Anthea McGibbon

 
I live on an island and I cant swim! Writing about the decline in culture as I see it through hazy, myopic lenses is somewhat weird. I call the kettle black and I am a junk-filled pot. I feel like the accusing voices stick like sweat o the back of my neck and the loudest of all dissenters-the Alvins- screeching nauseatingly in my ear. This is a ‘squeakel’!

Am I a walking contradiction? Am I the hypocrite I am scared of being? Do I see things through rose-tinted glasses? Am I that opinionated to cast away everything in favour of my beliefs? I feel like I am the exiled Honduran President Zelaya, kidnapped and exiled in a coup. But only this time, I am naked only wearing a cowboy hat to shield my soul from the constant bombardment of violence, human programming control, greed , war and poverty!

Gaza or Gully, Gully or Gaza ? I hear that question being asked and asked of me and I shake my head. The last person I admonished got upset as I said that I was into the rubbish of Kartel and Mavado. I think both of them are very potent at what they do and are instrumental in having the masses –both educated and uneducated- who are into dancehall music to revel in their cauldron of boiling filth called music.

I listen to both sides, but neither is that powerful to sway my mind or make me act like cat on coke. No way sireeee! No dancing on no hot tin roof!
Another turning point, another fork in the road, another war, another plane crashes, another child dies, it is all so predictable.. and we shrug it off and say “It’s just life.

If music exacts and stimulates humans, then it can be said to have power. People only give power to which they want. Humans are easily led and they often turn to ‘deviant’ culture. What shocks me is the government of Jamaica has now got involved in the Gaza/Gully mix up. Dancehall music has always been the vehicle of the members of the lower socio economic stratum. The lyrics of dancehall music however filthy, however crude are based on reality. We should call a spade a shovel and realize that popular music in all sense is all about sex, love and drugs. That’s it simple!

 Jamaica ’s societal morals have disappeared like a pizza. The slices of morality have been swallowed whole and we now ponder and moan looking at the vacuum of morality and wishing at the empty wishing well. 

Society is not some random idea; it comprises of us all. It is not some construct which we observe from afar. So when the government, which already is like a rat in our lives, take  upon  itself to be a mediator in the Gully/Gaza intrigue.. I have to wonder!

In the 90s when our economy was imploding due to the banking collapse, the Bounty/Beenie rivalry was hyped up. Now with the new IMF deal, the Dudus extradition request hangs like the sword of Damocles round Bruce Golding’s neck. The water woes coupled with the dirty water of other myriad of problems has trickled down to culture and to our music.

Bear in mind, reggae music in its seminal womb was activist in nature. It was anti establishment and the Bob Marley we adore now was not liked then. So whatever the ethos/pathos or whatever schematics one wants to employ, decadent culture, music will always be with us.

It’s sad that the smoke and mirrors employed by the overly moral of us seek to address

 What has caused and is causing man to be so destructive.. so decisive.. so intolerant .. so caught up in hatred for his fellow man? I am looking into the Gully of my soul , trying to comprehend but all I see is chaos, one Gaza street chaos strewn with bodies and flies. Dead bodies attract flies and these flies spawn lies which further decompose our thoughts for anything good. The world is beautiful, it’s just the crazy assed people in it who make it so complicated

Gaza to me is that place far away in the Middle East which has been suffering like nowhere else. Imagine, if you were being killed, abused, having no weapons of any sort to fight against your enemy, what would you do? And when accomplished, you are branded as a terrorist.

Gaza has the highest population density in the world. About 1.5 million people are squashed in a an area, the size of Kingston parish and Kingston stretches from the sea to below Cross Roads and to the airport/Port Royal. So these Gazans live on a coastal strip some 25 miles long by 7 miles wide. Their trees, homes are bull dozed, Israel rules the roost and their elected government Hamas is declared illegal!  How sweet!

Plastic gag on a monument
The Devil is hard at work, misrepresenting religion, commerce and industry. And poor God is often been blamed for everything. In the Jamaican context, we are not being bombed, shelled and blockaded by an invading power but we are living in a ‘Gaza’ –and I use quotes because what the Gazans are going through is nothing near what we feel- and slipping into the Gully below.

I will not shut my mouth. I am not a lemming nor am I a sheep who will be shepherded by no one to my doom. I don’t know where to talk as I have on blinkers and my cane is nothing more than my views. Taken away from me, I will just be a ember of the shadow, creeping to control. Maybe I shouldn’t say this but we all need a Postinor to rid ourselves of the bad dreams we harbour , cultivate and grow in the wombs of our minds

As I smoke my last cigarette, I hope I exhale the smoke as thoughts to Jamaicans to think about what two dancehall artistes and hordes of their fans are trying to do. They are going along the lines of PNP/JLP and we will not have it!

Deportee was last seen wandering around the gaza arewas of Kingston awaiting the peace concernt by reggae dancehall singers.

dancehall music, gaza or gully, government, reggae music