BACK TO AFRICA
Dr. Lester CN Simon
With all the talk and celebration of diversity amongst the peoples of Antigua and Barbuda, a correct and timely warning has been issued by Dorbrene O’Marde for less attention to diversity and more focus on what we have in common. But what do we have in common? Notwithstanding the preeminence of Africa, I am turning my back to Africa as the nidus of our commonality.
The West Indian islands and societies as we know them were made by Caribs, Arawaks, Europeans, Indians, Africans, followed by Chinese, people from the Middle East and others. Many of us, including black West Indians, see ourselves as West Indians and not as Africans. We understand the ancestral fact that as Indians look to India, Chinese look to China, Lebanese to Lebanon, etc., black people must look to Africa. But Africa can never be the meeting place for true West Indian commonality. In this regard, and this regard only, I am turning my back to Africa and my face and focus elsewhere.
To begin an earnest search for a West Indian commonality or West Indian cultural similarities, we have to start at the place where West Indian society was born: The plantation. The problem here is that we tend to run away from re-examining plantation life because the documented, harsh and seemingly hereditary realities of plantation life are too painful to engage our attention in a quest for common, positive rallying points.
The general view of the social structure of plantation life is one in which the whites were
planters, overseers, clerks and book-keepers and blacks were field and house slaves. But something is wrong with this simplistic view. When we look at the African societies that the slaves came from and the occupation and skills they had in Africa, we find pastoralists, agriculturalists, brass workers, potters, merchants and cloth makers who came as slaves to the West Indies.
We know about the harsh life of the field slaves, working in gangs that included pregnant women and youths. We look askance at the house slave, whom we regard as Massa-boy and a spy. Notwithstanding the validity of this regard, we are negating the considerable skills these slaves possessed. Worse, an extension of this blindness leads us to totally disregard the experienced, artisan slaves who worked in factories in charge of mills, boilers, machinery, rum houses and transportation. The fact is that, despite the preeminence and the predominance of people of Africa descent, all of us built these West Indian societies and contributed to our culture by way of language, food, religion, music and other art forms, relationships, work ethics, etc.
Focusing on plantation life compels us to stand up and analyze it in many different ways. Many run away from this. They see it as a needless and pointless exercise and as unnecessary finger-pointing. It is not finger-pointing. It is the fundamental stepping stone to a reconciliation process in which we admit the wrongs of the past and measure our society today by how far we have come away from that low life to occupy and live on higher ground. Instead of this inevitable West Indian reconciliation, we focus all our energies on reparations from the European colonizing countries. Our binocular vision must engage the two focal points, West Indian and metropolitan.
When we use plantation life as ground zero, we are defining our constitutive community by saying that we are against anything that remotely takes us back today to hopelessness, suicide, genocide, inhumane working conditions, slavish or apathetic workers, sabotage, murder and rape and poor health.
The celebrated triumph of West Indian peoples of all colours and races, including those who came after the plantation, must be that we are on a successful, common journey away from an imperfect, plantation origin via a less imperfect union today to the most pragmatic amalgamation tomorrow. This real, common, mountainous journey manifested in our culture, which is the generational sum total of all we do and say, is the central theme of commonality amongst all West Indian and Caribbean societies. It is not Africa.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
The Good Fight
THE CONQUEST AND THE STRUGGLE
Dr. Lester CN Simon
In The Struggle and the Conquest, the venerable Sir Novelle Richards chronicled the formation, rise and fracture of the trade union movement in Antigua and Barbuda. Today, in these troubling times of increases in the costs of food and energy and the consequent demands for increases in salaries and wages, it might be useful to revisit the role of trade unions in Antigua and Barbuda.
A well earned conquest should embolden us to face the inevitable next struggle that lies ahead since struggles and conquests are in constant revolution and evolution. Based on past conquests, the fundamental struggle ahead might be seen by some as being relatively easy. It might simply be a case of using the same tools, the same well-kept, oiled and shiny weapons of war and deploying the same tried and proven negotiation tactics. At the very minimum, some would argue that the gains already achieved should be non-negotiable and neither an inch nor a single blade of grass should be given up.
In practice, the real struggle ahead can be extremely difficult if only because modern warfare demands not just thinking outside the box but destroying the entire box and exposing and trusting a cultivated ability to think clearly and logically far away from the maddening crowd, at least initially. Ironically, this new thinking demands a return to basic problem solving in the sense that the parameters of the problem must be clearly identified, a solution envisaged and the best possible line, straight or curved, drawn between the two ends so as to encompass as many as possible, especially those who cannot fend for themselves.
And so, once again, my dear good people, the future of Antigua and Barbuda depends on the organized union of workers. This time though, we need men and women who can go way beyond the struggles waged by those who came before us in 1939. But it is instructive to look back.
Sir Novelle wrote that, “The aim of the Trade Union Movement was that workers in the Sugar Industry should be accepted as partners…” This was a noble imperative because the reason given for this partnership was so that, “…They could share in the wealth created by the Industry, rather than being tools employed to do the job.” Anyone who translates “the wealth created by the industry” to mean only the money made by the industry should recall that Sir Novelle wrote the words to our national anthem including the line, “Each endeavouring, all achieving”.
Sir Novelle recorded the resistance of the planters and noted that only improved production efficiency would allow for increases to workers without reduction of the profit margins of the sugar producers. It might be surprising to those who saw Moody-Stuart as the proverbial fly in the ointment, to learn that, “Moody-Stuart and others were willing to accept the challenge and saw the necessity for higher efficiency…. (but)… there were others who did not relish the additional exertion and planning necessitated by the challenge”. As it was in the beginning, so it is now.
A paradigm shift is begging to be ushered in, in which tripartism encompassing government, employer and union step back from their entrenched and cultured, confrontational garrisons. Someone has to jump on a horse and ride into town and tell the old soldiers that the old battles have been won and that a greater war, requiring modern weapons, is being waged. Worse, having defeated the imperialist and colonialist enemies, we are making imperial and colonial mountains out of our own molehill selves.
In the chapter in which Sir Novelle peeks at the future of trade unionism in Antigua and Barbuda, he wrote that, “Antigua gained considerably from the period of industrial peace brought about by the willingness on the part of both Management and the Union, to co-operate and understand each other’s viewpoint”. It is impossible to improve upon the original but I dare say that were Sir Novelle alive today, he might have said that government, management and union not only need to understand each other’s viewpoint, they must actively and deliberately act on these viewpoints in real partnership, in real time, in real place. After all, this was the man who penned the lines in our anthem, “Raise the standard, raise it boldly! Answer now to duty’s call.”
And so when the lids are removed from the chatterboxes and we hear chatter-chatter about the legitimate needs and wants of workers, we have to understand that many Antiguans and Barbudans who are new employers have just stepped out from amongst the ranks of the employed. In the struggle to run such businesses, looking at employers today the same way we looked at those of yesteryear will stifle the very oxygen we all, employee and employer, need to breath to stay alive. This is especially so in the context of the labor code, a masterful and necessary compendium of rules, regulations and guidelines, in abject need of modernization.
And so too, when you hear all the cling and clang and bang-bang and vulgar recitation of veiled and naked threats to government and relatively little talk about performance appraisal; when the word audit refers only to finance and not to every accountable and countable aspect of work that directly and indirectly affect production, we must regard the words of Sir Novelle. After all, he was the one who wrote, “We commit ourselves to building a true nation, brave and free”.
