Open Letter to Santa Claus

“As I said before, the birth of Christ is celebrated all over the world. When I say the whole world it does not mean that all people would observe it in the same manner. In all the places that I have visited, including the Muslims and the Buddhists, We have seen the observance. But for Christians it is an act conducted with love.”
~H.I.M. Haile Selassie

Dear Santa Claus,

I hope I don’t offend you but I must admit you were never part of my childhood, and the butt of jokes in my adult years. You were the fat, caucasian magical elf-man who leaves you presents to confirm that some white child was a good kid, whilst in Jamaica we just got Green Grinches filling their political coffers. Wheatley the Grinch who stole Petrojam, Holness the Grinch who dodged his stash in St. Lucia, Seaga the Grinch who sold us to the C.I.A. But this is not about the Grinches, I’ve meditating your esteemed post Santa… “why is it you never come to the ghetto?” “Is it because we don’t have chimneys in Jamaica?” “has your elfly magic staved off global warming from melting away your mythical North Pole home?” “Are you’re X-mas lists longer now that you have emails and whatsapp?” “Are you elves, enslaved or dwarves from some major human trafficking ring?” “How come I’ve never seen you mentioned in the Bible?” “It’s Jesus’ Earthstrong Party why do you gotta be hogging the spotlight though?”

Anyway as much as Marcia Griffiths and Chronixx having been asking why is it you don’t come to the ghetto… right now… to me it doesn’t even make any sense you come, because you have the whole world or almost to deliver to and mi nuh want them hold you up a search you when you a come through the Zoso and SOE in Montego Bay and St. Catherine, it suppose to take forever to pack that bag and organize it, it suppose to take forever for the to search it too, and sure know seh the kiddies round the world don’t want no root up present. Also you may have two nerf super soakers or a few water guns, and a don’t want the police to charge you, worse if you have any fire-crackers and so.

“Christmas” is a Catholic version of a pagan holiday to greet the New Year and be thankful for the autumn harvest of summer crops. Why some Christians continually get worked up over how a pagan holiday is acknowledged by commercial businesses in a capitalist economy defies common sense and reason. But be warned Santa… I hear Santa means Saint, so I am assuming you have some Catholic lineage as they are the group most fond of Sainthood, and with heavy African religious retention around here, Jamaicans tend to be a little Catholic and Pope averse in these streets.

Papa Claus it is worth asking also, since the pagan festival of the winter solstice, already thousands of years old when Christianity arrived on the scene. The ancient druids celebrated the rebirth of the sun; the Greeks made it the birthday of Zeus; the Romans debased it and called it Saturnalia; the Jews attached it to the rebirth of their religion after it had been "killed" by the Syrians; the Christians turned it into Jesus's birthday; is that the reason you “fava” Odin, Father Time and Zeus and dem man deh so much?

I know it seems I am skipping all over the place but, remember up at the beginning of the letter I mentioned climate change, well that is an ecological hazard, don’t it? I was wondering if you could help us with small ecosystem problem… if you ever come here that is! Well you see they have some deer in Portland that is reported to be “nyaming dung” the farm dem and whole of the place there… Rudolph and Prancer them must want “likkle” rest man… just do we a favour and take the deer off our hands.

Don Claus, I and I wanna know, is Santa just a jolly ol’, harmless, friendly fellow? Or is there something or someone else hiding behind jolly ol’ St. Nick? For… the next thing… as a Rasta-man and a parent, mi nuh like strange people, especially man come a mi yard, Jah man, when you see the Rasta gate up a Paradise, if you come a Jamaica and manage to make it to Mobay, just skip it… cause mi paranoid, so if mi see a man a mi yard near all midnight, everybody know mi broke so a must mi woman or pickney you a come fi trouble, nuh dweet... I will chop you. Plus in my household we practise not to take things from people… mi nuh want nuh man try tame mi child wid sweets, cause mi nuh know who a perv. Plus mi hear bout you and that pickney siddung inna lap business… mi nuh like dat!!! Worse all lap business banned as of Dalton X-Factor moment.

