his pains, who comes closest to Seaga's Bustamante paradigm, one of the few politicians with what Seaga calls a big heart. And this was the toll among his friends and allies. If you happened to be among his enemies, as I was, exile became an irresistible option. If you happened to be P.J. Patterson you were alternately racially abused as a 'black scandal bag' and set up for lynching by being attacked as a homosexual – a 'chi chi man'. Since most Jamaicans are pretty sensible, Seaga's tenure as JLP leader almost guaranteed Patterson lifetime tenure in any position Seaga coveted. As for me, I am secure, paired forever with Norman Manley, as Seaga's original and best hated bêtes noires.

no other victory

the fraction of the truth that now remains

within the bounds of what we are to speak

is current language words sodden and weak

lacking in power nothing now explains

the meaning of the anguish and the pains

that each had taken before these grey bleak

crowds of oppression forbade us to seek

the honest answers upon hills or plains

a light at noon would show no honest folk

in any corner of a world grown wild

with deepest passion of forgotten art

needing desire and raging for the yoke

to be laid on each grown person a child

once more but coals of hope burn in each heart

a small salvation

the peadove in the cage with healing wing

is fed and watered given proper care

but other birds have better cause to sing

 

in open freedom far beyond the ring

of human fences when we who now spare

the peadove in the cage with healing wing

 

have made the choice to take away the sting

of what was cruel in this whole affair

but other birds have better cause to sing

 

about the matters that our causes bring

and so their voices carry on the air

while peadove in the cage with healing wing

 

must be imprisoned though fed like a king

lacking all liberty and full of fear

but other birds have better cause to sing

 

upon the day we choose this bird to spring

out of its lodge and back into the the air

the peadove in the cage with healing wing

but other birds have better cause to sing

Capturing the State

John Maxwell

When I read that Trevor Munroe and his cohorts are warning about the dangers of baddies capturing the state I remember 1963 when Trevor was a student at UWI and his daddy, Huntley, was quite properly threatening to have me arrested for criminal libel.

In those days people like Trevor and I were exercised about the prospect of the Jamaican state being captured by local elites. In discussions at my house with Trevor and some other members of the Young Socialist League, I mentioned my theory that Jamaica was controlled by about 21 families and that they could be tracked quite easily. Whenever a member of one of these families died, whole swathes of trade and industry were closed down on the day of the funeral and the names of these enterprises were published in the Gleaner to impress the hoi polloi.

One of Trevor's associates took up my idea in a pamphlet which really did not do justice to the theory. It is an idea that is still relevant, particularly when the society is delving into the decision-making behind FINSAC and other manifestations of private sector hegemony. The media and others are asking Omar Davies for answers to question which they already know; rather like a cuckolded husband asking his wife for the name of her lover. Quite simply, the Jamaican elite threatened to use their money to bet against the Jamaican currency and create political chaos. The high interest rate regime was a socially sanctioned bribe to encourage the rich to behave themselves. Remember how they derided Butch Stewart's campaign to stabilise the exchange rate? It is my opinion that blaming Omar Davies for the economic debacle that is Jamaica is like blaming the undertaker for the murder. That is why in 1997 I described the Patterson economic regime as the greatest machine for the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich since the end of slavery. When the IMF/World Bank Washington Consensus was consolidating its takeover of Western hemisphere politics most of us were unaware of the connections between the pot-banging housewives of Chile and the formation of new private sector coalitions all over the Americas to repel and defeat bloodthirsty socialists intent on such revolutionary anti-democratic schemes as National Minimum Wages, Equal Rights for Women and human rights for Haitians. One of the first casualties, of course, was Salvador Allende and Chilean democracy. Jamaica soon followed.