One of the most difficult struggles facing us is the issue of non-nationals. It should be understood that the real enemy might be in camouflage and the perceived enemy might actually be our ally. It is important to understand that in war, generals will destroy a village to win a battle, confident in the knowledge that they can rebuild the village after the conquest. Suffice to say that a mended soul, never the same as the original, can be the source of endless trouble. Having lived in Jamaica for thirteen years, I feel compelled to reprint a few lines from a previous article for those of us who seemed to have manufactured a particular Jamaican in our own image.
“Moses was born an Israelite but he was raised in Egypt in Pharaoh’s house. One school of philosophical thought says that Moses did not enter the promise land because his nationality was ambivalent. Leaders must understand that foreigners always know their place. When we are foreigners overseas or when foreigners come here, we all abide by this unwritten rule. But the same industry and drive that drive all of us to become foreigners also drive us to take whatever is available, even if that means taking over the whole adopted country or the promised land, unless rules, customs and burning bushes militate against this.”
Hence, when we wantonly disrespect our own, we are telling others how we run things here. And obviously, being good non-nationals, they want to be just as disrespectful as us. Seriously though, for those who prance up and down and cry xenophobia when Antiguans and Barbudans talk about non-nationals, they must understand that whilst many different battles are fought in the development of a country, there is a single, larger war that circumscribes all these battles. Therefore, when we are admonished to fight fear and hatred of others, we must remember the third of the three battles, poverty, that make up the war.
The best place to be hungry is at home. Poverty should not be manufactured for the sake of fighting poverty. Unplanned migration with the attendant poor planning in health and education will hurt first and foremost the very same non-national whom we indispensably need to help develop this country. It was Sir Novelle who told us about the struggle that would come after the conquest, a struggle he noted that would require us to gird our loins and join the battle against fear, hate and poverty. It must mean something that this call to arms in our anthem precedes and is a prerequisite to, “Each endeavouring, all achieving”.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
In The Struggle and the Conquest, the venerable Sir Novelle Richards chronicled the formation, rise and fracture of the trade union movement in Antigua and Barbuda. Today, in these troubling times of increases in the costs of food and energy and the consequent demands for increases in salaries and wages, it might be useful to revisit the role of trade unions in Antigua and Barbuda.
A well earned conquest should embolden us to face the inevitable next struggle that lies ahead since struggles and conquests are in constant revolution and evolution. Based on past conquests, the fundamental struggle ahead might be seen by some as being relatively easy. It might simply be a case of using the same tools, the same well-kept, oiled and shiny weapons of war and deploying the same tried and proven negotiation tactics. At the very minimum, some would argue that the gains already achieved should be non-negotiable and neither an inch nor a single blade of grass should be given up.
In practice, the real struggle ahead can be extremely difficult if only because modern warfare demands not just thinking outside the box but destroying the entire box and exposing and trusting a cultivated ability to think clearly and logically far away from the maddening crowd, at least initially. Ironically, this new thinking demands a return to basic problem solving in the sense that the parameters of the problem must be clearly identified, a solution envisaged and the best possible line, straight or curved, drawn between the two ends so as to encompass as many as possible, especially those who cannot fend for themselves.
And so, once again, my dear good people, the future of Antigua and Barbuda depends on the organized union of workers. This time though, we need men and women who can go way beyond the struggles waged by those who came before us in 1939. But it is instructive to look back.
Sir Novelle wrote that, “The aim of the Trade Union Movement was that workers in the Sugar Industry should be accepted as partners…” This was a noble imperative because the reason given for this partnership was so that, “…They could share in the wealth created by the Industry, rather than being tools employed to do the job.” Anyone who translates “the wealth created by the industry” to mean only the money made by the industry should recall that Sir Novelle wrote the words to our national anthem including the line, “Each endeavouring, all achieving”.
Sir Novelle recorded the resistance of the planters and noted that only improved production efficiency would allow for increases to workers without reduction of the profit margins of the sugar producers. It might be surprising to those who saw Moody-Stuart as the proverbial fly in the ointment, to learn that, “Moody-Stuart and others were willing to accept the challenge and saw the necessity for higher efficiency…. (but)… there were others who did not relish the additional exertion and planning necessitated by the challenge”. As it was in the beginning, so it is now.
A paradigm shift is begging to be ushered in, in which tripartism encompassing government, employer and union step back from their entrenched and cultured, confrontational garrisons. Someone has to jump on a horse and ride into town and tell the old soldiers that the old battles have been won and that a greater war, requiring modern weapons, is being waged. Worse, having defeated the imperialist and colonialist enemies, we are making imperial and colonial mountains out of our own molehill selves.
In the chapter in which Sir Novelle peeks at the future of trade unionism in Antigua and Barbuda, he wrote that, “Antigua gained considerably from the period of industrial peace brought about by the willingness on the part of both Management and the Union, to co-operate and understand each other’s viewpoint”. It is impossible to improve upon the original but I dare say that were Sir Novelle alive today, he might have said that government, management and union not only need to understand each other’s viewpoint, they must actively and deliberately act on these viewpoints in real partnership, in real time, in real place. After all, this was the man who penned the lines in our anthem, “Raise the standard, raise it boldly! Answer now to duty’s call.”
And so when the lids are removed from the chatterboxes and we hear chatter-chatter about the legitimate needs and wants of workers, we have to understand that many Antiguans and Barbudans who are new employers have just stepped out from amongst the ranks of the employed. In the struggle to run such businesses, looking at employers today the same way we looked at those of yesteryear will stifle the very oxygen we all, employee and employer, need to breath to stay alive. This is especially so in the context of the labor code, a masterful and necessary compendium of rules, regulations and guidelines, in abject need of modernization.
And so too, when you hear all the cling and clang and bang-bang and vulgar recitation of veiled and naked threats to government and relatively little talk about performance appraisal; when the word audit refers only to finance and not to every accountable and countable aspect of work that directly and indirectly affect production, we must regard the words of Sir Novelle. After all, he was the one who wrote, “We commit ourselves to building a true nation, brave and free”.
One of the most difficult struggles facing us is the issue of non-nationals. It should be understood that the real enemy might be in camouflage and the perceived enemy might actually be our ally. It is important to understand that in war, generals will destroy a village to win a battle, confident in the knowledge that they can rebuild the village after the conquest. Suffice to say that a mended soul, never the same as the original, can be the source of endless trouble. Having lived in Jamaica for thirteen years, I feel compelled to reprint a few lines from a previous article for those of us who seemed to have manufactured a particular Jamaican in our own image.
“Moses was born an Israelite but he was raised in Egypt in Pharaoh’s house. One school of philosophical thought says that Moses did not enter the promise land because his nationality was ambivalent. Leaders must understand that foreigners always know their place. When we are foreigners overseas or when foreigners come here, we all abide by this unwritten rule. But the same industry and drive that drive all of us to become foreigners also drive us to take whatever is available, even if that means taking over the whole adopted country or the promised land, unless rules, customs and burning bushes militate against this.”
Hence, when we wantonly disrespect our own, we are telling others how we run things here. And obviously, being good non-nationals, they want to be just as disrespectful as us. Seriously though, for those who prance up and down and cry xenophobia when Antiguans and Barbudans talk about non-nationals, they must understand that whilst many different battles are fought in the development of a country, there is a single, larger war that circumscribes all these battles. Therefore, when we are admonished to fight fear and hatred of others, we must remember the third of the three battles, poverty, that make up the war.
