Dear Paradise II: Another Love Letter to My Community

As long as I breathe, I hope. As long as I breathe I shall fight for the future, that radiant future, in which man, strong and beautiful, will become master of the drifting stream of his history and will direct it towards the boundless horizons of beauty, joy and happiness!
-Leon Trotsky

Dear Family, friends, community members, associates one and all,

You may be a parent, teacher, police officer, young person, community activist, or someone angered by what you see wrong in Jamaica, Mobay and Paradise. I would like to invite you into a space of uncompromised honesty. Let us engage each other in conversation, not primarily as scholars wanting to defend a theory, or as politicians seeking to win votes or advance a public policy agenda, or even as activists fighting for a cause, but instead, just as human beings trying to understand, as clearly as possible, our situation and condition at this turbulent moment in history.

As activists or community member I am sure your anger is sparked by gun violence, youth unemployment, classism, social justice or inequality — or you simply don’t understand why some people are upset — you are not alone. Like many, you might feel helpless, thinking, “I could never make a real difference or lasting change.” But you’d be wrong. Humans are such a complex species. We could not figure out the mind of a human, no matter how hard we tried. Psychology touches on some of the behavioral and thought processes that are experienced by a human, but Psychology will never be completely factual because the human brain is far too complicated.



We want the world to be a happy and just place, maybe it will or won’t be so. But you must know that change comes from parents and teachers who instill the power of critical thinking in children and teens. It comes from leaders who build relationships between diverse people and organizations. It comes from everyday people who think deeply about problems and solutions. How does this happen? We cannot begin to make effective change in our communities until we recognize how we are intricately connected to the people and issues we want to change.

Community is like family; and like all families, we may not always get along or see eye-to-eye. But just like my daughter likes to say, ‘family sticks together and helps one another.” Community is about people who care about one another and are willing to be united for the betterment of the greater good.

Now the other day a community member, one Teacher P/QP picked my brain with a question or more like a quote he had read, it went like this “Of all the follies in which man indulges there is none greater than the folly of thinking one can change the world!” He said he shared it because I was one of the few people who could fathom it in the immediate environment. I wondered if it was that he thought that my activities trying to better the community were in vain. I think he expected me to contemplate and give him a response. The quote did blow me away for a few days.

But a few days later the universe it seems gave me the answer. I don’t remember what I was watching on Youtube but some speaker had said, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled, is to offer you something you already have. He would have you believe you are nothing and insignificant and unable to affect your destiny or impact the world without his help. But therein is the lie, for from the moment you enter the world it is already fundamentally changed, your presence has already impacted lives, for you life has altered your mother and father, the spaces you inhabit.

Now to be honest I haven’t shared the answer in person with Teacher P but ironically I found our dialogue mirrored in an episode of Star Trek… yeah I am a trekkie… especially seeing one of the characters was called Q, but the conversation went like this:

Q:
Hear this, Picard, and reflect: "All the galaxy is a stage."... "Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Q:
Perhaps maybe a little, uh, Hamlet?

Captain Jean-Luc Picard:
Oh, I know Hamlet. And what he might say with irony, I say with conviction: "What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! In action, how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god!"

Q:
Surely, you don't see your species like that, do you?

Captain Jean-Luc Picard:
I see us one day becoming that, Q. Is it that which concerns you?

I put all this to say that, granted much is wrong with the community I am truly grateful for stilling having a space where discuss my love relationship with the community. I believe when we lift others we rise together. Through discourse, discussion and debate. It is no coincidence Paradise has a spot called debate corner, it is not for the faint of heart. More than ever we must remember to help others. We are all where we are because someone helped us along our journey. I wanted to share a letter of thanks to the community for all you’ve done and meant to me. When all is said and done, I hope I will have done more than I said. As I remain optimistic and realistic in this gloomy and slow times, I close with the following:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The Ghosts of 'New PNP' Are Haunting Us

“Ghosts don't haunt us. That's not how it works. They're present among us because we won't let go of them."
"I don't believe in ghosts," I said, faintly.
"Some people can't see the color red. That doesn't mean it isn't there," she replied.
~Sue Grafton, M is for Malice

Twenty-something years ago, in the mid 90s the so-called New PNP emerged. PJ Patterson’s PNP a machinery efficient at the grassroots level but bereft of socialist ideology and teeming with neo-liberal ideas and globalization as there buzzword. Economic divestment abounded, and as such government sold Air Jamaica and JPS to suit the New World Order. Today, his political heirs are hesitant and ambivalent to consider or re-inject socialism into Party from living up to its history. At stake is opportunity to capture the Zeitgeist and the possibility that the PNP will lose more elections and be out of step with international academic thought, which has seen a resurgent socialism globally.

