By Lionel Gayle

 

SOMEHOW, I had expected the approach of Jamaica’s Golden Jubilee to conjure up an air of great expectations. But even after the official date, August 6, 2012, my spirit remains dormant. I’m finding it extremely difficult to visualize a likeness of Gabriel sounding his prophetic trumpet, thus heralding the dawning of a new Jamaica.

 

Vuvuzelas at Jamaica 50

Instead, I’m reflecting on the annoying sound of the primitive vuvuzela, used as a noise-maker by both the People’s National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) during the 2011 general election. It’s not a true signal or promoter of meaningful things in Jamaica. In fact, the South African contraption is no spiritual substitute for Gabriel’s horn, even when the archangel’s instrument is based on religious imagery.

 

Nevertheless, the South African president, Jacob Zuma and his wife seemed to have had a jolly good time in Kingston when Jamaican revellers pulled out their vuvuzelas and welcomed them to the island’s Golden Jubilee.  I am not aware of any particular Nigerian custom displayed when President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife arrived a few days earlier as guests at the 50th Independence celebrations.

 

The Bell
Jamaica’s ruling PNP has never been publicly identified with a noise-making emblem of its own; therefore, it would make a lot of sense if – for future fanfares of national importance – Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller could borrow the JLP’s Liberty Bell and ring the heck out of it.

 

At least, I believe, the high-pitched pealing of the bell would attract more attention than the raucous monotones of the colourful plastic-made vuvuzelas. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not dissing the vuvuzela. I’m fully aware that the instrument has a similar historical purpose as the iconic abeng of the Jamaican Maroons.

 

In Jamaica, the vuvuzela is now a common feature at political rallies, football matches and reggae concerts, while in South Africa it is mainly associated with football games. Originated in East Africa, it was traditionally made from the horn of the kudu (antelope) while the abeng is made from a cow’s horn.

 

If I understand it correctly, the much touted Jamaica 50 celebration – that is expected to run to the end of 2012 – should be more than a time for jollification. So far, the celebratory activities seemed to have been overpowered by reggae events, both at home and abroad. And though admirable, the series of all-island activities just announced for September 13—29, 2012 to honour cultural icon, Louise Bennett Coverley (1919-2006), won’t change the way I feel.

 

In my anticipation, the moments similar to what must have been the prevailing ethos at the approach of the “Age of Enlightenment” in Europe and America in the 18th century would’ve been good omens. Any aspect of the cultural expression associated with The Enlightenment – also dubbed the “Age of Reason” – would’ve fit in nicely with Vision 2030 Jamaica, the island’s 20-year development plan.

Even in layman’s term, Fifty Years of political freedom after more than three centuries of colonial strangulation – with some of the worst treatment inflicted on humankind under slavery – is a very significant milestone.

 

The key thing is: in the next 17 years, will Jamaica become the place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business, as the country’s national development plan says?  In other words, will the 4,244 square-mile island, with its estimated 2.7 million people reach developed country status by then?

By Lionel Gayle

No group of workers should ever have “the right to strike,” unless the majority of citizens – those who suffer when the production and distribution of goods or services are interrupted – have the recourse to stop a strike in its tracks.

I call that “equal rights and justice.” And since our most common system of government is based on “parliamentary democracy,” every “egalitarian form of government” must strive to ensure fair play for all its citizens. It can be done.

But who will make the first move in banning industrial actions such as disruptive strikes? It certainly won’t be the unions – the main instigators of workers’ disruptions. This should be an easy task for any modern-day government, but I doubt anyone will attempt to bring some comfort and security to the masses of strike victims. Meanwhile, workers’ strikes have become the scourge of communities around the world.

The constant assaults on consumers by workers and their unions – which sometimes appear to include governments and employers as consorts or enablers – can be likened to a series of prolonged civil wars happening simultaneously. The big difference is that while a war uses firepower and ends with countless human casualties, the workers’ action ceases at the signing of a new contract. Then it resumes as the time for contract renewal approaches. And this goes on in perpetuity.

Whether it’s a strike, a work-to-rule, a go-slow, a sit-in or overtime ban – just to get higher wages or better working conditions, or to have a colleague reinstated – everything is in favour of the unions and their members. It’s always zilch for the consumers who, often, have to pay more for goods and services to satisfy the demands of those gullible and unreasonable bastards.

Meanwhile, we have some brilliant minds on earth. Among them are experts who can send rocket ships to outer space and explore the depths of the oceans. They can build bombs to obliterate an entire city and they have the capabilities to provide the necessities of life for every living person on the planet.

Yet, nobody seems willing to institute a workable plan to stop any brewing dispute between workers and employers. In fact, there shouldn’t even have to be any disagreement at the workplace. With no-nonsense guidelines entrenched in contracts, bosses and employees should be able to anticipate each others’ needs and requirements. It can be done.