The best place to be hungry is at home. Poverty should not be manufactured for the sake of fighting poverty. Unplanned migration with the attendant poor planning in health and education will hurt first and foremost the very same non-national whom we indispensably need to help develop this country. It was Sir Novelle who told us about the struggle that would come after the conquest, a struggle he noted that would require us to gird our loins and join the battle against fear, hate and poverty. It must mean something that this call to arms in our anthem precedes and is a prerequisite to, “Each endeavouring, all achieving”.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Sing A Song
SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE
Dr. Lester CN Simon
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a nation of displaced people, dispossessed of the good fortune of frequent moieties of cultural expositions, will expose themselves in the want of wanton annual competitions. Hence, all the talk about the Female Calypso Competition has forced me, belatedly, into a confession about all carnival calypso competitions in Antigua and Barbuda in general. They make me sick.
Almost every time after playing in the All Star Band for the final Calypso Monarch competition at carnival for the past twenty years, I would drive for miles or sit with or without friends for hours until and beyond J’ouvert and wonder if we would ever get it right. Getting it right is not just about the judging, as atrocious as that can be at times. It is about the entire season of calypso from idea to song to performance.
The decision of the Carnival Development Committee (CDC) not to have a Queen of Calypso Competition this year is correct, but the reason is based on a false premise. The CDC chairman stated that the Queen of Calypso Competition started in response to an uneven playing field between the male and female calypsonians. The notion that the skills and talents of female calypsonians have now matched those of the males, is rooted in a misconception about the acquisition and nurturing of skills and prowess in artistic endeavors. Competitions by their very nature are not the best breeding grounds to develop an artiste. Calypso tents are indeed fine-tuning events but they can only do so little for the overall development process.
Calypsonians, males and females, need regular rudimentary training in music in all its parts, and in literature. This requires access to places and people who are part of institutional building, literally and developmentally. Such a national institution will be an invaluable tool for the majority of hopeful calypsonians and musicians. It will also serve as a useful target for the mavericks who like to rally against the establishment.
With all the music we were exposed to at the Jamaica School of Music (Afro-American Department), we realized very early that the soul of Jamaican music in the seventies was coming from artistes, like Bob Marley, who were far removed from the music school. Nonetheless, when our music teacher did an arrangement of Rebel Music (3 O'Clock Roadblock) by Bob Marley, we instantly recognized why she had used a particular chord that was much more dissonant than the one used in the original. Whilst Bob Marley’s road block comprised a few policemen, Melba Liston’s arrangement had police, soldier and every security personnel you could imagine, as well as ambulances with outriders and a throng of obstructed quarrelsome Jamaicans.
On a recent visit to Chicago, I visited the Fine Arts Building on South Michigan Avenue. It was built in 1885 and carries an old timer elevator operator. In this ten storey building one could attend a performance, conduct private lessons, practice, engage instrument repair technicians, hang out in music shops, mount exhibitions etc. As fine as that institution is, I wondered what part it played in the development of the avant-garde musicians grouped together as the Art Ensemble of Chicago, in which music and drama were rolled into one holistic performance. It was out of this same group that a member, the late trumpeter, Lester Bowie, came to Jamaica and taught us how to really play a wind instrument by leaving the established classroom and taking to the hills overlooking Kingston.
It was in that regular creative environment that someone (guess who?) responded to a perpetual student in an extempore calypso competition on campus, thus: “My competitor studying on campus so long, for him and he alone I sing this song, by now he must have so much degree, Fahrenheit and Centigrade have to hide from he”. This did not come overnight, it came from hours of seeing the humour in the simple and the complex things in life. It came out of inventing silly jokes like the one about what would happen if a Rastaman were to walk into a bar in the wild, wild, west and shout, “Jah!”
The new Friday evening program on Observer Radio on calypso by Cleveroy is a movement in the right direction. It is in consonant harmonic concert with Serpent’s “Klassic Kaiso Korner”. We do not need a ten storey building like the Fine Arts Building in Chicago. However, last year when I walked into the wooden, two storey building hosting our Culture Department on lower Nevis Street, I could barely hear myself talk or think whilst a single tenor pan player was practicing. The CDC can cut and cut all it wants, it must come to a comprehensible, unambiguous position in conjunction with artistes and the Culture Department about the way forward in the development of our arts.
Maybe, just maybe, the demise of the Queen of Calypso Competition will give birth to a call for a new, serious way forward. Indeed, just as the nursery rhyme, Sing a Song of Sixpence, was used as a coded message by the notorious pirate Blackbeard to recruit crew members for prize-hunting expeditions, so too may the song and dance about the loss of the Queen of Calypso Competition be a coded, calypso, clarion call not to enounce the questionable leveling of the playing field, but to create a lush calypso playing field of which we can be proud.
The CDC and the rest of us must disabuse ourselves of the puerile, popular notion that cultural expressions are perennial, flowering pastimes. Being a calypsonian, female or male, or a musician or any kind of artiste demands an active and passive opening of the mind, the eye and the ear every single, blessed, cultural day.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a nation of displaced people, dispossessed of the good fortune of frequent moieties of cultural expositions, will expose themselves in the want of wanton annual competitions. Hence, all the talk about the Female Calypso Competition has forced me, belatedly, into a confession about all carnival calypso competitions in Antigua and Barbuda in general. They make me sick.
Almost every time after playing in the All Star Band for the final Calypso Monarch competition at carnival for the past twenty years, I would drive for miles or sit with or without friends for hours until and beyond J’ouvert and wonder if we would ever get it right. Getting it right is not just about the judging, as atrocious as that can be at times. It is about the entire season of calypso from idea to song to performance.
The decision of the Carnival Development Committee (CDC) not to have a Queen of Calypso Competition this year is correct, but the reason is based on a false premise. The CDC chairman stated that the Queen of Calypso Competition started in response to an uneven playing field between the male and female calypsonians. The notion that the skills and talents of female calypsonians have now matched those of the males, is rooted in a misconception about the acquisition and nurturing of skills and prowess in artistic endeavors. Competitions by their very nature are not the best breeding grounds to develop an artiste. Calypso tents are indeed fine-tuning events but they can only do so little for the overall development process.
Calypsonians, males and females, need regular rudimentary training in music in all its parts, and in literature. This requires access to places and people who are part of institutional building, literally and developmentally. Such a national institution will be an invaluable tool for the majority of hopeful calypsonians and musicians. It will also serve as a useful target for the mavericks who like to rally against the establishment.
With all the music we were exposed to at the Jamaica School of Music (Afro-American Department), we realized very early that the soul of Jamaican music in the seventies was coming from artistes, like Bob Marley, who were far removed from the music school. Nonetheless, when our music teacher did an arrangement of Rebel Music (3 O'Clock Roadblock) by Bob Marley, we instantly recognized why she had used a particular chord that was much more dissonant than the one used in the original. Whilst Bob Marley’s road block comprised a few policemen, Melba Liston’s arrangement had police, soldier and every security personnel you could imagine, as well as ambulances with outriders and a throng of obstructed quarrelsome Jamaicans.
On a recent visit to Chicago, I visited the Fine Arts Building on South Michigan Avenue. It was built in 1885 and carries an old timer elevator operator. In this ten storey building one could attend a performance, conduct private lessons, practice, engage instrument repair technicians, hang out in music shops, mount exhibitions etc. As fine as that institution is, I wondered what part it played in the development of the avant-garde musicians grouped together as the Art Ensemble of Chicago, in which music and drama were rolled into one holistic performance. It was out of this same group that a member, the late trumpeter, Lester Bowie, came to Jamaica and taught us how to really play a wind instrument by leaving the established classroom and taking to the hills overlooking Kingston.
