Ode to Beres Hammond

Give Thanks, Beres Hammond

How “Putting Up Resistance” Taught Me About Love, Sacrifice and Resilience

We often talk about music as entertainment. We remember the songs we danced to, the ones that soundtracked first loves, heartbreaks and celebrations. But some songs do something quieter and more lasting. They prepare us for life.

One of those songs, for me, is Beres Hammond’s “Putting Up Resistance.”

I grew up in Montego Bay in the 1980s in a house where music mattered. My mother adored Beres. His albums sat in a place of honour alongside Air Supply, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel and Sam Cooke—on vinyl and cassette. “Putting Up Resistance” became part of the soundtrack of my childhood.

What still strikes me is that, unlike so many songs we only grow into as adults, this one spoke to me right away. The message wasn’t beyond a child’s understanding. It made sense because I was already watching it unfold every day.

My father would leave home at three or four in the morning, driving deep into the Jamaican countryside to buy produce and goods before the rest of us had opened our eyes. He was supplying hotels and customers, working tirelessly to build a business and create opportunities for his family that he himself had never had.

As a child, I missed him when he was gone.

Then I heard Beres sing about wanting to stay home with his family while recognising that staying home would not make things right. Those words helped me understand my father’s sacrifice. They taught me that love is not always measured by the hours spent at home. Sometimes love looks like leaving before dawn so your children can have a better life.

"Blow wind blow, blow wind blow

I want to stay home tonight

I long to spend some time with the family

But staying home won't make it right

Sometimes the pressure make me feel like bawling

When every sign says no way out

Breaking my back to make an overtime dollar

That just goes from hand to mouth"

That was the first lesson.

The second proved even more enduring.

The song acknowledges something every Jamaican knows but few songs express so plainly: there are times when it feels as though unseen forces continually frustrate honest effort. Bureaucracy, economic hardship, disappointment and circumstance can create the sense that the odds are permanently tilted against ordinary people.

"No I never can understand it 

The way the system goes, (pressure) 

I don't know how they do it 

There's only one way things flow 

'Cause every time I lift my head above water 

And try to save myself from drown 

There's an overnight scheme all worked out 

Designed to keep ah me down 

 Still I'm I'm putting up a resistance, yeah"

Yet the brilliance of “Putting Up Resistance” is that it refuses to stop there. It does not deny hardship. It does not pretend the system is always fair. Instead, it insists that surrender is not the answer.

Those words have echoed through every stage of my adult life.

As a journalist, community activist, husband and father, I have encountered enough setbacks to become cynical. There have been moments when it would have been easy to conclude that nothing changes, that hard work is futile, that integrity is for fools. Every time those thoughts crept in, I remembered the spirit of that song.

It taught me something invaluable: I could recognise injustice without allowing it to poison my character. I could acknowledge the difficulties of the Jamaican condition without becoming bitter about them. I could keep believing that honest effort still matters.

That is no small gift.

We celebrate artists for their awards, chart success and sold-out concerts. We speak less often about the quiet ways they shape the moral imagination of a nation. Looking back, I realise that while my father showed me what perseverance looked like, Beres Hammond gave me the language to understand it. He put melody to discipline. He gave rhythm to resilience. He transformed the daily struggle of ordinary Jamaicans into something dignified rather than despairing.

I suspect I am not alone. There must be thousands of Jamaicans who unknowingly carried lessons from his music into adulthood. Songs like “Putting Up Resistance” were more than recordings. They were companions. They reminded us that endurance is not weakness, that perseverance is not naïveté, and that hope is itself an act of resistance.

So this is simply an expression of gratitude.

Thank you, Mister Hammond, for reminding a young Jamaican boy that life would be difficult without convincing him it was hopeless. Thank you for helping me understand my father’s sacrifices while he was still making them. And thank you for proving that sometimes the greatest gift an artist can give is not escape from reality, but the courage to face it.

History Games: It's a Vibe!!!

 

I Grew Up on Commodore 64. Forty Years Later, AI Helped Me Build the History Games I Always Wanted.

Every now and then, technology reaches back across time and taps you on the shoulder.

For me, that tap came while "vibe coding."

I am not a software engineer.

I am a philosophy graduate. A journalist. A community activist. A history teacher. A graphic designer. An old-school computer nerd whose first encounters with programming were on the Commodore 64, typing BASIC programs from magazines and wondering how lines of code could conjure worlds from nothing more than imagination and patience.

Life took me elsewhere.

Into newspapers.
Into classrooms.
Into community meetings.
Into activism.
Into philosophy.
Into trying to understand Jamaica—not just as a place, but as an unfolding story.

Yet somewhere in the back of my mind, that little programmer never really died.

Today, artificial intelligence has become something extraordinary. Not because it replaces human creativity, but because it lowers the walls between imagination and creation. It has allowed people like me—people with HTML, CSS, a little BASIC, an object-oriented way of thinking, and decades of accumulated experience—to begin building ideas that once would have remained trapped inside notebooks.

So I started making games.

Not because I wanted to become the next AAA game developer.

Because I wanted to teach history differently.

History Should Be Played

Too often, history in our schools becomes a procession of dates, governors, acts, examinations and memorisation.

Students are asked to remember history without ever living it.

But history is conflict.
It is uncertainty.
It is difficult choices.
It is ordinary people trying to survive extraordinary circumstances.

Games understand this instinctively.

When you make a decision inside a game, you become emotionally invested in its outcome.

That is why I began experimenting with interactive historical simulations.

One prototype explores Jamaica's colonial past in the spirit of The Oregon Trail, where survival depends not only on resources but on understanding the social, political and environmental realities of the period.

Another prototype experiments with a free-village RPG, imagining what life might have looked like after Emancipation as formerly enslaved Jamaicans attempted to build communities, economies and identities from almost nothing.

They are rough.

They are unfinished.

Sometimes they break.

Sometimes the code behaves like a stubborn mule.

But they are alive.

And every version teaches me something new.

Vibe Coding Meets Old-School Thinking

People talk about AI as if it performs magic.

It doesn't.

It amplifies curiosity.

The AI doesn't know what it wants to build.

I do.

Years spent writing HTML.

Designing graphics.

Thinking philosophically.

Teaching students.

Writing newspaper columns.

Understanding Jamaican communities.

All of those experiences become architecture.

The AI simply helps me assemble the bricks faster.

It feels strangely familiar.

Back in the Commodore 64 days, we experimented, failed, rewrote, debugged and learned by doing.

Today, I'm doing exactly the same thing.

The tools have changed.

The mindset hasn't.

Why Jamaica Needs Educational Games

Imagine a Jamaican child learning about the Maroons by negotiating treaties instead of memorising dates.

Imagine understanding the Morant Bay Rebellion by making impossible decisions under impossible conditions.

Imagine building a free village after Emancipation and discovering, through gameplay, why land ownership mattered so profoundly.

Imagine Caribbean history becoming something students discuss long after class ends—not because they have an exam tomorrow, but because they couldn't stop playing.

This is bigger than entertainment.

This is cultural preservation.

This is digital heritage.

This is education that refuses to be boring.

Building in Public

These projects are still prototypes.

They're messy.

They're experimental.

They're unfinished.

But ideas don't become reality by hiding inside hard drives.

So I'm sharing them.