A Brief History of Freedom

John Maxwell

This time last year I was in the throes of preparing to dispatch a petition to the then President-elect of the United States. The petition or open letter to Barack Obama was never sent, largely because I was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer and ordered to undergo treatment urgently. It was entirely my fault that though the petition had already been signed by a couple of hundred people it was never sent. Haitians, Jamaicans, other Caribbean people, English and American people, French people, Canadians and others from all over the world, had endorsed the call for Barack Obama to seize the mantle of the Liberator and to restore to the people of Haiti their freedom, liberty, dignity and all their human rights. As I say, the letter was never sent. I wonder whether it have had any effect had it been sent. Looking at what has happened to Honduran democracy and this week's latest farce in Haiti, I have my doubts. I am excerpting the letter here. What do you think? When the Haitians spoke of Freedom they did not qualify it. They named a major promenade after John Brown, and offered Lincoln a Union Army brigade to complete the service they had begun to render in the American War of Independence. In our letter to the President-elect we began by noting the coincidence of Mr Obama's electoral victory in the bicentennial year of the end of the slave trade, an achievement owing much to the Haitian struggle. We continued

We, the undersigned, are a group of people of many nations, of all classes and callings moved by what we consider an overwhelming moral imperative to seek assistance for Haiti in breaking a vicious circle of defamation, economic oppression, external political and military interference that has unjustly constrained for nearly two centuries, the exercise of Haiti's hard-won independence, freedom and liberty.

Because of these malign factors the Haitian people have been reduced to penury; most are unemployed, many are starving and their land and environment degraded by decades of over-exploitation. A proud people whose forefathers once produced enough to make other peoples wealthy and powerful, are now prevented from exercising their own free will and genius in deciding their own destiny.

Despite these factors the Haitian spirit remains free, undaunted and optimistic. The Haitians want to be free – to be themselves, to employ their own genius and strength as they did in their unique struggle for independence, defeating powers mightier than themselves to abolish slavery and to assert their independence and freedom

Now, as they languish prisoners in their own land, justice and humanity demand that the Haitian people should be able to reclaim the dignity and respect they have earned by centuries of their struggle for human rights and dignity for themselves and for other nations and peoples.

The circumstances surrounding this demand are so important and so extraordinary that we believe it is important to set them out in some detail. This historical narrative included the following:

You are aware that two hundred and four years ago the people of Haiti, having defeated the armies of France (twice) and of Britain and Spain, the greatest powers of that time, declared their independence and simultaneously abolished slavery. The Haitians were the first and only people in the world to abolish the evil system that enslaved them.

Their struggle effectively destroyed the trans-Atlantic Trade in Africans and accelerated freedom for those enslaved in the British and other empires.

The Haitians did more: the Haitian Revolution invented the concept of universal emancipation, guaranteeing the freedom of any enslaved person who set foot on Haitian soil.

The Haitians went even further: Haiti was the first, and for a long time, the only state in the world to recognise the universal equality of rights for all human beings regardless of sex, economic condition or any other consideration. It was the first state to implement human rights universally and unconditionally at a time when the only free people in other modern states were white adult male property owners.

Human freedom was then and is now, of transcendental importance to the Haitians.

In 1816 – with their economy still in ruins after a twelve year war of independence, while blockaded by greater powers and prevented from international trade, the Haitians made an heroic and decisive contribution to the independence of six major countries in Spanish South America. Haiti gave the then-penniless and friendless liberator Simon Bolivar soldiers, ships, arms,, ammunition and provisions to prosecute the liberation of South America. The Haitians asked in return only one thing from Bolivar: that whenever he liberated a country he should also liberate those who were enslaved.

It was the Haitian support of Bolivar in his liberation of South America which made possible the Monroe Doctrine by which the US forbade European attempts to re-colonise South America.

Clearly, Haiti has made enormous contributions to the cause of human freedom and the world owes her an unpayable debt.

The world has not been as kind to Haiti. After brief review of the twentieth century history of Haiti we related how Haitian democracy had been destroyed by its enemies within Haiti and outside. First, in 1992:

"The new President's (Jean Bertrand Aristide) aims were simple: that all Haitians be treated justly as God's children, that all have food and shelter, and that all take pride in their own Kreyol language and culture. He said he wanted "to build Utopia on the dungheap" left behind by the dictators

Elements of the Duvalier army, backed by elements of the business and elite classes promoted a coup which ended with the attempted assassination and departure into exile of the lawfully elected President Aristide after only six months in office.