It was in that regular creative environment that someone (guess who?) responded to a perpetual student in an extempore calypso competition on campus, thus: “My competitor studying on campus so long, for him and he alone I sing this song, by now he must have so much degree, Fahrenheit and Centigrade have to hide from he”. This did not come overnight, it came from hours of seeing the humour in the simple and the complex things in life. It came out of inventing silly jokes like the one about what would happen if a Rastaman were to walk into a bar in the wild, wild, west and shout, “Jah!”
The new Friday evening program on Observer Radio on calypso by Cleveroy is a movement in the right direction. It is in consonant harmonic concert with Serpent’s “Klassic Kaiso Korner”. We do not need a ten storey building like the Fine Arts Building in Chicago. However, last year when I walked into the wooden, two storey building hosting our Culture Department on lower Nevis Street, I could barely hear myself talk or think whilst a single tenor pan player was practicing. The CDC can cut and cut all it wants, it must come to a comprehensible, unambiguous position in conjunction with artistes and the Culture Department about the way forward in the development of our arts.
Maybe, just maybe, the demise of the Queen of Calypso Competition will give birth to a call for a new, serious way forward. Indeed, just as the nursery rhyme, Sing a Song of Sixpence, was used as a coded message by the notorious pirate Blackbeard to recruit crew members for prize-hunting expeditions, so too may the song and dance about the loss of the Queen of Calypso Competition be a coded, calypso, clarion call not to enounce the questionable leveling of the playing field, but to create a lush calypso playing field of which we can be proud.
The CDC and the rest of us must disabuse ourselves of the puerile, popular notion that cultural expressions are perennial, flowering pastimes. Being a calypsonian, female or male, or a musician or any kind of artiste demands an active and passive opening of the mind, the eye and the ear every single, blessed, cultural day.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
A COMMON SENSE
THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE
Dr. Lester CN Simon
When old country folks think you are force-ripe but they really love you and want to see you come good, they will tell you stories like the one about the young village boy who was apprenticed to an old sorcerer. Like all apprentices, the boy longed for the day when he could do all the things his master did, and more. But his miserly chores were confined to fetching water and cleaning the sorcerer’s workshop. One day, the sorcerer departed and left the boy to do his customary, mundane duties. Seizing the opportunity, the apprentice dressed up like the sorcerer, searched through the magic book and enchanted a broomstick to do all the work for him.
However, as the broomstick fetched the water, cleaned and washed the floor, the water was truly more than floor and the workshop became awash with water. Not knowing the magic words to enchant the broomstick to stop, the boy chopped the broomstick into pieces. But each piece continued to fetch more and more water and do less and less mopping. It was truly a disastrous case of mopping and the pipe running. The tail of the tale sees the sorcerer returning and breaking the magic spell.
In the story, the sorcerer returns, but in real life, there is no “Return of the Jedi”; the sorcerer does not come back. How then do we control the natural inquisitiveness of humans and the potentially disastrous waywardness of all societies? For quite some time now but more so recently, economists have been applying economic principles to matters that at first appear to be outside their realm but which, on closer scrutiny, operate on the same basic principles. In fact, the more you study any discipline whatsoever, the more you are drawn to the concept of one universal common sense, a universal logic, a theory of everything.
If economists can apply basic economic principles to many forms of human behaviour, maybe doctors can do the same using basic principles of medicine in general and of pathology in particular and see how they apply to life not just in vitro or in vivo but “in socio’’, or to use the correct Latin phrase, in congregatio.
A gene refers to a strand of DNA. DNA is the abbreviated name for a complex array of different chemical units. Genes are generally knows as traits that we inherit from our parents. DNA contains regions that are called coding sequences and these determine what the genes produce. DNA also contains non-coding sequences. These non-coding regions act to regulate the genes.
Proteins are the products of genes. Their manufacture requires that the DNA (containing the genes) be transcribed into another chemical strand called messenger RNA, which then translates the genetic code into the manufacturing of proteins. This transcription followed by translation arrangement defines the heart of the genetic hierarchical structure, in which the master chemical, DNA, is conserved in the nucleus whilst its properties are transcribed to messenger RNA which then leaves the nucleus and translates the code through the assembling of amino acids into proteins. Is there a biblical parallel here? Ironically, some viruses, like HIV, are RNA viruses and they have the ability to reverse the transcription process and make DNA from RNA.
Whenever we discuss DNA and genes we must remember en passant that a small portion of DNA resides outside the nucleus in a small but critically important structure called mitochondria, whose job is to provide most of the energy we need. A remarkable fact is that whilst we get our nuclear DNA from both parents, all of us, males and females, get our mitochondrial DNA from our mothers only, not from our fathers. This raises legitimate, non-blasphemous questions, unless there was some post-Adam molecular revolution, about the origin of Adam’s maternal mitochondrial DNA.
The Human Genome Project refers to the international collaborative scientific research effort to determine the sequence of human DNA and identify the structures and functions of all the genes it carries. There is still some unfinished business to attend to but a rough draft of the human genome was finished in 2000 and announced jointly by then President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair. The details of the last chromosome were published in 2006. Chromosomes refer to 23 pairs of organized structures in the nucleus of cells, containing DNA and proteins.
There are many interesting lessons to be learnt from the structure and function of the human genome, which refers to the entire hereditary information encoded in DNA. We now know that humans have about 30,000 genes instead of the 100,000 we estimated previously. For many years, scientists focused on the products of genes, which are proteins. However, we now know that many genes do not make proteins at all. What then do they do? They regulate.
Proteins are the building blocks of all living cells. Proteins carry out essential cellular functions ranging from the structural integrity of the cell to the very type of cell, the functions of the cell and the timing of the death of the cell. Whilst some genes contain the code for making proteins via messenger RNA, other genes are concerned with the manufacture of another type of RNA, a smaller RNA molecule called microRNA. These small units called microRNA function to either repress the translation of messenger RNA or they actually destroy the messenger RNA as part of their regulatory, inhibitory function. What are the implications of repressing or destroying messenger RNA and what happens if these microRNA regulators go awry?
There are good genes and bad genes. Different types of microRNAs target particular genes. Some genes, called oncogenes, are involved in the formation of cancer and can be seen as bad genes. Other genes, called tumour suppressor genes, are involved in suppressing cancer formation and can be seen as good genes. If a particular microRNA normally inhibits a gene that causes cancer (a bad gene), a reduction in the quantity or function of that type of regulatory, inhibitory microRNA will allow overproduction of the cancer-causing, bad gene. This is equivalent to a reduction in the quantity or function of the police, allowing the criminals to run riot.
Conversely, if the microRNA normally inhibits genes that suppress cancer (a good gene), excess activity of this type of microRNA will greatly inhibit the cancer suppressor gene and lead to cancer because there is little or no suppression from the cancer suppressor gene in the wake of its excessive inhibition from the regulatory microRNA. This is the equivalent of having a regulatory human rights watchdog group overseeing the suppressive actions of front-line, crime fighting police officers. The group functions so exceptionally well in inhibiting the over-zealous front-line police officers, the police complain that their hands are tied. The criminals not only run riot, they laugh all the way to, in and from their own bank.