Explore the demos:

• History Game Prototype:
https://yahnyk.github.io/History-Game/

• Other History Game Experiments:
https://yahnyk.github.io/other-history-games/

• Free Village RPG Prototype:
https://yahnyk.github.io/Free-Village-RPG2/

Every click, every suggestion and every piece of feedback helps shape what these projects might eventually become.

A Caribbean Dream

My hope isn't simply to build games.

My hope is to help build a Caribbean game-development culture rooted in our own stories.

We've spent decades consuming other people's myths.

Perhaps it's time to export our own.

Jamaica possesses one of the richest histories on Earth.

The Caribbean is overflowing with stories of resistance, resilience, migration, innovation and imagination.

Those stories deserve to exist not only in textbooks and museums, but on laptops, tablets, consoles and phones around the world.

If these prototypes inspire one student to love history...

If one teacher decides to use them in a classroom...

If one young Jamaican decides they too can become a developer...

Then every late night has been worthwhile.

Help Me Build the Next Chapter

Independent projects like these take time, research, testing and countless hours of experimentation.

If you believe Caribbean stories deserve innovative educational games...

If you want to see these prototypes evolve into polished classroom tools...

If you'd simply like to support an independent Jamaican creator trying something different...

You can help.

☕ Support on Buy Me a Coffee:
https://buymeacoffee.com/yahnyk2099

❤️ Or donate via PayPal:
https://www.paypal.com/donate?token=jOFxdH0wu5zz6thF6AEZcjAu0Qh2vflf0CcBCBlAStCCyGahxd97YrKhMP973CInxFVjsvSjybQWLp9D

You aren't just funding games.

You're helping build a new way of telling Caribbean history.

One decision.

One student.

One line of code.

One story at a time.

Skettel Kingdom

How the Faithful City Became a Digital Whore

My Take on Jamaica’s J$500 Million OnlyFans Bill

“How the faithful city has become a whore! She who was full of justice—righteousness lodged in her—but now murderers.” 

— Isaiah 1:21

I read that verse and used to think of ancient Jerusalem. But then, when I read the news: Jamaicans spent nearly J$500 million on OnlyFans last year, I can only think Jamaica has become The Skettel Kingdom. More than any other English‑speaking Caribbean country. According to OnlyGuider—a web activity tracker that watches the watchers—we are the top subscribers in the region. I knew there would be a reckoning for all this 4th wave feminism, Sex and the City, Fifty Shades of Grey, Mills and Boons demographic. It has brought us to the Gen Z Jezebel, the 21st century skettel and toxic femininity in heavy doses.

Half a billion dollars. For digital pumpum.

Let that settle.

The Economy Is So Good…

People will tell you this is a sign of prosperity, probably those garbed in green. Money flowing, credit cards swiping, girls getting bags. But I look at it different. If the economy was truly good, would so many young women be selling digital flesh from their bedroom? Would so many young men be either  tapping out or tapping "subscribe" instead of learning to talk to a real woman? Why is it that in this 21st century, we have digitised the world's oldest profession? Is this how far humanity has come? Is this what Jamaicans have become?

Free pumpum pic soon stop send pon WhatsApp. That era dead. Now everything is pay-per-view, subscription-based, locked behind a monthly fee. The good tings dem? You don't get them for free anymore. Even the artists—the very same dancers and influencers you see on stage—them a swear up and down that they "empowered," but at the end of the month, OnlyFans takes its 20% and London laughs all the way to the bank.

Did you all see that article of the sex group in the church in Kingston? There seems to be female sexual epidemic going on and the church has been no exception.

Gen Z Incels With Online Banking

Let me tell you about the other side of the transaction. The subscribers. A whole generation of young men—some of them incels, let's call it what it is—sitting with online banking apps and no real romantic prospects. They will tell you straight: "Mi cannot afford real pumpum." Or some will be so based and say "Rasta f--k dem bitches, they too too expensive and demanding"

So what do they do? They pay for the ethereal version. The surreal. The digital. The virtual. Pixels arranged to look like skin. A ghost you can watch but never touch. Others will invest in flesh lights or flesh like and fall further and further down the digital rabbit holes and graphic glory holes.

Mi BRC. "You will own nothing and be happy!" That is one of mantras of the technofeudal lords and the transhumanists that would see humanity diminished and subdued. This is the ethos of the Epstein class and esoteric, occult elites. That's the slogan of our age, and we have swallowed it whole. You won't own a house. You won't own land. But you will own a monthly subscription to a woman who will never know your name. And somehow we call that progress.

Could I-Wayne have said it any better when he chanted:

"Bun babylon slaveries

Dem separate man and woman 

Lock dem in a cages 

Dem seh more sodomy to less babies 

Dem seh more birth control and abortion for di ladies for ages 

Di book of life pages" 

Is this funny when you consider that Trump stopped USAID from spending millions promoting the LGBT (LGBTQQIP2SAA or LGBTIQCAPGNGFNBA) agenda in Jamaica. Now consider our declining birth rate and you don't see any connections still. Then go to https://jmail.world/ and check out Jeffrey Epstein's emails for yourself, note his interests and activities in Jamaica. Am I sounding conspiratorial now. Maybe we are just reading too much into things eh?

My searches revealed that Jeffrey Epstein had interests in Jamaica primarily related to his funding of scientific research, particularly studies on elite Jamaican sprinters. Emails indicate discussions about genetic research and its potential connection to athletic performance. 

Here's a summary of the findings: 

Scientific Research Funding: Epstein provided financial support to evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers for research, some of which focused on Jamaican sprinters. This research aimed to study the genetics of elite athletes in Jamaica, with mentions of athletes like Usain Bolt, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Yohan Blake, and Elaine Thompson.

 

Property Mentioned: An email references a property located in the "Tryall Club in Jamaica."

 

Travel: There are mentions of flights to and from Jamaica.

 

Personal Experience: An email from Peter Mandelson states he was "back from Jamaica." Another email from Robert Trivers mentions being in Jamaica and having limited internet access.

 

Overall, Epstein's interests in Jamaica appear to be primarily linked to his support for scientific research, specifically in the field of sports genetics, rather than any personal or business ventures beyond that.

Technofeudalism and Transhumanism, Right Here in Jamaica

I used those words in my comment, and people thought I was being fancy. But listen. Technofeudalism is real: the platform owns the castle, the creators are serfs, and the subscribers pay rent for a glimpse of something they'll never truly possess. OnlyFans takes its cut, sends nothing back to our economy, and we are left with less money and more loneliness.

Transhumanism sounds like science fiction until you realize it means detaching human experience from the human body. When a man pays for digital pumpum instead of seeking physical intimacy, he is already halfway to being a brain in a vat with a credit card. The flesh is no longer necessary. The algorithm is enough.

This is not a joke. This is the infection spreading through our nation.

A Deeper Look at the Birth Rate

Here is where the story gets darker. You cannot have a generation of young men satisfying their sexual needs through a screen and expect the population to replace itself.

Jamaica's birth rate has been declining for years. The latest data shows we are barely above replacement level in some parishes, and below it in others. The reasons given are always the same: cost of living, women's education, delayed marriage. All true. But let me add another reason that nobody wants to say out loud.

If boys are going digital, what are we expecting? Virtual babies?