To me, any 21st Century government who allows a clique of disgruntled employees to hold an entire city to ransom – by disrupting vital goods or services to masses of needy people – is a failure.

We don’t need a third eye to see that the present democratic system – the preferred organization of most enlightened countries on earth – has not been working for a long time. If a democratic government really is, as they often say: a government of the people, by the people, for the people, then we have a major problem.

Perhaps it really means: a government for the people, by some people; a government that allows unionised workers to abuse the majority. It’s like saying: all citizens are equal, but some have more rights than others. Isn’t that a classic reflection of the Orwellian school of thoughts?

It’s time to revamp trade unionism – one of the vestiges of European socialism. Long before Benito Mussolini became Italy’s 40th Prime Minister in 1922, the former socialist leader and newspaper editor had expressed his dislike for socialism. As a doctrine, socialism “had largely been a failure,” he was quoted as saying.

So under his one-party dictatorship, Il Duce crushed Italy’s socialist parties, banned trade unions and strikes and created a series of “fascist labour unions.” It was during that same period he declared his famous slogan: “Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”

And over in Germany, his good friend Chancellor Adolph Hitler, in May 1933 banned trade unions and grouped the working class labour force under his Nazi Party’s German Labour Front.

Nearly 50 years later (in August 1981), President Ronald Reagan of the United States dismissed more than 11,000 striking air traffic controllers “who ignored his order to return to work.” Earlier that summer, some 13,000 controllers had walked off the job, thus grounding nearly 7,000 flights across the United States.

Reagan called the strike illegal and “imposed a lifetime ban on rehiring the strikers” who were members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO). Later in 1981, the Federal Labour Relations Authority decertified the union.

Now, based on the forms of governments headed by despots Mussolini and Hitler, I’m not advocating the Italian and German styles of union-busting played by those infamous leaders. But let us take note that trade unionism started in Europe in the 18th Century and seemed to have been a destabilising force from the very beginning.

Think carefully and you will understand that we don’t need trade unions anymore.

By Lionel Gayle

If you checked Wikipedia’s main page, and subsequent pages on its website, you’ll find a sub-head that says, “We’re not done yet.” This is a bit scary because when the organization blacked out its English Wikipedia for twenty-four hours on Wednesday, January 18, 2012, I was deprived of “a free and open Internet” service.

The Wikipedia landing page that was visible during the
January 18, 2012 blackout protest.

Even though the free online encyclopedia says “The Wikipedia blackout is over,” I don’t believe it. That sub-head mentioned above clearly indicates that it has more plans to screw its users out of the so-called “free service” if the United States law-makers refuse to kill two controversial anti-piracy Bills.

One is the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), introduced in the House of Representatives October 26, 2011 and the other, Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), introduced in the Senate on May 12, 2011.

Although SOPA and PIPA “differ slightly,” one online source says that as laws they would “grant the Justice Department the power to order websites to remove links to sites that are suspected of pirating copyrighted materials.”

Advocates such as Movie studios and recording companies have hailed the proposed laws as safeguard for “American intellectual property” while protecting “consumers against counterfeit goods.” But opponents foresee “a form of Internet censorship” as the move would give the federal government too much power.

Following the January 18 protest, House Bill 3261 (SOPA) and Senate Bill 968 (PIPA) have been put on hold and are being revised, but even Wikipedia knows that it’s not over yet. However, I find its declaration that “We are protesting to protect your rights” highly suspicious.

A quarrel between Wikipedia and the US Congress, or any other party, shouldn’t be the concern of the users and supporters who have transformed this organization into the megalithic repository and disseminator of information that it is today. In addition to fighting its own battle, it should simultaneously deliver the “promised goods.”

If the Bills become laws, it seems there are some complex provisos that could change the way we use the Internet today. If something can be done to change the course of things, I vote in favour. But I object to Wikipedia using its millions of users and supporters as pawns with a view to overpower the decision of a third party, namely, the US Congress. That’s strictly Wikipedia’s impolitic approach to getting even with an adversary.

It is so ironic that, like some 7,000 other websites, Wikipedia interrupted its normal flow of service to protest the Bills that, allegedly, threaten “a free and open Internet.” That action doesn’t reflect the intention of one practising that which he or she preaches. And that’s a sad state of affairs.

Now Wikipedia is boasting how “more than 162 million saw” its blackout page. Depriving users of its service is nothing to gloat over. It’s like a dirty paradox in which it screwed me out of “a free and open Internet,” purportedly to muzzle the two bills it alleges threaten “a free and open Internet.”

Even if it’s only for twenty-four hours, Wikipedia – or any other website – shouldn’t have to screw its users and supporters in order to stick it to Congress for the proposed laws.