The discovery of gene silencing through repression and destruction of messenger RNA by the use of regulatory microRNA was so critical in the field of molecular medicine, the discovers, Andrew Fire and Craig Mello were awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine two years ago, a mere eight years after they published their work in 1998. There is an irony in this seemingly new universal logic, this singular common sense, this theory of everything that runs through and links all branches of learning including economics and medicine. The basic principles involved here are as old as the hills. These principles are open knowledge and common fodder for any sorcerer’s apprentice and for any common, street-smart criminal who, as the don of an enslaved, drug-dependent, West Indian community, has been awarded far too many noble prizes.
(References: Robbin’s Basic Pathology by Kumar et al, 2007 & www.wikipedia.org)
Dr. Lester CN Simon
When old country folks think you are force-ripe but they really love you and want to see you come good, they will tell you stories like the one about the young village boy who was apprenticed to an old sorcerer. Like all apprentices, the boy longed for the day when he could do all the things his master did, and more. But his miserly chores were confined to fetching water and cleaning the sorcerer’s workshop. One day, the sorcerer departed and left the boy to do his customary, mundane duties. Seizing the opportunity, the apprentice dressed up like the sorcerer, searched through the magic book and enchanted a broomstick to do all the work for him.
However, as the broomstick fetched the water, cleaned and washed the floor, the water was truly more than floor and the workshop became awash with water. Not knowing the magic words to enchant the broomstick to stop, the boy chopped the broomstick into pieces. But each piece continued to fetch more and more water and do less and less mopping. It was truly a disastrous case of mopping and the pipe running. The tail of the tale sees the sorcerer returning and breaking the magic spell.
In the story, the sorcerer returns, but in real life, there is no “Return of the Jedi”; the sorcerer does not come back. How then do we control the natural inquisitiveness of humans and the potentially disastrous waywardness of all societies? For quite some time now but more so recently, economists have been applying economic principles to matters that at first appear to be outside their realm but which, on closer scrutiny, operate on the same basic principles. In fact, the more you study any discipline whatsoever, the more you are drawn to the concept of one universal common sense, a universal logic, a theory of everything.
If economists can apply basic economic principles to many forms of human behaviour, maybe doctors can do the same using basic principles of medicine in general and of pathology in particular and see how they apply to life not just in vitro or in vivo but “in socio’’, or to use the correct Latin phrase, in congregatio.
A gene refers to a strand of DNA. DNA is the abbreviated name for a complex array of different chemical units. Genes are generally knows as traits that we inherit from our parents. DNA contains regions that are called coding sequences and these determine what the genes produce. DNA also contains non-coding sequences. These non-coding regions act to regulate the genes.
Proteins are the products of genes. Their manufacture requires that the DNA (containing the genes) be transcribed into another chemical strand called messenger RNA, which then translates the genetic code into the manufacturing of proteins. This transcription followed by translation arrangement defines the heart of the genetic hierarchical structure, in which the master chemical, DNA, is conserved in the nucleus whilst its properties are transcribed to messenger RNA which then leaves the nucleus and translates the code through the assembling of amino acids into proteins. Is there a biblical parallel here? Ironically, some viruses, like HIV, are RNA viruses and they have the ability to reverse the transcription process and make DNA from RNA.
Whenever we discuss DNA and genes we must remember en passant that a small portion of DNA resides outside the nucleus in a small but critically important structure called mitochondria, whose job is to provide most of the energy we need. A remarkable fact is that whilst we get our nuclear DNA from both parents, all of us, males and females, get our mitochondrial DNA from our mothers only, not from our fathers. This raises legitimate, non-blasphemous questions, unless there was some post-Adam molecular revolution, about the origin of Adam’s maternal mitochondrial DNA.
The Human Genome Project refers to the international collaborative scientific research effort to determine the sequence of human DNA and identify the structures and functions of all the genes it carries. There is still some unfinished business to attend to but a rough draft of the human genome was finished in 2000 and announced jointly by then President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair. The details of the last chromosome were published in 2006. Chromosomes refer to 23 pairs of organized structures in the nucleus of cells, containing DNA and proteins.
There are many interesting lessons to be learnt from the structure and function of the human genome, which refers to the entire hereditary information encoded in DNA. We now know that humans have about 30,000 genes instead of the 100,000 we estimated previously. For many years, scientists focused on the products of genes, which are proteins. However, we now know that many genes do not make proteins at all. What then do they do? They regulate.
Proteins are the building blocks of all living cells. Proteins carry out essential cellular functions ranging from the structural integrity of the cell to the very type of cell, the functions of the cell and the timing of the death of the cell. Whilst some genes contain the code for making proteins via messenger RNA, other genes are concerned with the manufacture of another type of RNA, a smaller RNA molecule called microRNA. These small units called microRNA function to either repress the translation of messenger RNA or they actually destroy the messenger RNA as part of their regulatory, inhibitory function. What are the implications of repressing or destroying messenger RNA and what happens if these microRNA regulators go awry?
There are good genes and bad genes. Different types of microRNAs target particular genes. Some genes, called oncogenes, are involved in the formation of cancer and can be seen as bad genes. Other genes, called tumour suppressor genes, are involved in suppressing cancer formation and can be seen as good genes. If a particular microRNA normally inhibits a gene that causes cancer (a bad gene), a reduction in the quantity or function of that type of regulatory, inhibitory microRNA will allow overproduction of the cancer-causing, bad gene. This is equivalent to a reduction in the quantity or function of the police, allowing the criminals to run riot.
Conversely, if the microRNA normally inhibits genes that suppress cancer (a good gene), excess activity of this type of microRNA will greatly inhibit the cancer suppressor gene and lead to cancer because there is little or no suppression from the cancer suppressor gene in the wake of its excessive inhibition from the regulatory microRNA. This is the equivalent of having a regulatory human rights watchdog group overseeing the suppressive actions of front-line, crime fighting police officers. The group functions so exceptionally well in inhibiting the over-zealous front-line police officers, the police complain that their hands are tied. The criminals not only run riot, they laugh all the way to, in and from their own bank.
The discovery of gene silencing through repression and destruction of messenger RNA by the use of regulatory microRNA was so critical in the field of molecular medicine, the discovers, Andrew Fire and Craig Mello were awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine two years ago, a mere eight years after they published their work in 1998. There is an irony in this seemingly new universal logic, this singular common sense, this theory of everything that runs through and links all branches of learning including economics and medicine. The basic principles involved here are as old as the hills. These principles are open knowledge and common fodder for any sorcerer’s apprentice and for any common, street-smart criminal who, as the don of an enslaved, drug-dependent, West Indian community, has been awarded far too many noble prizes.
(References: Robbin’s Basic Pathology by Kumar et al, 2007 & www.wikipedia.org)
Thursday, March 20, 2008
A VEXATION UNTO ME
TAKE A DEEP BREATH
Dr. Lester CN Simon
I thought I should write this article to the Daily Observer to let off some steam because it seems I get too angry too quickly and that I may need anger management classes. But I have to say straight up that I think I have the patience of Job. Seriously. When you consider the things I go through in this country on a daily basis I should be vexed every day and every night or maybe I should have been born vexed to prepare me for this ton of wanton vexation.