You cannot subscribe your way to a family. A monthly OnlyFans charge does not produce a child. A screen does not hold your hand in the delivery room. And a generation of young men who have learned that intimacy is something you purchase, consume, and close like a browser tab—those men are not going to become fathers. They are not going to become husbands. They are going to become permanent subscribers, paying rent to a platform until their credit card declines.

What the Half-Billion Actually Buys

The evidence from OnlyGuider doesn't tell me whether people are spending because they are rich or because they are broken. But I know our streets. I know our unemployment lines. I know the young men who scroll for hours and the young women who calculate whether showing a little more will pay the light bill.

Half a billion dollars buys a lot of things. It could have bought microloans for small farmers. Scholarships for girls who don't want to take their clothes off. Mental health services for the lonely. Fertility support for couples who actually want children. Instead, it bought subscriptions. Screenshots. Temporary dopamine.

And at the end of the month, the content is still there, but the money is gone—and so is the next generation.

So What Does Isaiah Say to Us Now?

The prophet didn't condemn the city because of a few sex workers. He condemned it because the whole covenant system had rotted. Justice had become transaction. Righteousness had become performance. And the people had learned to pay for what once received freely—love, loyalty, touch, truth, and yes, children.

That's us. That's Jamaica in 2026. We have turned the faithful city into a digital market, and we are spending half a billion dollars to prove it. And in the same breath, we are wringing our hands about why young people aren't having babies.

You cannot replace flesh with pixels and then act surprised when the cradle stays empty.

I'm not calling for a ban. I'm not standing on a street corner with a sign. I'm just a man who saw the news, remembered the Bible, looked at my own country's birth rate, and felt something between a laugh and a sob.

The free pumpum pic really did stop sending on WhatsApp.

And now? Now we pay.

And we will own nothing.

And we will birth no one.

And somehow, we are supposed to be happy.

— A Jamaican who still remembers that children require more than a subscription.

Petition: Bob Marley Statue in Montego Bay Harbour or Bay Area

I Have a dream... or I dreamt rather, that there was a monumental statue of Bob Marley in the Monteg Bay harbour... or Bay area. think this dream would be great to bring to reality. This is why I am throwing it out there into the universe!

Montego Bay, Jamaica, the land of warm sunshine, white sandy beaches, and reggae music. It is a place that has long been associated with the iconic musician Bob Marley, who has left an indelible mark on the world with his soulful and uplifting music. Marley's legacy has transcended generations, and his music has become a symbol of hope, love, and unity for people all over the world. It is time to honor him with a monumental statue in the Montego Bay harbor. Don't you think so? It's not like they're in a rush to make him a national hero. We got to do something!

The statue of Bob Marley would serve as a national project that stimulates job creation and fosters national pride. It would also bolster tourism and increase the number of ships coming into the harbor just to see our Liberty-esque statute of Bob Marley, thus boosting the local economy. Imagine it being visible from maybe as far as Sandy Bay in Hanover. The statue would be a visual representation of the man who has become an international icon, an ambassador of Jamaica's music and culture.

The statue would be a symbol of Marley's commitment to social justice and his message of peace and unity. It would inspire visitors to learn more about Jamaica's history and culture, and it would serve as a beacon of hope for the local community. The statue would be a place for people to gather, to celebrate, and to remember the man who brought joy and hope to millions of people around the world.

The idea of a monumental statue of Bob Marley in Montego Bay's harbor is more than just a symbol of national pride; it is a testament to Jamaica's rich cultural legacy and a beacon for tourism and trade. The statue would be Jamaica's colossus of Rhodes, akin to the Jesus statue in Brazil, the Statue of Liberty in New York, and the Renaissance Monuments in Senegal and Burkina Faso.

This statue would not just be grand for grandeur's sake; it would be a celebration of our human capital and intelligence. As Marcus Garvey and Friedrich Nietzsche both believed, "Art is the highest form of expression of the human intelligence; without art, one's civilization is not complete." This statue would be the embodiment of our collective cultural identity and creativity, culminating in one magnificent piece of art. Like the Sphinx, Obelisks, and Stella of old, this statue would stand the test of time and be a testament to our civilization for millennia to come.

Beyond the cultural significance, the statue would also serve as a job stimulation national project, creating employment opportunities for local artisans, architects, engineers, and builders. The project would bolster tourism and enhance the harbor's appeal to ships from around the world, boosting trade and the local economy. 

But why Bob Marley? Why is he the right person to honor with such a monumental statue?  Bob Marley's music is not just Jamaica's national treasure; it is a global phenomenon. His music has touched people from all walks of life and transcended cultural barriers. His message of love, unity, and freedom resonates with people across the globe, making him a symbol of hope and inspiration. Furthermore, Bob Marley's legacy extends beyond his music. He was a political and cultural icon who fought for social justice and equality. His influence can still be seen today in Jamaica's vibrant Rastafarian movement and the wider global reggae community.

A monumental statue of Bob Marley in Montego Bay's harbor would be a fitting tribute to this cultural icon and an emblem of Jamaica's rich cultural heritage. It would serve as a rallying point for national pride, stimulate employment, and enhance tourism and trade. It is an idea worth pursuing, not just for the short-term benefits but for the lasting legacy it would leave for future generations to come. Marley's music was a reflection of his personal beliefs and his dedication to social justice. He believed in the power of music to bring people together and to inspire change. He used his platform to speak out against oppression and to call for unity and peace. His music has transcended borders and cultures, and it has become a symbol of hope and inspiration for people all over the world. What more do I need to say to make the case more, clear, more real, more necessary?

The statue would be a tribute to the man who brought Jamaica's music and culture to the world stage. It would be a testament to the power of music to transcend language, borders, and cultures. It would be a symbol of hope for the future, a reminder that even in the darkest of times, we can find inspiration and hope in the beauty of music and the human spirit.

In conclusion, the erection of a monumental statue of Bob Marley in the Montego Bay harbor or on one of its Bogue islands would be a powerful symbol of Jamaica's music, culture, and history. It would stimulate job creation, foster national pride, and bolster tourism, all while honoring the legacy of one of the world's most beloved musicians. It would be a tribute to the power of music to bring people together, to inspire change, and to bring hope to millions of people around the world. Let us come together and make this vision a reality, for the sake of our community, our country, and our world.

#BobMarleyStatue #MontegoBayHarbour #BayArea #Jamaica #MusicLegend #ReggaeKing #OneLove #Petition #CulturalIcon

On Being a Grassroots Activist in Western Jamaica

As a resident of Montego Bay, Jamaica, I have seen the amazing work being done by grassroots activists in my community and around the world. These change-makers are truly the backbone of local empowerment, working tirelessly to address social, political, and economic injustices. They are the ones fighting to modify unfair laws, promoting peace, human rights, and equality, and responding to emergencies with unwavering courage and determination.

As an activist in Paradise Acres and Norwood I have experienced firsthand the challenges facing grassroots projects and civil society organizations (CSOs) in the country. Despite the tireless efforts of those who seek to create positive change in their communities, the obstacles are numerous, from the walls that separate bureaucracy from grassroots initiatives to the lack of government support for social entrepreneurship. Not only that but, grassroots activists often face tremendous challenges. Corruption, lack of funding, and a lack of support from allies that can make it difficult for these change-makers to sustain their efforts and continue to make a positive impact in their communities.