A fundamental battle for democracy is in progress—a conflict over whether to reduce the power of delegates which outweighs and is out of step with the will of the electorate. That struggle is set to reach a threshold soon as delegates push into power their friend who benefits them… delegates fight for spoils and scarce benefits, despite the hopes of party supporters and the electorate. Hence we have an upper echelon in the PNP listening to delegates who to a great extent do not represent or understand the plight of the electorate… and while it is delegates who give MPs and Councillors strength and position… it is the electorate who actually gives them power. So while the party listens to sycophants and minions, it risks the real prospect of alienating true party supporters and the electorate.

To understand the PNP Party’s current internal battle lines and what’s at stake, it’s important to know how we got here.

After a few years of awful Labour government, where Edward Seaga's policies left us in the maw of the United States and the IMF. Then P.J. Patterson emerged and proved to be just the type of rhetoric for the average citizen, “black man time now!” and in terms of action proved to be the politician neoliberalists loved. Patterson settled into office in the early 90s as the leader of path breaking New PNP. This wasn't you grandma's socialist PNP it was populist in every way. Many media outlets hailed him as a visionary statesman who had overcome left-leaning socialist Manley left in his wake and set the party straight.

Those days Patterson seemed a youthful and articulate, breath of fresh air and boost of collective confidence after a long colonial experience and the repugnant politics of calling a people “black scandal bag” as Mr Seaga had seem to have done. Yet for all his rhetoric Mr. Patterson was down with corporate power—not as far down as today's Government, but nevertheless in the thrall of big business and the big banks.

Patterson's neo-liberal policies went over big with moneyed interests, its policy pursuits would end up driving a wedge between the PNP Party and the working class. Of course the guys driving Patterson's economic train loved the North American Free Trade Agreement. Why wouldn’t they? Workers were costs, not people. Corporate trade deals were profit boosters. Downsides and job cuts rocked Jamaica while local production and manufacturing tool a hit.

Weeks after joining NAFTA Jamaica's milk began to spoil. Go watch “Life and Debt”.

This is the point at which the electorate truly would diverge from the PNP, though Mr. Patterson would woo the public every few years at election time, he had to continuously court a people who new he had switched. The PNP no longer cared for the proletariat nor new what the word meant.

The PNP newcomers ushered in by Mr. Patterson “are don’t-rock-the-boat” types, and they are exactly what private sector and transnational business types. A far cry from yesterday's PNP socialism. Now socialism is experiencing a tremendous resurgence in the 21st century due to the growing economic disparity, anger at the establishment and charismatic older socialist politicians like Bernie Sanders in the U.S. and Jeremy Corbyn in the U.K. who gathered massive support from the young. A new wave of socialist thinkers is also beginning to emerge that looks to distance the movement from the historical stigma to formulate a new socialism that speaks to the challenges of today.

The Ghosts of the new PNP and how they behaved in office—and the electoral disasters that ensued are grimly acute. Until the wave of socialism is endorsed in some way by the PNP they will not excite the imagination of the youth and the electorate. However I suspect that this PNP more concern with playing PR and social media catch up with the JLP whilst maintaining an image of success and air of professionalism.

Now, the New PNP and those walking in their footsteps are battling to retain control of the party and the government. The agenda of the new PNP best serves in the long run to choke off democracy as much as possible, lest the riffraff get away with undermining the ruling elites. Let’s face it: Democracy is dangerous to the powerful who rely on big money, institutional leverage and mass media to work their will. The insurgencies of this decade against economic injustice—embodied in international movements like the Occupy movement and then Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign—are potentially dire threats to the established unjust social and economic order.

For those determined to retain their positions in the upper reaches of the PNP Party hierarchy, democracy within the party sounds truly scary. And inauthenticity of the party—and its corresponding heavy losses of seats from Parliament to the councils—don’t seem nearly as worrisome to the PNP party elites as the prospect that upsurges of grass-roots activities might remove them from their privileged quarters.


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