Since I was little, I learnt to deal with vexation but vexation these days comes from corners and quarters I never expected. The first time in my life I remember getting really upset and having to deal with anger management was when I was little and liked this sweet little girl in my village. I planned out a detailed conversation with this princess, in my mind. I rehearsed the conversation over and over, even looking in the mirror to see her reaction, and my reaction too. Imagine then, when I met the princess and opened the conversation, the well planned conversation, by saying to her that I had a dream about her last night, all the ugly duckling could find to ask me was who told me to dream about her. I didn’t plan for that at all.
But I learnt from that. I learnt that I must always be prepared for the unexpected. But the unexpectedness I am getting these days is beyond all unexpectedness. It’s as if the devil sent some people on earth with my name in their mouths and with explicit instructions to seek me out and render me botheration.
Take St. Mary’s Street, the busiest exit from the city. There are no traffic lights at the top, so if you have to turn right, you have to hope that some sensible person will not block the exit when the traffic light ahead of them is red. The other day, I drove up to the intersection and ever so gently, kindly, and very softly, asked a driver to reverse a little so that I could drive out. The man looked me straight in the eye as if to say I must come out of my vehicle, walk over to his car, put his car in neutral, pull up the hand break, take off his seatbelt, drag him out, throw him to the ground, or gently put him to sit down on the sidewalk and then reverse his car myself. Now, if I were to follow his clear instructions and do that, the police would not understand I was following orders. I had to take a deep breath.
Some say that deep breathing is the solution to anger. Deep breathing means that you do not breathe from the top of your chest like you do when you are panting; neither do you breathe solely from your chest wall by pushing out your chest. They suggest that you breathe from your diaphragm, which is below and attached to your chest wall. When you do that, by pushing your stomach out to breathe in, your chest opens more and your lungs take in as much air as possible. It is difficult to be angry and breathe deeply. But years of getting angry have led me to conclude that anger is rational.
In a recent book, called The Logic of Life, the celebrated economist, Tim Harford writes that although many of our actions and decisions may seem irrational, there is an underlying logic to our choices. There is a method in our madness. Take crime, for example. Most people do not commit crime because of fear of punishment; they calculatedly commit crime because they know they stand a very good chance of not getting caught. Or if they got caught in Antigua and Barbuda, they stand a very good chance of not going to trial or of the case being dismissed.
Criminals are some of the most rational persons on earth. Misfits yes; but diabolically clever and rational. Those who claim that prison and the death penalty work are not really saying that they are deterrents, they are saying that they prevent the imprisoned or the executed from committing crimes. In the case of these penalties being wrongly applied, the consequences are obvious.
In The Logic of Life, Harford uses the principles of economics to tell us why in the face of the risk of HIV infection, a prostitute will occasionally have sex without a condom for a higher fee. As bizarre as this might seem at first, she (or he) is said to be making a similar economic choice as other workers such as policemen or soldiers, who get higher salaries for engaging in legitimate high risk work. This means that although we know that deep breathing will help to avert anger, we will deliberately breathe badly when we huff and puff and blow the house down because we are making a learnt, rational, economic choice. The reward is that we feel good after a good anger and sometimes even while we are in the state of anger too. Some people actually go out of their way to get angry or force others to get them angry so they can feel good afterwards.
We wonder why boys are doing poorly in school and seemingly making poor choices but maybe there is logic at work here. We have always been told that education is to prepare us for the job market (which sounds so much like slavery all over again). Why then would a street-smart boy go to school when he has a job already, even though he is out of work every now and then, like some educated people? And do not tell the delinquent school boy that he is missing out on the "aha" experience, the joy of learning and discovering in school. He has been there and done that already on the streets where you live.
As the message by D. Gisele Isaac on Observer Radio implies, we have to change the way he understand education. This might mean setting up small schools all over the community, starting at home, or incorporating the places where children go, play and skylark to ply the new education. Maybe we need a new type of teacher, a new chalkboard and a new type of textbook. If education is to prepare us for life, why go to school when we already have the life we think we want? The mountain of education must move to Mohammed (as Barach Obama is showing).
The premise of The Logic of Life is that we are rational beings responding to incentives and rewards even when our choices seem bizarre. Take the recent arguments about legalization or decriminalization of marijuana. Whenever these discussions arise, they always end up in smoke because the arguments are not fair and logical. The arguments usually surround two themes, one of which is to compare marijuana to other substances. For the sake of argument, let’s say that the data show that marijuana is just as safe as or even safer than alcohol or tobacco. We cannot them move from that conclusion and add to the reasons for the use of marijuana by saying that it is a natural substance. That is a non sequitur. We might as well smoke “cassi” bush.
The fact that marijuana is natural does not bestow any special advantages to it. Oxygen is natural and yet it can be harmful under some circumstances. Sunlight is essential yet sunrays can cause cancer. Many disasters are natural. The very act of smoking marijuana releases a number of harmful substances that are released from many substances that are burnt. This means that the burning of incense in church or barbecuing chicken and even natural vegetables might be harmful. Indeed, one wonders the effect it would have had on him if Moses had to stand in front of the burning bush every day for excessive lengths of time.
So, if the science shows that marijuana is as safe as or even safer than legal substances, that is the argument for legalization or decriminalization. We should admit to the scientific fact that burning many substances, including marijuana, can be dangerous to health. We can then decide if the risk of smoking it is an acceptable risk and stop trying to confuse the arguments by invoking the naturalness of the marijuana plant. If this argument makes you angry, this is one time to defy the prescription for anger management and do not take a deep breath.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
I thought I should write this article to the Daily Observer to let off some steam because it seems I get too angry too quickly and that I may need anger management classes. But I have to say straight up that I think I have the patience of Job. Seriously. When you consider the things I go through in this country on a daily basis I should be vexed every day and every night or maybe I should have been born vexed to prepare me for this ton of wanton vexation.
Since I was little, I learnt to deal with vexation but vexation these days comes from corners and quarters I never expected. The first time in my life I remember getting really upset and having to deal with anger management was when I was little and liked this sweet little girl in my village. I planned out a detailed conversation with this princess, in my mind. I rehearsed the conversation over and over, even looking in the mirror to see her reaction, and my reaction too. Imagine then, when I met the princess and opened the conversation, the well planned conversation, by saying to her that I had a dream about her last night, all the ugly duckling could find to ask me was who told me to dream about her. I didn’t plan for that at all.
But I learnt from that. I learnt that I must always be prepared for the unexpected. But the unexpectedness I am getting these days is beyond all unexpectedness. It’s as if the devil sent some people on earth with my name in their mouths and with explicit instructions to seek me out and render me botheration.
Take St. Mary’s Street, the busiest exit from the city. There are no traffic lights at the top, so if you have to turn right, you have to hope that some sensible person will not block the exit when the traffic light ahead of them is red. The other day, I drove up to the intersection and ever so gently, kindly, and very softly, asked a driver to reverse a little so that I could drive out. The man looked me straight in the eye as if to say I must come out of my vehicle, walk over to his car, put his car in neutral, pull up the hand break, take off his seatbelt, drag him out, throw him to the ground, or gently put him to sit down on the sidewalk and then reverse his car myself. Now, if I were to follow his clear instructions and do that, the police would not understand I was following orders. I had to take a deep breath.
Some say that deep breathing is the solution to anger. Deep breathing means that you do not breathe from the top of your chest like you do when you are panting; neither do you breathe solely from your chest wall by pushing out your chest. They suggest that you breathe from your diaphragm, which is below and attached to your chest wall. When you do that, by pushing your stomach out to breathe in, your chest opens more and your lungs take in as much air as possible. It is difficult to be angry and breathe deeply. But years of getting angry have led me to conclude that anger is rational.