Before I dive too deeply into this discussion let me clarifying what I mean by grassroot activism. Grassroots activism is a bottom-up approach to social and political change that empowers individuals and communities to address their own issues and bring about positive change. In Montego Bay, Jamaica, community-based organizations and civil society groups are on the front-lines of these grassroot initiatives working towards creating a better future for the people of Jamaica.

Montego Bay, located on the northwest coast of Jamaica, is one of the island's largest cities and a major tourist destination. The history of Montego Bay is intertwined with Jamaica's colonial past, with the city serving as a hub for the slave trade and later as a center for the export of sugar and other crops. Despite its rich history, Montego Bay continues to face numerous social and economic challenges, including poverty, unemployment, and crime.

Paradise Acres and Norwood Montego Bay are two communities within the city that are particularly affected by these issues. Despite the difficulties they face, local residents are taking action to improve their communities and address the problems they face. The thing about grassroots activism though is... it is heartbreaking work and in my Caribbean island of Jamaica, it is a land of both breathtaking beauty and heart-wrenching tragedy. For those of us who call this place home, heartbreak is a familiar feeling, as we've lost friends and loved ones to all manner of circumstances.  In the words of the great Bob Marley "Good friends we have, oh, good friends we've lost along the way, In this great future, you can't forget your past So dry your tears, I seh ."

But one loss in particular still haunts me - the death of my friend Rasta Errol.

Errol was a member of the Rastafari Coral Gardens Benevolent Society, an organization established to provide care and support to the marginalized Rastafari community in the aftermath of the Coral Gardens atrocities of 1963. I had last seen him at a seminar for capacity building and an RCGBS meeting, full of life and energy as he discussed the future of the organization and the community it serves. But just a few short days later, while walking in the People's Arcade, he was viciously attacked by a group of men with knives and died while undergoing treatment at the hospital.

This tragedy is not just a personal loss, but a devastating blow to the community as a whole. It highlights the ongoing struggles faced by Jamaica's marginalized groups, and the urgent need for organizations like the RCGBS to continue their efforts in providing support and protection.

 

But it is not just the Rastafari community that is facing challenges. Civil society organizations (CSOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs) in Montego Bay and across Jamaica are also grappling with bureaucratic hurdles and confusing legal parameters that limit their freedom of association. The nonprofit industrial complex (NPIC) in Jamaica has been criticized for its lack of support for these organizations, with the state and its partners seemingly more interested in giving money to abstract concepts and causes than to the people who desperately need it.

I have seen the barriers that exist between activists, donors, and ally organizations, like international NGOs. Donors and allies often struggle to connect with grassroots groups and understand the unique challenges they face. This can lead to limited funding and resources being directed towards organizations considered to be more stable, trustworthy, and less "controversial." Meanwhile, the limited resources available for grassroots activists often come with excessive requirements and foster competition between groups, rather than supporting collaboration and cooperation.

This situation is not sustainable. Activists are forced to become more and more resilient, but they cannot continue to carry the weight of their causes on their own. They are asking for change, for a world where their work is recognized, resourced, and supported. It's time for us to stand with them, to understand the importance of their work, and to provide the support they need to continue making a positive impact in our world. 

I believe in the power of grassroots activism. I believe in the strength of community-based organizations that are truly driven by the people, for the people. I believe that tearing down the walls between bureaucracies and making the internal bureaucracy more flexible will lead to more resilient communities and a better future for Jamaica and its pan-African heart.

I also believe in the power of social entrepreneurship, which I see as a way to address large-scale issues in a sustainable and effective manner. But this requires a change in thinking and action on the part of the government and its partners, and so far, discussions on this topic have not taken place at a significant level.

So in sharing my experience I am calling upon all those who care about the future of Jamaica and its people to come together, to centralize our efforts, and to fight for a better tomorrow. Let us honor the memory of all those who have suffered and died in the face of injustice and inequality. This is a call to action for all of us who believe in the power of grassroots activism to bring about positive change. By breaking down the barriers that stand between grassroots activists, donors, and allies, we can create powerful, empowered alliances that will help bring about the change we need to see in our world.

I am out here and on the front-lines seeking ways in this movement, bringing together community to work towards a common goal. Through collective action and a shared commitment to change, we can support and uplift the tireless efforts of grassroots activists everywhere. In a world that is more challenged and politically divided than ever, unity is essential. By coming together in solidarity, we can ensure that grassroots activists are valued, resourced, and supported as they work towards a better future for us all. Join the revolution, and work towards a world where change-makers on the front-lines are recognized, resourced, and supported!

Religion’s Impact on a young Jamaican Psyche

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

― Issac Asimov

This week I think it reasonable to open my article with a quote from a Sci-Fi writer as we are living in some really sci-fi times, with bizarre cults and a fracturing society. I want to examine how religion affects the minds of Jamaican youth and how it impacted mine. Here is my story…

 At age 10, I became an atheist. Today as it pertains to God I am agnostic leaning to atheist, as a Rastafari, my faith is hinged on pan africanism, afrofuturism and a spirituality more akin to archaeology and anthropology of everything African... From ancient gods to ancestors. However, how did I become this person, how did a 10 year old in Norwood, Montego Bay become an atheist or an agnostic?

Well I attended many churches. First one I mainly remember well is Holy Trinity out by Westgate, where my beloved Grand Ma was a devout member. I remember my terrifying christening there... a ritual that I resisted since it wasn't my own volition. I remember the Father well, a well mannered enough man but that church bored me to tears and was steeped in Montego Bay's social politics. Or so it seemed to me as a young one. Then when I began attending Mt. Alvernia Prep Catholicism was introduced to me but my domestic set up was anti Catholic to a degree and very wary of homosexuality and catomite altered altar boys, and from my young perspective seeing their church attire and sometimes smoking priests gave even the young me the impression this place was at once too liberal in some regard and yet wound up in chants and ritual, and was just as boring in sound and song as Anglican.

My mother dabbled in the world of Pentecostal church with one Pastor Nigel who was killed in a house robbery at Bogue. She would eventually settle at Hillview Baptist church where many a community youth I were familiar with went and so I felt comfortable there and the service wasn't that boring... and by the time I was in grade 3, I had watched The Robe and Jesus of Nazareth so many times that I one day became so stupefied by Jesus' sacrifice and peaceful way that I to my chagrin then said to my mother that I wanted to be " A fighter for Jesus". An incident my cousin Camara Brown and brother Dax Pessoa never fail to remind me about or gimmicks me about and oh how I cringe hearing the tale repeated. My family was elated, especially my mother. And like a well brainwashed soldier, high on Jesus hopped up an reinforced by Peter Parker Spider-man and his motto of great power brings great responsibility, Star Trek and Data's and Spock's brands of stoicism and utilitarian logic "the good of the many outweighs the good of the few".

Imagine the melee of ideas like these in the mind of a black child that believed his mother sang young gifted and black to him, whose grandma was in the UNIA... Imagine the mind molded in a Christian yet pan African household... I was charged up... a young black superhero... young gifted and black... I was the X-Men, Malcolm X-Men School for gifted... “Mi start get up early go church walk by mi self, go Sunday school, stay for big church, trying to get more moral more good a try understand God’s will... What did he want me to do etc? Granted hormones had become a problem, I went to church religiously and imbibed the message though as an early puberty child, I was lusting after the young girls in tight dresses, plus maybe some of my mother’s friends in all their church dress plumpness and pulchritude.