I know it seems I am picking on you and going really hard but… You ever noticed how easy it is to transform "Satan" from "Santa"? Just move the "n" to the end. And presto! "Satan" appears… Hmmm!!! An internet Google search on "Satan Claus" [not Santa Claus – but SATAN Claus] found over 4000 hits! Obviously, there are many that tie the two together.

The rearranging of letters (called anagrams) to hide secret names or words has long been practiced in the occult. So Missa Claus, how do you explain that… these are the hings that make I man get so sceptic…

Anyway… I won’t distress you anymore with my philosophical ranting and ramble Missa Claus, but if you do exist and if you are working… I beg you don’t fret on us here in Jamaica, we have Selassie and Ananse and Yahweh and all kind backative down here, but I beg you remember the children dying in the Gaza and Yemen, the one’s being trafficked, the Little Drummer Boys and all the Little Match Girls, the children in sweatshops… yah man, if you can deal with those children first then you can have my ratings. Anyway mi boss likkle more, a have a feeling mi nuh deh pon you nice list.

Yours respectfully

Yannick Nesta Pessoa.

Blessed Winter Solstice to You and Yours.

Madiba: Aluta Continua

African leaders whose vision could be toppled by the secret hand of capitalism!

“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.” ― Nelson Mandela

The chronicle of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, and the variety of ways in which his story crossed paths with Jamaica is important to the island's history and that of our diaspora. It must become part of the story of the emerging self-belief of people of African descent. It is also an account of a human being allowing his best and noblest self to prevail.

It is easy and very plausible to tell Mandela's story without also speaking to Jamaica's story. But as a Jamaican it would be remiss of me not to mention, how this little nation, smaller than the population of Soweto and separated by thousands of nautical miles from the shorings of South Africa, prognosticated for the isolation of South Africa in response to apartheid from as early as 1961, three years before Mandela was condemned to Robben Island.

One of Jamaica's prime ministers, Michael Manley, was in numerous ways the designer of the sporting and cultural boycott of South Africa, which, incidentally, was more cogent than economic sanctions to that degree that the psychology of being a white South African was concerned. It is little wonder that Jamaica was one of the first two countries visited by Madiba after his incarceration. He visited Jamaica and Cuba in July 1991, with our beloved Winnie Madikize Mandela at his side, and they received honour from the Jamaican people.

He was a visionary, he had a grand project. He was political. He had an avid sense of strategic timing. Yet he wasn't Machiavellian. He was loved because he was neither Mugabe nor Blair. His vision ran through his life. He was noble. And, like a virtuous father, to be kind, he sometimes could be cruel.

He was distinguished and most especially he had an vast love for his people and for the project of establishing a non-racial and non-sexist South Africa.

Mandela vigorously defended of his loyalties to Iran, Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, all of whom supported him in his battles against South Africa's apartheid regime.

Mandela was on the U.S. terrorism watch list until 2008, when then-President George W. Bush signed a bill removing Mandela from it. (Obama is yet to oblige Marcus Mosiah Garvey similar courtesies.)

South Africa’s apartheid regime designated Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) as a terrorist organization for its battle against the nation’s legalized system of racial segregation that lasted from 1948 to 1994. (Marxist legal theory at work here: Karl Marx argued that the law is the mechanism by which one social class, usually referred to as the "ruling class", keeps all the other classes in a disadvantaged position).

Former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher also described Mandela’s ANC as a “typical terrorist organization” in 1987, refusing to impose sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid regime. President Ronald Reagan did as well.

But Madiba was more than that, he was an African man of moral sense. He was a man of virtue. Moral excellence and moral sense that made him so acclaimed globally since he led a nation at a time when virtue and morality were universally absent amongst global leaders. He slammed Bush and Blair for the war on Iraq: 'What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight and who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.' For Blair he had these words: 'He is the foreign minister of the United States. He is no longer prime minister of Britain.'

He rose above acrimony and bitterness. He was unselfish and could reach out to his enemies and cross many divides. He was eminent because he was the great unifier. In many ways he was the designer of the New South Africa.