In a recent book, called The Logic of Life, the celebrated economist, Tim Harford writes that although many of our actions and decisions may seem irrational, there is an underlying logic to our choices. There is a method in our madness. Take crime, for example. Most people do not commit crime because of fear of punishment; they calculatedly commit crime because they know they stand a very good chance of not getting caught. Or if they got caught in Antigua and Barbuda, they stand a very good chance of not going to trial or of the case being dismissed.
Criminals are some of the most rational persons on earth. Misfits yes; but diabolically clever and rational. Those who claim that prison and the death penalty work are not really saying that they are deterrents, they are saying that they prevent the imprisoned or the executed from committing crimes. In the case of these penalties being wrongly applied, the consequences are obvious.
In The Logic of Life, Harford uses the principles of economics to tell us why in the face of the risk of HIV infection, a prostitute will occasionally have sex without a condom for a higher fee. As bizarre as this might seem at first, she (or he) is said to be making a similar economic choice as other workers such as policemen or soldiers, who get higher salaries for engaging in legitimate high risk work. This means that although we know that deep breathing will help to avert anger, we will deliberately breathe badly when we huff and puff and blow the house down because we are making a learnt, rational, economic choice. The reward is that we feel good after a good anger and sometimes even while we are in the state of anger too. Some people actually go out of their way to get angry or force others to get them angry so they can feel good afterwards.
We wonder why boys are doing poorly in school and seemingly making poor choices but maybe there is logic at work here. We have always been told that education is to prepare us for the job market (which sounds so much like slavery all over again). Why then would a street-smart boy go to school when he has a job already, even though he is out of work every now and then, like some educated people? And do not tell the delinquent school boy that he is missing out on the "aha" experience, the joy of learning and discovering in school. He has been there and done that already on the streets where you live.
As the message by D. Gisele Isaac on Observer Radio implies, we have to change the way he understand education. This might mean setting up small schools all over the community, starting at home, or incorporating the places where children go, play and skylark to ply the new education. Maybe we need a new type of teacher, a new chalkboard and a new type of textbook. If education is to prepare us for life, why go to school when we already have the life we think we want? The mountain of education must move to Mohammed (as Barach Obama is showing).
The premise of The Logic of Life is that we are rational beings responding to incentives and rewards even when our choices seem bizarre. Take the recent arguments about legalization or decriminalization of marijuana. Whenever these discussions arise, they always end up in smoke because the arguments are not fair and logical. The arguments usually surround two themes, one of which is to compare marijuana to other substances. For the sake of argument, let’s say that the data show that marijuana is just as safe as or even safer than alcohol or tobacco. We cannot them move from that conclusion and add to the reasons for the use of marijuana by saying that it is a natural substance. That is a non sequitur. We might as well smoke “cassi” bush.
The fact that marijuana is natural does not bestow any special advantages to it. Oxygen is natural and yet it can be harmful under some circumstances. Sunlight is essential yet sunrays can cause cancer. Many disasters are natural. The very act of smoking marijuana releases a number of harmful substances that are released from many substances that are burnt. This means that the burning of incense in church or barbecuing chicken and even natural vegetables might be harmful. Indeed, one wonders the effect it would have had on him if Moses had to stand in front of the burning bush every day for excessive lengths of time.
So, if the science shows that marijuana is as safe as or even safer than legal substances, that is the argument for legalization or decriminalization. We should admit to the scientific fact that burning many substances, including marijuana, can be dangerous to health. We can then decide if the risk of smoking it is an acceptable risk and stop trying to confuse the arguments by invoking the naturalness of the marijuana plant. If this argument makes you angry, this is one time to defy the prescription for anger management and do not take a deep breath.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
MORE GARDENERS
DEAD FLAT
Dear Editor
Have you ever wondered why it is so difficult to keep the St. John’s Public Cemetery and almost all our other cemeteries, apart from the one at the Anglican Cathedral, in immaculate condition? Some cemeteries are so dirty and unkempt, one is tempted to defy nature and live forever; unless one favours burial at sea or cremation.
I am suggesting that the primary reason is probably because the graves are convex instead of flat. Initially, it probably makes sense to pile up the dirt on top of the graves since excess dirt would remain after the interment. On second thought, it is probably better to spread the excess dirt around and leave the top of the graves flat. This would make for easier cleaning with a lawn mower.
Did we always have convex graves? If the main concern is for the settling of the grave over time then surely dirt removed from a new grave site can be added to an older grave that is settling and just beginning to become hollow. But graves as old as, or even older than seven years still have a convex mound. So why can’t we have flat graves by spreading the excess dirt around the grave yard? Surely it cannot be that we do not want to mix the dirt from one grave with another.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Dear Editor
Have you ever wondered why it is so difficult to keep the St. John’s Public Cemetery and almost all our other cemeteries, apart from the one at the Anglican Cathedral, in immaculate condition? Some cemeteries are so dirty and unkempt, one is tempted to defy nature and live forever; unless one favours burial at sea or cremation.
I am suggesting that the primary reason is probably because the graves are convex instead of flat. Initially, it probably makes sense to pile up the dirt on top of the graves since excess dirt would remain after the interment. On second thought, it is probably better to spread the excess dirt around and leave the top of the graves flat. This would make for easier cleaning with a lawn mower.
Did we always have convex graves? If the main concern is for the settling of the grave over time then surely dirt removed from a new grave site can be added to an older grave that is settling and just beginning to become hollow. But graves as old as, or even older than seven years still have a convex mound. So why can’t we have flat graves by spreading the excess dirt around the grave yard? Surely it cannot be that we do not want to mix the dirt from one grave with another.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
FOR MY DEAR FRIEND BERT
THE GARDENER OF THE CEMETERY
Dr. Lester CN Simon
We, West Indians, plantation people, Black, White, Mulatto, Doughlah, Mixed, Mixed-up, Indian, Indigo, Chinese and in-betweens, must compute the elemental fact that attention to at least three of the underpinnings of our conjoint, harrowing history must be the pillars of our new society: family, education and how we look after our dead.
We cannot talk of a society until and unless we understand the significance of slavery and plantation life. This is neither a Black Power nor a Back-to-Africa positioning. Truth to tell, the Back-to-Africa fairy tale has led us to tell each other and ourselves many untrue stories. Grammatically and otherwise, we cannot reunite a continent or a country that was never united in the first place. Only when we understand the facts of African tribal differences and the further separation of inter-tribal as well as the deliberate separation of intra-tribal peoples of African descent, will we hold on to, and near-strangle the fact that it’s all about family.
But we have to define what we mean by family and extended family. In so doing, we move from a nuclear family to a peripheral community. Any West Indian society (especially since we fought for and won our freedom) that does not make political, social and economic provisions for this nuclear and extended family, gathering at work and at play, is doomed to extended and perpetual slavery….worse, by our own hands.
Refusing to acknowledge the significance of plantation life and always looking back with myopic eyes whilst refusing to look ahead and plan the building of a West Indian society will prevent us from understanding, among other things, how enslaving and abhorrent it is for West Indian men to rape West Indian women. It also prevents us from accepting that education, not tourism, is everybody’s business. Elementary, my dear. Somebody has to say that if Antiguan and Barbudan nearga think we can build a modern society with the abolition of income tax for 28 years and live and educate children on halfpenny replacement levies administered by unaccountable politicians and uncivil civil servants, slavery is alive and well and kicking.