 

Beyond that I was good and ready to be a saint… I really did consider being a pastor… eeek! Oh I prayed to have wisdom like Solomon after al my mother wanted my middle name to be Nestor god of wisdom and my father wanted it to be the wise nesta Marley, I prayed like Samuel to be chosen, to ask for wisdom and granted health and length of days… “yep be a wise 'gallis' like Solomon and not to be gal clown like Samson.” Oh how silly I was. But I took spiritual matters and science very seriously from the day I was born. These meant everything to me, them and Africa… so they had to collide.

As in the back of my mind was marinating a debate that had happened one Sunday on the verandah, my father and uncles were debating God. My uncle Hugh Thompson a devout atheist was at it against my uncle David Brown a very religious man, they had asked my father to weigh in and I remembered his words well, "If Zeus and such are Greek and Norse and Roman mythology, then our religion might just be Jewish mythology" and forever that moment it dawned on my that I simply assumed Christians were right. But that didn't cause my divorce psychologically from church.

It came one Sunday when my Sunday school teacher were giving a Sunday school lesson on revelations, it was my common entrance year, but what in the sermon caused the great divorce and moment of cognitive dissonance is when she informed be Jews get a second chance on Judgement day but gentile which we all were would be judged and if not found worthy would be tossed in hell fire... how could even God be sort of racist and biased and if he didn't rather me or black people it can't work and I wanted no more part in it and maybe it was Jewish mythology and not my story or mythos. I would years later find out Pessoa is a Jewish last name but little comfort anyway. And so I wrestled with it inside. And when I mentioned it to friends they all looked scared or told me not to think so much. When I told my mother it became a family crisis for all of high school. I was recommended to speak with this person or that parson... only for all my questions to come up unanswered but everyone wanted me to just accept without irrefutable proof or sound logic and science that God is real... I was no longer the good son but now spaced out, a possible high school weed head even though I never knew what a spliff was, I was wayward etc.. I was a victim of fads, they said I was easily swayed.

The tribulations of not walking in religious norm followed me to the UWI, where in my first semester a big argument with Ms. Kitty after she attacked me as the devil worshiper (I wonder if she remembers that!), whilst I was reasoning with someone else on Atheism. She and that debate led a portion of people to dub me as devil boy... ironic that at home in my community I was called Jesus… but I was persecuted over my opinion and belief. So when I say I understand the rigors of being ostracized by Christians and Christianity to be ridiculed and persecuted despite all my logic and scientific methodology, my critical thinking.... I understand how a religion can put enmity in family, the familiar and the familial.

So let us not heap scorn and condemnation in the Pathway congregation... Who controls your mind... is it Mark Zuckerberg, Rachel Maddow, Jewish myth writers who goads yours mind and prompts your ideas who coaxed you and cajoled your brain? Did the influence of external thought and ideas from outside u ever make u take stance and divides from friends and family?

About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Social Advocate, Community Activist and Philosopher. Follow on Twitter & Instagram @yahnyk. Follow on Youtube @ and Reply to yannickpessoa@gmail.com

A Concise History of MoBay

Montego Bay is the most urban setting in St. James. An early map of Jamaica has Montego Bay listed as “Bahia de Manteca” or “Lard Bay,” so called because of the lard making industry made possible by the hunting of wild boars which populated the surrounding hills. Montego Bay was a sugar and banana town but the sugar factories were closed and bananas are now shipped out from Kingston and Port Antonio.

Montego Bay is Jamaica’s second largest city. According to the Planning Institute of Jamaica, Montego Bay is also among the top five fastest growing urban centres in the country. The growth is spurred by tourism, which is the major foreign exchange earner for the parish of St. James. The high number of tourist attractions and resorts in Montego Bay provide employment for hundreds of Jamaicans. Over 80 per cent of the entire parish is dependent on tourism.

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.

Who I Am!

“De pain and the fight, the hate and the lies… Pain and heartbreak, supm inna it weh mi love, all a mi life experiences build me up as thug.”
Alkaline (Juggernaut)

When the valley couldn't hold me, they throw me in the river, Thinking I would drown, but man, ah, good swimmer, whoa, When the river didn't drown me, they throw me in the fire, But the fire just cool, I could never burn, oh
Major Lazer (Believer)

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.
Proverbs 27:17 (Bible)

My journey to me starts in 1919… why because it is where my mind has a definitive anchor in history. That is the day Dorothy M. Thompson was born, my mother’s mother, I would spend 33 years of my life imbibing her life and that of her children and grandchildren. When I say imbibe her life experiences, imagine what it was like for me as a child in a pitch black room at nights with your granny’s voice recanting her life experiences, in the pitch black when you can’t see your own hand so you feel disconnected from your body. The black room become your own mindscape and that voice and those experiences become stitched in and meld with your own, when it is as though that voice inhabits your psyche now till this present moment… then my life can seem at times to start 1919… in the midst of history and milestones.

Understand I was with Dorothy in Rock River Clarendon, when she went to vestry, when John took her to the UNIA, when she ate Milly mango in Diamond, when she met her husband Allan Thompson, when they came to Montego Bay, from Gravel Lane to Tate Street… when she met Howard Cooke, when she became the PNP matriarch, when she worked at WoolWorth, till she got her tuck shop up at Cornwall Regional Hospital, when she became the pillar of the community in Paradise Acres. Through all her pains and heartbreak, joys and suffering… what I didn’t glean in the dark room I would live to see in action myself.

I am my parents… I am my father, when you see me being an entrepreneur… no matter how I may fail or flounder, it is an instinct that comes from having imbibed his life and am still imbibing it. Everytime, I draw I am my father, for the gift came from him, and everytime my daughter or her classmates, or children in the community look at things I draw or paint, when they look at me as some hero, it's because my father drew me out of a thousand school projects and was my hero. And even though I haven’t become a millionaire just yet, every dollar earned from that talent, is what he gave me in a manner of speaking. Plus so much more. For I was with him when he grew up in Four Paths in Clarendon, catching water in the early mornings before dawn, with his brother. I was with him going to Glenmuir, I was with him when he came to Montego Bay, when he met my mother, when he wooed her, when he married her, when he sold insurance, when he became an entrepreneur, when he made his life and forged his own path.

I am my mother… who I inherited social activism from. I am her quiet nature, I am her silent strength… the fortitude it takes to go through long suffering and go the distance. Yannick is a hebrew name that means, the grace of God, and if there is any grace in me I am sure it came through her. She taught me children and family over career… not through speech but her choices and actions, and I have seen much value in it. When I write poetry it is the amalgamation of my parents… their love affair with the English language, her social sensitivities and keen sense of emotional observation, his concubines… a green websters dictionary with a tree on it, Reader’s Digest, Time Magazine and National Geographic.