Mandela was neither magnate nor angel. Mandela wasn't unaccompanied in the grand journey of African redemption in South Africa. One only has to read Bertolt Brecht’s great poem, Questions From a Worker Who Reads, to know: 'Who built Thebes of the 7 gates? / In the books you will read the names of kings. / Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?...'

The fight to emancipate South Africa was a collectivized crusade. Furthermore it was the force of the most oppressed, the workers in the factories, the destitute in the community, blue-collar women and youth that ultimately carried the apartheid government, if not totally to its knees, at the least to talk terms and discuss the conditions of the end of their racial scheme.

All struggle requires a vehicle, a social movement with leaders that can present political focus, tackle the arduous strategic and tactical routes. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela's ANC came to prevail. Even so, Mandela was the first to recognise the parts played by a broad array of social movements that formed the fight for national liberation and the mass democratic movement.

And while Mandela was the one to start dialogue with the apartheid government, he tied himself to the collective leadership of the ANC. He took the first steps, he led but he did so as part of a collective. He was an organisational man. He took pains to explain he was a product of the ANC. He was a man of the black, green and gold – but he could reach beyond organisational limits.

He had this quality of being able to keep people together. Even his critics – and he had them – submitted to him at the end of the day as a moral leader. Without him I can't envision how the transition would have gone.

Aye, zillions of words will be spoken and written on Madiba’s legacy, now, in the months to come, next year and thenceforth. And we will scramble to do this legacy justice. The hardest part will be to catch the essential Mandela, going beyond myth-making whilst precisely evaluating the inconsistent nature of that legacy.

Since the present can't be interpreted without understanding the past, and not everything that is haywire with current day South Africa can be put at the doorway of Zuma or Mbeki. The negotiated resolution that effected a democratic South Africa on the cornerstone of one person one vote will be reckoned as Mandela’s greatest accomplishment. It avoided the scorched earth route of bloodletting which we at present see in Syria. And even so it's those compromises that are nowadays falling apart at the seams. The unharmonious social inequality (very Marxist in nature) that has given rise to South Africa as a country of two nations: one white and relatively prosperous, the second black and poor (I believe arx would have termed these the: bourgeoisie and proletariat respectively).

Social divide the hallmark of society today!

Mandela’s legacy will likewise have to be weighed by the reality that South Africa is more disunited than ever as a result of inequality and social exclusion. The rich are richer and the poor poorer. The great unifier could undertake great emblematic acts of reconciliation to pacify the white nation but because, by definition, this involved sacrificing the redistribution of wealth, reconciliation with the whites was performed at the expense of the large majority of black people.

Mandela was great, but not so great that he could bridge the social divide built into the 21st century capitalist economy that has given us the era of the 1 percenters. It is the ill-fated timing of South Africa's transition, coming about as it did in the period in which global power got inextricably tied into the global corporation, empowered through the conventions of neoliberal globalisation. Reconciliation necessitated the forsaking of ANC policy as vocalised by Mandela on his discharge from jail, 'nationalisation of the mines, banks and monopoly industry is the policy of the ANC and the change or modification of our views in this regard is unimaginable.'

Nevertheless it's this forsaking of nationalisation, nationalisation representing the redistribution of wealth which was determined by the needs of reconciliation not just with the white establishment but with the international capitalist economy. His encounters with the international elite at Davos, the home of the World Economic Forum, convinced him that compromises needed to be made with the financiers. In the words of Ronnie Kasrils: 'That was the time from 1991–1996 that the battle for the soul of the ANC got underway and was lost to corporate power and influence. I will call it our Faustian moment when we became entrapped.'

It's exactly this capitalistic road that's verified such a calamity and which could ultimately demolish Mandela’s life’s work. To do justice to Mandela’s lifetime of commitment and sacrifice for equality betwixt black and white, the fight must continue.