I wanted to call Observer Radio one day when the host of Voice of The People said that a good friend of his, who was once a Black Power advocate, said that he had to put away all of that when he became the minister of tourism in a nearby island. The sad fact is that the man, as is the case with so many of us, failed to understand what Black Power should be about in the first place. I cannot earnestly welcome tourists and ask them to enjoy themselves in my land, if I am not at peace with who and what I am, what I want to be. Real Black Power means that I have moved on from some outer, dashiki insignia to an intrinsic moral high ground because of the new West Indian society we are building. This is indeed the new, second and misunderstood, mental and societal, post-slavery, “middle passage” that all West Indians of all hues must pass through.
And as we pass through that second “middle passage”, we will one day pass on. Death is always a difficult subject to write about. Like music, it is something we all understand at times and at other times, it overwhelms us to bawling tears. The commonality of music and death is probably echoed in the saying that music in the universal language, the voice of all humanity, the speech of angels. Indeed, William Wordsworth wrote that, “The music in my heart I bore long after it was heard no more”. Plato wrote that, “Music is a moral law….It gives a soul to the universe. It is the essence of order.” Derek Walcott wrote of Spoiler, the calypsonian, “Tell Desperadoes when you reach the hill, I decompose, but I composing still”.
The cycle of call and response and the very nature of creating music out of a simple set of fundamental notes and sounds must be related to our genesis from dust and our exodus, not just back to dust and ashes but to echoing memories of the sacrifices we made, the countless lives we touched and saved, adding to human kind and humanity. We get reminders, sometimes in the most unusual places and at the most inopportune times, of the fun and laughter and sadness, the verbal quarrels and fights and sweet peacemaking that we contributed to this earthy world in our third and most significant “middle passage”.
The everlasting music of death tells me that just as the musician must be paid and must eat first at the feast before all others, so too must the gardener of the cemetery be honoured and respected. You can talk about going to heaven or to hell until you and the cows get there; the simple, earthly fact is that the cemetery is a living place. The biology of its plants and trees, its flora and fauna, contribute to life around us, even when we are literally turned over in our graves after years of interment. For those who forget that business starts with us and think that it is tourism that is everybody’s business, a well-kept cemetery is good business.
Again, we West Indians, plantation people, should have the deepest respect for how we deal with our dead. It is the true test and testimony of the community of the moral high ground we have attained. If we cannot respect the resting place of our dead, whom we used to see and know, how can we talk of God and heaven?
Maybe funerals should be bedecked with tens of shovels so that all of us can get our hands a little earthy. We should banish the backhoe and see who really wants to go to the funeral. We may then be able to look after the gardener of the cemetery. Because those who have passed on have affected our lives; because grieving families, friends and loved ones must know and feel that our innumerable, positive thoughts, our overflowing, cushioning tears and our celebrations of the inter-relatedness of all lives and all deaths, surround them in their moments of grief, we are all gardeners.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
We, West Indians, plantation people, Black, White, Mulatto, Doughlah, Mixed, Mixed-up, Indian, Indigo, Chinese and in-betweens, must compute the elemental fact that attention to at least three of the underpinnings of our conjoint, harrowing history must be the pillars of our new society: family, education and how we look after our dead.
We cannot talk of a society until and unless we understand the significance of slavery and plantation life. This is neither a Black Power nor a Back-to-Africa positioning. Truth to tell, the Back-to-Africa fairy tale has led us to tell each other and ourselves many untrue stories. Grammatically and otherwise, we cannot reunite a continent or a country that was never united in the first place. Only when we understand the facts of African tribal differences and the further separation of inter-tribal as well as the deliberate separation of intra-tribal peoples of African descent, will we hold on to, and near-strangle the fact that it’s all about family.
But we have to define what we mean by family and extended family. In so doing, we move from a nuclear family to a peripheral community. Any West Indian society (especially since we fought for and won our freedom) that does not make political, social and economic provisions for this nuclear and extended family, gathering at work and at play, is doomed to extended and perpetual slavery….worse, by our own hands.
Refusing to acknowledge the significance of plantation life and always looking back with myopic eyes whilst refusing to look ahead and plan the building of a West Indian society will prevent us from understanding, among other things, how enslaving and abhorrent it is for West Indian men to rape West Indian women. It also prevents us from accepting that education, not tourism, is everybody’s business. Elementary, my dear. Somebody has to say that if Antiguan and Barbudan nearga think we can build a modern society with the abolition of income tax for 28 years and live and educate children on halfpenny replacement levies administered by unaccountable politicians and uncivil civil servants, slavery is alive and well and kicking.
I wanted to call Observer Radio one day when the host of Voice of The People said that a good friend of his, who was once a Black Power advocate, said that he had to put away all of that when he became the minister of tourism in a nearby island. The sad fact is that the man, as is the case with so many of us, failed to understand what Black Power should be about in the first place. I cannot earnestly welcome tourists and ask them to enjoy themselves in my land, if I am not at peace with who and what I am, what I want to be. Real Black Power means that I have moved on from some outer, dashiki insignia to an intrinsic moral high ground because of the new West Indian society we are building. This is indeed the new, second and misunderstood, mental and societal, post-slavery, “middle passage” that all West Indians of all hues must pass through.
And as we pass through that second “middle passage”, we will one day pass on. Death is always a difficult subject to write about. Like music, it is something we all understand at times and at other times, it overwhelms us to bawling tears. The commonality of music and death is probably echoed in the saying that music in the universal language, the voice of all humanity, the speech of angels. Indeed, William Wordsworth wrote that, “The music in my heart I bore long after it was heard no more”. Plato wrote that, “Music is a moral law….It gives a soul to the universe. It is the essence of order.” Derek Walcott wrote of Spoiler, the calypsonian, “Tell Desperadoes when you reach the hill, I decompose, but I composing still”.
The cycle of call and response and the very nature of creating music out of a simple set of fundamental notes and sounds must be related to our genesis from dust and our exodus, not just back to dust and ashes but to echoing memories of the sacrifices we made, the countless lives we touched and saved, adding to human kind and humanity. We get reminders, sometimes in the most unusual places and at the most inopportune times, of the fun and laughter and sadness, the verbal quarrels and fights and sweet peacemaking that we contributed to this earthy world in our third and most significant “middle passage”.
The everlasting music of death tells me that just as the musician must be paid and must eat first at the feast before all others, so too must the gardener of the cemetery be honoured and respected. You can talk about going to heaven or to hell until you and the cows get there; the simple, earthly fact is that the cemetery is a living place. The biology of its plants and trees, its flora and fauna, contribute to life around us, even when we are literally turned over in our graves after years of interment. For those who forget that business starts with us and think that it is tourism that is everybody’s business, a well-kept cemetery is good business.
Again, we West Indians, plantation people, should have the deepest respect for how we deal with our dead. It is the true test and testimony of the community of the moral high ground we have attained. If we cannot respect the resting place of our dead, whom we used to see and know, how can we talk of God and heaven?
Maybe funerals should be bedecked with tens of shovels so that all of us can get our hands a little earthy. We should banish the backhoe and see who really wants to go to the funeral. We may then be able to look after the gardener of the cemetery. Because those who have passed on have affected our lives; because grieving families, friends and loved ones must know and feel that our innumerable, positive thoughts, our overflowing, cushioning tears and our celebrations of the inter-relatedness of all lives and all deaths, surround them in their moments of grief, we are all gardeners.
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