I am my community which manage to teach me in the 80’s that it takes a village to raise a child. For it was as simple as this, “all wah mi do and don’t do, dem tell mi granny.” So now I will forever fight to return the community to that type of communal love. For I am also the community’s victims of that lost love… I am Gully, I am Delano, I am Little Dread, I am Goosey, I am Sticky Bean, I am Baboo, I am Warface, I am Marley, I am Andrew Bailey, I am Joab, I am Zuggy, I am Jooky, I am Stumpy, I am Sweaty, I am Stubba, I am Goodfy Jeffrey, I am Umpa, I am Jigs, I am Wiz/Alkaline, I am Delly, I am Kerris, I am Shorty, I am Hulk, I am Jevaughn James, I am Danny, I am Warrick, I am so many more fallen soldiers. I am the best of my community, I am E. T. Webster, I am Tappa, I am Jimmy Cliff, I am Cecil Donaldson, I am the Youth, I am the Senior Citizen, I am the community heroes like Venise and Tash… I am I-crus, I am the elder, the mechanic, the shoe repair man, the upholster, the shopkeeper, the selector, the Juta Driver, the artisan, the labourer, the mason, the carpenter.

I am my teachers, I am Mr. Mcpherson, I am Co-Hall, I am Ms. Gordon, I am Ms. Nelson, I am Mr. Barnes at Cornwall, I am Mr. Miller, Rev. Myers, Mr. Maddans, Mr. Haughton, Mr. Taylor, Mr. Clarke, Ms Daze/Wilson and Reverton Bailey. I am Aggrey Brown, I am Roxanne Burton, I am Earl McKenzie, I am Tunde Bewaji, I am Dr. Bamikole, I am Jalaani Niaah...

I am more than a slim natty in a 5’11 frame. I am Pan Africanism, I am Rastafari, I am Socialism, I am African Spirituality, I am Afrofuturism, I am tomorrow, I am that which makes you uncomfortable, I am science, I am arts, I am metaphysics, I am human, I am supernatural, I am God, I am man, I am community, I am football, I am basketball, I am cricket, I am mistakes, I am failures, I am success, I am unstoppable, I am unbreakable, I am indomitable and my name is Yannick Nesta Pessoa.

Pot Holes: Filling in the Gaps

Infrastructure investments lead to jobs. And quality of life starts with a good job.
John Hickenlooper 

When I am driving my car down the street, I try not to go down the potholes.
Philip Green

The potholes in the roads are a problem, the political ones, the metaphorical ones, but I'm talking about the literal ones now… they are one of if not the biggest headache we have right now on the road. It seems like every year we complain that potholes seem worse than they have ever been. But this year, they really do seem worse than they ever have been. I haven't seen any part of the city, or peripheral town or village that is immune to pothole pox, and the rains of the last few months has really made for brutal rides on many many roads. It seems that the busier they are, the worse they are, particularly because the city has been cheap with their paving budgets. Even though Jamaicans depend on this infrastructure to go about their daily lives in safety, our mayor has been relatively quiet on the need to revitalize the city’s roads, bridges, sewers, dams, and water treatment plants.

I am not saying we need an ambitious and expensive plan to modernize their city’s infrastructure, however, a competitive city simply cannot have sewers backing-up into basements and streets flooding every time it rains. The savvy voters and taxpayers in Jamaica today are looking to get the biggest bang for their buck when it comes to the cost of government. That includes the cost of building and repairing streets. For that reason alone, our municipality should require bids for both asphalt and concrete pavements. And those bids should include a life cycle cost analysis for road construction or repair projects. Doing so helps them determine whether using asphalt or concrete materials is the more cost-effective, sustainable investment.

Alternatives 

A possible solution could be, using old vehicle tires as a long term solution for patching the number of potholes on roads across the city and possibly the country could easily be piloted in Montego Bay. The process of using rubberized asphalt to pave roads has been working well in the US and Canada. This process can fix both the stress and damages caused by the poor quality of the roads and cut down on the large quantities of old tires. Rubberized asphalt is made from asphalt concrete and mixed with crumb rubber from recycled tires. The city can look into at taking our old tires, which is another headache to us, and turn them into rubber the steel and the fluff from the tire itself it can pave the roads. The roads become softer and you wouldn’t skid or slide on the roads. Maintenance solution waste removal solution, safety solution, financial solution… all rolled into one. It can work. We can take our tires and turn them into crumb rubber and pave the roads with them. There is so much more use for old tires. It is for our municipality, our city to decide the way forward, not follow the tides of time as usual and get left behind.

Experts claim the road requires less maintenance and still allows for drainage, while tyre recyclers claim the technique will also save money because the new material is thinner than standard roads. Rubber roads were first built in the 1960s in the US, where today there are 20,000 miles of road made of recycled tyres. Rubber roads are also popular in China, Brazil, Spain and Germany.
Another solution that came to me is tied to social enterprise. Wikipedia defines social enterprise as an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being—this may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for external shareholders. So what do potholes have to do with social enterprise? Well I have been thinking… why doesn’t the municipality hire the men who already go around patching the roads informally as a side hustle to officially operate as road maintenance personnel. I think it ought to be fairly easy for the municipality to employ them give them a minimum wage stipend, negotiate with the chamber of commerce or the hardware businesses directly to provide them with propatch asphalt and cement to help alleviate a road crisis, at the same time encouraging motorists to donate to the cause by tipping the road patchers. The social benefit is the road patchers receive official pay and employ, the road is not as bad for motorists and commuters, improved safety, a good public relations look for the municipality. Maybe the plan could be tweaked in some places but you get the picture we need to be more innovative about the road that lies ahead, it is filled with ruts and potholes, to fix them and navigate them require a new outlook.

Future Change 

Our city needs an intensified island-wide road works programme. You would think that with all of the technological advancements we have seen in our lifetime, someone would have figured out a better way to fix damaged roads. There is a ton of money to be made, and I'm sure the insurance companies and municipalities that pay out claims for damaged vehicles would be happy to see it. Of course, the municipal corporation could spend more money on routine maintenance and paving that would prevent a lot of these problems, but that ship has obviously sailed. I can only hope that one day someone in public office might begin to take responsibility for genuinely solving this problem, as they say nowadays “own it”. If not and we continue to dither, delay and propose inadequate measures , we will leave a bigger problem for Montego Bay’s children.

About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Social/Community Activist and Law Student at Utech Western Jamaica. Follow on Twitter at @yahnyk. Reply to yannickpessoa@gmail.com

MY THEORY ON PNP'S MUST WIN!

A Fairly Bio-Historical Thesis and Simple Treatise!

Watch yah... JLP nah no chance... if dem show we suppm we deh yah fi MATCH it... imagine.. halfwaytree look so an mi an fi mi entourage nuh di deh... wah u a seh...

I will never pretend seh PNP perfect but a dem mi go ever vote fah and a dem mi go try guide and cuss till dem get it write... mi wi write a million letter to the editor and advice suggest and cuss, but watch yah mi nuh inna nutten wid JLP... who dis rasta... yow a wah u a seh. Busta weh seh iron fist... man... mi Granny born 1919... mi sleep in a bed with her, say mi times table and lissen story as she walk me down the streets of history. I've read a million books, divining the pages of history... all mi si dat mek sense to mi in the long march forward... mi granny get build and educated by UNIA and Garvey, Garvey = self reliance PPP etc...

Manley co-opt that political energy, but still under pnp self reliance and such concepts persist... hence... mi Granny when garvey get shub back press fwd wid PNP and mi see michael manley meet him, mi end up sight Rasta, Rasta and JLP a nuh fren, by the time mi did reach sociology at A level... all when mi teach a laaf an bun mi out mi pick SOCIALISM and COMMUNISM, concepts native to Africa by the way!