It today has got to stress on subduing inequality and attaining social justice. In this fight the entire African Diaspora will require the greatness and sapience of umpteen Mandelas. Our brethren and sistren in South Africa require an organisation committed to marshalling all South African black and white for the freeing of the wealth of that state from the hands of a bantam elite. It will necessitate a movement akin to Mandela’s ANC, a social movement based on a collective leadership with the blended qualities of Steve Biko, Neville Alexander, Walter Sisulu, Albertina Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada, Fatima Meer, Chris Hani, Ruth First, Joe Slovo, Robert Sobukwe, IB Tabata and the many greats that led the battle for African liberation. But most importantly the African Diaspora and South Africa will need the multitude who take their fate into their own hands and become their own liberators.

Are these the things that Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela struggled to achieve?

The Maddening Season...

Welcome to the Maddening Season... X-Mas... eXecute-the-Masses...

This year is the year I watched the world go mad and I watched the people of Paradise unravel as the economy plummets... hearts break and minds shatter... aaah I am but the Lion in Daniel's den...

Here are a few poems I wrote in X-mases past...

CHRIST'S MAS

I had a dream where Jesus turned in his grave,
Christmas consumes the souls he came to save,
Money is master while many are slave,
Forgetting the cross and all he gave,
Gideon signs on the road of the future we pave,
Vanity is what we crave.

The cock crows thrice on Christmas eve,
Many celebrate not knowing what they believe,
Happy with the pitiful bonus they receive,
Merchants peddle using fat red saints to deceive,
All the while forgetting how the King shall grieve.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa...

ahhhmm the other poems aren't X-mas poems, just poems written during that season...

THE WANDERING JEW


I wash the dried salt and saliva from face,
I hope the scent of sin will wash away too,
I look out the window and see the world by night,
Pastel designed in mellow moods and tragedies,
And stars singing of memories in melodies and malodies,
I search the sky for a north star,
And wonder...
if the stories are true,
Is there really a wondering Jew?



ODE TO IDLE THINKERS

For all those...
Who stare out the window,
Beyond the mountain and beyond the tree,
This poem connects all those...
Who think like me.

Holding on to all those,
Though...
Shackled by people and their alleged reality,
Still manage...
To look pass the ocean and far into the sea.



___________________________________
WELL THAZ IT FOR POEMS FOR NOW...

lyrics - the freshman

The Grand '07 has begun...

the first song on my 2007 playlist is Khriz Y Angel's Ven Bailalo (Trace TV introduced me to this song)

lyrics - ven bailalo

The Never Ending Battle: 2007 & Beyond (My article for the Mirror: A new year look)


“You must abolish your slavery yourselves. Do not depend for its abolition upon god or a superman. Remember that it is not enough that a people are numerically in the majority. They must be always watchful, strong and self-respecting to attain and maintain success. We must shape our course ourselves and by ourselves.”
~ David Bowie

“I'm not a prophet or a stone aged man, just a mortal with potential of a superman. I'm living on.”
~ BenDon

Superman: Listen, what do you hear?
Lois Lane: I don't hear anything.
Superman: I hear everything. You wrote that the world doesn't need a savior, but everyday I hear people crying for one.
~Supeman Returns: The Movie


Bam bam bam bloiy bloiy bloiy chk chk thoom thoom pieee pieee blam blam bookam bookam bakkam… no amount of onomatopoeia could convey to you the grand gun orchestra that played in Norwood, Gulf, Glendevon, Canterbury, Albion and Gulley to commence the new year. Literally the year in St. James started with a BANG! At the stroke of midnight December 31, 2006 or the morn of January 1, 2007, I was at the yellow night owl’s outpost in Paradise, Glen Skeng’s shop, only to see the whole Paradise pull to halt, and I watched as multitude of people stopped what they were doing to come outside and listen to a barrage of 1001 bullets in what seemed like Gangsters sing their own anthem. I watched people listen and listened as well to gunshots on rapid from 12pm/am to 12:30am, I counted somewhere into the region of near 500 rounds, and can only imagine what I missed. “Mi never tell unnu last week she gun man a go toast to their most high profile year, unnu see it deh now?!? Mi a prophet!” The year has begun, the garrison has spoken.