Mr Patrick Robinson, a distinguished Jamaican jurist (now President of the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague) went to Haiti on behalf of the Inter American Human Rights Commission in 1994. He reported

"The people in Haiti have the same emotions and aspirations as the citizens of any other state in the organisation. They have within themselves an enormous capacity for warmth and love and friendship and endurance and a great yearning for peace, justice and democracy. But a people do not endure the hardships, the deprivation, the violence, the victimisation and the enormous disappointments that the Haitians have experienced over the past 32 months without their faith in humanity and their expectations of decency and justice being challenged in a serious way .… The Commission received reports of rape and sexual abuse of the wives and relatives of men who are active supporters of President Aristide; women are also raped, not only because of their relationship to men who support President Aristide, but because they also support President Aristide; thus, sexual abuse is used as an instrument of repression and political persecution."

In 2001 former President Aristide was again inaugurated as President after another overwhelming electoral victory. A campaign, led by the same elements responsible for the first coup but this time directed and openly supported by various agencies of the US and Canadian and French governments, including the CIA, the State Department, John McCain's International Republican Institute, USAID and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) , promoted the formation of a small and divided Opposition formed by a assemblage of Haitian NGOs and supported by elements of the corrupt army dissolved by President Aristide.

This opposition, on the basis of a few disputed election results unconnected to the election of the President and before he took office, refused to work or even speak to President Aristide to resolve political problems. The opposition, which at all times represented a small minority of the Haitian people, was supported by non-Haitian elements, American, Canadian and French, in their demand that President Aristide must leave office.

No substantive reason has ever been presented to support this demand.

“Roundup-Ready” Thinkers

John Maxwell

 

By the time you read this it should be official – the end of the Triangular Trade, the traffic in human flesh, sugar and consumer goods between Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean begun 500 years ago. It will soon be transformed by "Globalisation" into a cat's cradle of exploitative relationships in which the exploiters and the exploited will remain the same, only the terms of trade will be transformed to protect the guilty. Europe's trade commissioner, Catherine Ashton, told the world's press on Wednesday that within the next few days the Europeans are close to a deal to end the world's longest-running trade dispute and bolster the World Trade Organisation, whose Doha negotiations to free up global commerce have at times been held hostage by the row. What Ms Ashton meant was that the former Caribbean, African and Pacific colonies of Europe will at long last lose the tariff protection which kept their lands addicted to producing bananas and sugar as against producing food for their people. It was a serious addiction for these nations, comparable to but worse than addiction to crack or alcohol, distracting the addicts from productive thought and activity and promoting the short-cut, Anancy mentality. In Jamaica the end of plantation banana and sugar cane may bring enormous benefits to our national health and well-being. Plantation economics depend heavily on labour-sparing techniques. No longer are weeds eliminated by hoes or harrows but by spraying ferociously poisonous chemicals which are 'biocides', in Rachel Carson's formulation, enemies of life which kill everything. In plantations such as Jamaica or Central America the biocide of choice is, as in the rest of the 'civilised' world, a Monsanto Chemicals product called Roundup. Roundup is a package deal. The farmer buys soya bean or wheat seeds from Monsanto which has altered the genes of the seed to make the emerging plant resistant to Roundup – or glyphosate as it is known in the world of chemists. Roundup is not a simple product; it contains other chemicals – catalysts – to intensify or accelerate the penetration of glyphosate, so making it more potent. The problem with these so called surfactants and accelerants is that some are even more toxic than glyphosate and they are not simply more poisonous to weeds, they are more poisonous to everything, including fungi, worms, rats and human beings.

A recent article in the journal Toxicology reports that very low doses of Roundup not only disrupt human hormone function but also kill human liver cells within 24 hours of exposure.

"The toxicity of some of the formulations was independent of how much glyphosate - the active herbicide in Roundup - they contained, suggesting it is other "inert" ingredients that may alone - or in combination with each other and/or the weed-killer - assault the cells. This study's results are similar to prior studies that find human embryo cells are affected more by the Roundup formulations and an inert ingredient than by the active ingredient."

What is even more alarming is that all formulations of the weed-killer – even and perhaps especially those with reduced glyphosate levels – were potent hormone disruptors. Hormone disruptors mimic or suppress the action of human hormones producing premature puberty in young girls, for instance, or feminising boys and deforming their genitalia.

There is worse to come. Soils are composed of organic (living) and inorganic (non-living) material. Worms and fungi are among the organic components of coil, rock and sand are inorganic. In good soils these components are in balance and harmony. In vegetation killed by Roundup the normal balance of fungi is upset, penicilliums are killed while toxic fungi of the fusarium family begin to flourish.