All when teacher a SHUB globalization inna the 90's push NEO LIBERALISM, I man resist and bun dat. My Mother was a social worker inna the 70's under Manley era and my Mother went to university UWI when Manley brought forward free education...

Hence mi a di result of sensible PNP policy and courtesies, mi direct result of the scope and reach and testimony of Garvey... so mi live this and mi read through the pages of history and see where books bear witness to this truth an concur wah mi DNA a seh from 1919 through to the 70's...

Till mi manifest in flesh and grow in a house weh Marcia Griffiths and Bob Andy "Young Gifted and Black" play every day, weh mi a listen Bob Marley to Bob Dylan... mi get fi know of Nyerere... mi Mother a Christian mi nuh know of no bigger socialist than Jesus.... charity, equality....

Dem SHUB globalization and neo-liberalism pon mi all the way into UWI mona... an even then man resist, till mi live fi see 2007, GLOBALIZATION collapse, neo liberalism was too liberal and liberated economic monsters to wreak havoc.. mi get fi meet sensible thinkers weh a put up resistance too know seh neo liberalism is neo colonialism.... hence and therefore I KNOW THIS... JLP nuh mek it... try kill RASTA a Coral Gardens a conflict mi have DNA linked inas mi have a cousin that was the philosophical under pinning of nuff a di ideology in the Mobay rasta movements and conflict at the time and then let us not forget "Back To"...

With every fiber of my being I know the way forward for this country MUST be through anything, any vehicle or vector that can carry the ideas of Rasta/GARVEY to Jamaica, right now PNP a the major vehicle to do that, I also hope all independents thinkers rise too and do dem ting fi shake up the status quo... Astor Black and Haile Mikael... it is in those veins of ideas of Garvey and Rasta that any hope or sensible ideas for indigenous and the mass of Jamaican people ever come from... simple!

JLP has an image that seems to represents... NEO-liberalism, CIA(go watch youtube), the 80's Drugs and Cocaine, ONE DON, Tivoli which can never be a model to replicate across Jamaica, Daryl Vaz and him poko poko face screaming at me as minister of info and a bad mi up thru television... rumours that Jim Brown shot Bob Marley for you know who... the image that JLP is an elite of ruling brown people and descendants of the plantocracy cannot be easily shaken out of the Jamaican consciousness.. the only positive image mi can think of for JLP is Chris Tufton... and they seem to forever pigeon hole him... I wish Portia would give him a call.

So I just a chant for REPUBLIC, REPARATION, REFORM (Land, Political & Electoral), CCJ, OPEN SOURCE!!! That Jamaica need now fi mek some major leaps forward!

Lessons Learnt from the Princess who wanted a Princess Yo-yo!

This is a post dedicated to my daughter and some of the things she has taught me as well as allowed me to remember and rediscover. For a few years before her birth I was in a state of some kind of depression and doldrums, a funk as it were, overwhelmed with failures. The failure of having not produced any literary master piece as yet, not getting any where with poetry, no where with art, no comic book produced, no documentary, no cartoon, no animation, no car, no major tech infusion, hobbling on a pitch patch income, fumbling from PC to PC and laptop to laptop. Yeah there may have been some successes... as small as they seemed in my eye, and probably in the grand picture of Jamaican super start success hypes. Yeah I was the first Jamaican Blogger, and probably the first or longest running Jamaican blogger, but what is the value and who cares?

Sure The Montegonian did a lovely stint in the Western Mirror which I believe changed the dynamic of Column writing in Western Jamaica and imbued western Journalism with more confidence and vigor. Sure I would hear my ideas in articles popping up in Mobay's Chamber of Commerce on the mouths of other people with no credit to me, which is not a problem to me, as long as it makes this city better. Yeah but in the age of so many hot writers erupting everyday from Jamaica on the world stage, what is it worth when the world stage and so many platform seem closed to me and the less financially endowed. Sure I have been championing and been an early pioneer using Linux and Open Source in Montego Bay and Western Jamaica on PC's, Laptops and Desktops, but what is that worth in a country that worships at the alter of Microsoft and Windows, yet not knowing Linux holds up their tech world on Android phones and slavishly carrying the tech world on servers everywhere. What is it worth when you champion your community and any social cause worth the activism, only to be neglected by NGO's because we aren't PR material or the poster child for the worst community or we just don't have enough dead bodies on our streets, to have media focus on Kingston and the colourful personalities that catch their eye and fancy, and this happens no matter how conscious the media agency seems or pretends to be. What is it worth to be another unsung hero... to fight the black struggles in the best ways you know how and to have so little verbal reward or any kind of accolade and close to no meal ticket. What was it worth to be vanguard and forerunner, when every forerunner only holds the lead to be in a lonely place and relegated to pariah.

What was I to do... worn thin and wounded in spirit?

Enter my Daughter... life in abundance, come to reinvigorate me and teach me new lessons on life and to remember the lessons and ideas I forgot long ago.

Lesson 1. Simple things can keep us happy: The Princess Yo-Yo 101

~Now this lesson I learned last December. I am not a Christmas believer nor do I believe a Christ was born on Dec 25. However Nativity, Christmas Carols, Trade Winds those tings make me redolent, and is a season I cherished as a child for the bells, the x-mas plays, cool chilly breezes, the yards smelling of paint, fresh cut lawns, pretty silver moons, astronomy with my father under clear skies, being filled with the sense that the world was slowing down for reasons such as love, family and in-gatherings of family and extensions of family. A season that as child wished would never end. So it is that spirit I try to hang onto and recapture for my daughter. A feeling and emotion about the season, not necessarily connected to trees, or lights, or presents, but connected with the presence of special people. So when she became swept up with the season last year and she requested a present, Super Daddy has to answer the call. Now, for a few days I twisted my brain to find a nice present and thought it maybe it'd be something costly. Would it be a tablet, a Nabi, a electronic gadget of some sort, surely not clothes... After not thinking of anything, I asked her what she wanted. "A Princess Yo-Yo!" 

WHAT! A princess yo-yo... hmmm it seemed a unique and odd request and one that maybe would stump me. For this was a request at the crux of roads... Yo-yoes are for boys, I hadn't imagined that the 21st century girl could be a Tom Boy Princess... another strange anomaly. HMMMMM HMMMM HMMMM... so specialized, it sounds like that may stretch my imagination, where in Mobay was I gonna find a princess yo-yo... if one even existed. And how much would this cost now... please let it not be over $2000, as mi just nuh have it, fi maths more than that. HMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I was confounded. Being the presumption ass, I assumed that such wonders as a possibly expensive and specialized toy like a princess yo-yo had to be located at Fontana or MegaMart or some such location... of I went... wasting gas to traverse from Paradise to Mobay's likkle farrin... out by Fairview! Only to not find the prized princess yo-yo there. After giving the issue some more brain power... I came up with Sangster's Book Store... so off to Harbour Street to park again and foot it to Sangster's. After scouring Sangster's seeing an varied assortment of $1000 odd Yo-yoes, I was heartened somewhat, but I hadn't found the Princess Yo-yo yet. Fine fine... lemme walk the town in one last hope to see what's up, only to realize hmmmm Henderson's in renovating... lemme check it out... as I enter it immediately greets me, a $435.00 pink Princess Yo-yo! My word... that's it $435.00 bet she just uses it once and discards it... I've seen kids do it a thousand times right.