Well as I told you this year is the year things change, well see! More icons have gone with Neville Willoboughy, Charles Hyatt and Saddam. Looks like I can be a prophet for real, or maybe just a Futurologist as they call the art of prediction and forecasting these days. As I write this article the national body count is already at the unlucky number 13, and as coincidence number 13 is police, who have also been some of the first to go this year. “Anywhich way” for the new year 2007, Jamaica is officially a badman place. The air is thick with a humid kind of tension, but otherwise I have some homework for you, I’d like you all to go listen to the Mavado and Busy Signal song, “Badman Place.” I’d like you to listen to the arrangement of the song, with the ominous violin in the background, it sounds like one of those climactic high strung tense sort of movie arrangements, and the lyrics… “Hell bruk loooooooose again, gun a go riiiiise, anyway, anywaaaaaaaaay, INNA badman place, place, fools get kick inna face, weed pon board while challis a blaze, yuh nuh see it inna hand, it insure inna waist, no time fi trace, Guinness we a beat, Redbull a chase, inna the place violate, get erase we nuh quarrel, inna bwoy head lead (led) a rest… inna badman place real McCoy and gangsta, police ask question, nuh get no answer, inna night, inna day, Mr. 9 (9mm), Mr. K (SK or AK), Mr. Smith and Wesson a we sponsor… shot brush off yuh face like napkins, thugs dem ready fi go rise the Gatling(s)… see and nuh see it, tings weh talk yuh cyaaan repeat or yuh get delete…” For real, that’s the Jamaican national anthem as of this year, Jamaica in no uncertain terms, is Badman Place.

So on to the matter of New Year’s resolutions. Well for all those who can’t manage the crime, I advise that you run away, very, very far away or as the new politically correct term for it in the dancehall is “tek weh yuh self.” I can’t make any resolutions on crime when no one else is making any thing more than mouth talk and yet no serious political commitment or will and no signs of real genuine or sustained effort on the part of the business sector and just general apathy and no serious activism on the part of individuals and communities. But if you still have an ear for some suggestions then they are as follows: First resolution and solution needs to be commitment to youth and employment. Most of us have failed to notice the demographic explosion we are facing, the population of Montego Bay is expanding, through birth rates and the movement of people, yet nothing has been done to address where these generation next children and teenagers will be gainfully employed, much less outfitting them with real life skills to make them an effective and labour force. Hence the response is that they have opted for careers in crime which affects us very negatively. The second resolution ought to be social investment on the part of government and the business sector. The city needs to see incentives and initiatives that encourage people to work, not just a feeble minimum wage but initiatives like profit sharing, businesses need to let employees feel apart of the system and yield benefit from the business excelling, because at the end of the day, no matter who owns the business there is no work or progress without the worker. The local government can also offer citizen awards and such that acknowledge citizen who excel in sports, academics, politics, journalism, etc. And to stem the brain drain the local government needs to pay for overachieving students that seek tertiary education and then bind them to commit at least five years of service to the city or parish in fields that can offer sustainable development.

What I would really see follow up from these suggestions is research, think tanks, public forum, dialogue, letters to editors, parish council public sessions, town meetings, civic pride, private/business sector investments, citizen activism, more radio and spy tv public announcements from the council on what is happening to address all this hell hole in which we have found ourselves.

Now sometime ago I wrote of secret wars: wars with our skin, wars on poverty, economic wars, gender wars or war of the sexes, religious wars, and shade/color wars in Jamaica and MoBay, to be very blunt and honest, this year I see those wars intensifying and am reminded of a claim Superman professes (Yes, I read comics), the claim is that he fights a “Never Ending Battle,” well ladies and gentlemen, this is what life and existence in Jamaica has become a Never Ending Battle, yup 365 days of it, so I suggest everyone take up the role and mantle of Superman and start fighting in this never ending battle or face the real possibility that you will be swept aside, in these battles, by bullets and ballots. Just before year end I was parading Paradise and Downtown in my brother’s Superman T-Shirt for about a week. So if you spot the Ras in the Superman shirt, know that the battle is raging in you neck of the woods.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa
yannickpessoa@yahoo.com