3 Months later in March I was still de-tangling yo-yo chords and explaining an assortment of tricks. Hence I had learned that she really did ask for what she wanted, was happy when she got it, and really tried to learn to use it and understand it. Hmmm much more than I had given her credit for. So my daughter reminds me of the Sizzla song now... "Simplicity we use to survive, many find it difficult cause them ignorant and dumb." The hold incident too reminded me of a time when I was young, it was a Sunday, and as my mother and grand mother sat reading the papers, I didn't realize my granny had stopped reading the newspaper and was watching me swing on the grill at the door, and when I realized she was, she looked at me and said, "A see seh yuh come fi mek yuh owna sun shine." It was a while before i understood what she meant, but Kyrha's made me re-learn that idea.

Lesson 2. Everyone has their own mind: On White Folk and Other Philosophy- death, afterlife god mother nature

Now when it comes to life and learning as it pertains to youth, my belief is that, I ought not hold much back, and if I do, it is only in the interest of keeping things simple. I won't lie or make up fairy tales. Lies, myth and fairy tales I believe hinder a child's development, and denies them the chance to intuit deeper levels of knowledge and understanding. Fairy tales hinder humanity's collective gainful comprehension of the universe.

However explaining gravity, why we fall, robots, machines, sleep, imagination, digestion, the eye, even sex and how she came here, seems so so so much simpler when one contends with explaining GOD, JESUS, HEAVEN, MOTHER NATURE, AFTER LIFE, SLAVERY AND RACISM among other metaphysical and social mysteries.

Most amazing of all though is that this little  year old processes my thoughts and what I tell her and she doesn't just imbibe it and says it is so because Daddy's says so... she challenges ideas in her mind. I'll soon explain.

My doctrines on life are a scientific approach to questions, in social spiritual matters in my Ras Tafari I employ Marcus Garveys's fiery Afrocentrism and pan-africanism tempered by Haile Selassie's cerebral modus operandi and diplomacy. So when I have to touch on touchy issues of Race and slavery I as advised by listening to Martin Luther King Jr's treatise on his little daughter and fun town, which I listen to often via Youtube.

So when Africa comes up and how or why we are Africans and how we came to be in Jamaica, I didn't shy away from explaining the horror of slavery and the evils wrought on us by white Europeans. As MLK Jr suggested I tried not to be bitter. I think I may have been a little. Anyway... it so happens one day white Christian folk visit her school, when I pick her up, she immediately comes to me and says guess what Daddy... You know I think you are wrong about white people... not all white people are bad... I met some good ones at school today... I couldn't contain the laughter... this child retained the race conversations and had borne it in mind and challenged my information with her experiences... I was truly impressed. There is no brain washing this one. Anyway... after she repeats her point and says "is true enuh Daddy, is true!" I say to her don't worry we'll discuss this again when you are older, and hopefully then you'll see my point more clearly.

Lesson 3. What Father is and means: Pickney Proverbs & Prov 15 vs 5

So on becoming a father I have had to examine my experiences being fathered, what I liked, what I want to improve upon from my father. But I have also had to examine the role I have played to people I have semi- or part-time fathered. If mentoring is important, the power of the role... what power has been invested in father.

More difficult to examine has been how Jamaica deals with father and how harshly we are critiqued and derided by society, even as our stats improve and some stats are coming in to indicate women have to some extent aided in undermining Jamaican Masculinity... the Jacket phenomenon, the bleaching, the long hair and expenses, the gimmi mentality, relentless challenge to male authority, the belief in the better-ness of white notions and displays and examples of masculinity.

I've also had to open up to my daughters notions of father, dada, papa... the fixer of things, the knower of things, her companion encyclopedia and philosopher, the backdrop against which she bounces ideas and deciphers reality. The daughter who believes father is there for super/supra natural protections. To examine what this young femininity means to man, what really is the role of man, what do I teacher her of masculinity, what do I do with her Tom Boyism... her Princessism... how do I prepare for the future with a truly helpful vision that equips her for all that may come, how do I also prepare her for launch as my first emissary and arrow shot and cast into the future, my messenger and ambassador to the future? How? How do I combine organic ideology, african spirituality, technology, post modern philosophy, ecological livity, humanism and not this transhuman future of black widows, Iron men and people with electric hearts and dreams of electric sheep, visions and ultrons??? How do I sow Marcus Garvey into everyday existence and merge the ethics of Haile Selassie?

Most of all I have had to examine everyone who has played some sort of mentor or fatherly role... my Father, grand Father, older friends, elders, sages and all... I have had to even consider if I am comfortable with God being a father... should it maybe not be better that it be ISIS and not some nondescript holy ghost, and what social ethos would only give us a God father, and no mother or reduce her to a ghost... and find some way to sire sons (the sons of god came down and took of themselves wives of the daughters of men) without women, to make man give birth to the first woman!

In many ways my daughter more than anyone has taught me about Father, through the gift of fatherhood.

Lesson 4. Live!

I don't know another soul that gives meaning to the words Verve and Vivacious and Effervescent!

From the moment I met this girl in a tummy kicking, I couldn't have met her before that, I am not privy to the woman's early knowing that her body is inhabited and her womb is occupied. Yep! I met her with a kick and the information that she constantly moved to the noise of children and voices on the outside world! And as I sat by the womb waiting night by night... I had a sense of knowing that this was someone full of spunk...

It would come as no surprise then that some of her favourite songs are "This Girl is on Fire" and  Katy Perry's "Roar"... She ravages through cartoons and her favourites change often... there was the Avatar "Ang" phase, then Korra... the Doc McStuffins, Cat in the Hat, Peppa Pig, My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, now much to my chagrin it's Monster High and Sabrina the Teenage Witch!

But that I think is a crucial lesson she has taught me... sometimes I spend too much time being cerebral and thinking about things and there consequences rather than just doing... and that is her thing... impulsive impetus... just do it.. live, with a sense of absolute fearlessness at that. So if she can do it... why can't I! She also brought home this Garvey quote..

Fear is a state of nervousness fit for children and not men. When man fears a creature like himself he offends God, in whose image and likeness he is created. Man being created equal fears not man but God. To fear is to lose control of one's nerves; one's will, to flutter, like a dying fowl, losing consciousness, yet alive.
(Marcus Garvey)

Imagine a 5 year old teaching I N I bout fearlessness!

Lesson 5. Serendipity Sanguinity and Telepathic Connection

When I was a little boy, sitting int back of cars in the rain, I'd look at the wipers and imagine they were two children chasing each other or fighting, throwing water at each other. It's just one of those little thoughts your child mind produces and you forget as you get older. I was blown away one evening whilst driving home in the rain, she says "Mommy and Daddy! Yuh know those two wipers look like two children fighting and throwing water at each other, two rude children... dem rude enuh! Don't dem look like dat Mommy?"

I had to give the car a 1 minute stop and let the years come back... then let the strange feeling of synchronism and time-loop or -warp sink in and settle and explain it to her and her Mommy why I had paused.

I think this is a lesson on the metaphysics of things, the unknown and unexplained, a sense that their are greater psycho-spiritual things going on, we are more than we know... paranormal, in search of... STRANGE BUT TRUE...