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Showing posts with label Marcus Garvey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marcus Garvey. Show all posts

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Marcus Garvey is still relevant today

Why Marcus Garvey is still Relevant Today



BY MELODY CAMMOCK-GAYLE


Marcus Garvey

"WE must canonise our own saints, create our own martyrs, and elevate to positions of fame and honour black men and women who have made their distinct contributions to our racial history."

As the National Heroes' Day celebrations take centre stage, and our heroes are brought to the fore, I thought this a fitting time as any to explain why for me, Marcus Garvey is as relevant today as he was 80 years ago, albeit in a different time and social context.

And I'm not suggesting that the achievements and contributions of our other heroes and heroine are less significant, because undoubtedly each, in his/her own right, has done much for our development as a people and a country.

And no, I'm not a racist, nor do I believe in emigrating to Africa. In fact, I see past colour and I do try to judge each person on the content of his/her character.  I am a Jamaican and the world is my oyster.  But Garvey stands out, because many of the dreams he wanted for the black race in the 1900s, I want for Jamaica today.

"The ends you serve that are selfish will take you no further than yourself, but the ends you serve that are for all, in common, will take you into eternity."

Born in St Ann, in 1887, Marcus Mosiah Garvey is celebrated as the first black man to lead and develop a mass movement of people. He was the first man, on a mass scale, to give millions of blacks a sense of dignity and destiny.  He was a visionary, whose teachings and philosophies are as relevant today as they were a century ago, especially for a country with a 90 per cent population of black people, though in a totally different time.

Among the main tenets of his teachings were: a sense of pride in self, as a black race; respect for each other and the idea of black enterprise and entrepreneurship.  If we would get these right, then Jamaica and the conceptual framework referred to as Brand Jamaica would be unstoppable.

Garvey taught self-belief, positive self-esteem and self-respect to black people at a time when the black race was considered less than second-class citizens.  Such a concept was revolutionary then, and in some ways still revolutionary now.

He emphasised education, and an awareness and appreciation of our rich African heritage, as avenues to locate a deep sense of self-identity, which engenders personal and national growth.  To achieve greatness, Garvey believed that a people needed to believe in themselves, understand history and arm themselves with the knowledge of how to move forward co-operatively.

"The black skin is not a badge of shame, but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness."

It is therefore surprising that, more than 70 years after Marcus Garvey's death, we are still struggling with issues of love for our black self, so much so that skin-bleaching is a near epidemic. As Jamaicans, we need to draw pride from somewhere; pride in ourselves, pride in our country, pride in our achievements. Thus my strong belief is that Garveyism should be taught in schools from the primary level. Too many of our youth have little sense of identity, no idea of their past, and no interest in their future.

Understanding that the theoretical construct of national identity is about collectivity and connectivity, Garvey's teaching will help to provide that cognitive, moral, and emotional connection, which must be made between an individual and his/her broader community or category.  With this in place, we would have created a system of meaning which allows people to feel a sense of oneness, security, inclusion, and belonging.

Collective identity guides individual action, provides a moral compass and emotional connection with other people who share similar interests and ideologies in a broader community. Self-belief affects self-image, which affects nation development. A people who love themselves don't deface their skin.  A people who love their nation don't deface national symbols, throw garbage on roads or in gullies, or urinate at every street corner or display blatant disregard for law and order.

Pride in self must overflow to respect for each other.  A people working together for the development of self and nation have no time to annihilate the brother working beside him.
 
"The Negro will have to build his own government, industry, art, science, literature and culture, before the world will stop to consider him."

Garvey also believed in economic self-sufficiency and financial independence, seeing this as the black race's only protection against discrimination.  Once this economic foundation was created, they could then move on to social and political pursuits.  Still, 50 years after Independence, Jamaica has neither economic self-sufficiency nor financial independence.

Sadly, we have not been able to curb spending, while our taste for everything foreign continues to drive us deeper into debt.  Last year the food import bill alone stood at US$959 million.  Despite the Government's campaign to 'Eat what we grow; Grow what we eat' there has been little overall traction in encouraging demand for locally produced products or injecting enthusiasm in local manufacturing. But, this is where we need to look if we are to experience any economic success as a nation. Garvey truly got it right.

So, as the great visionary Marcus Garvey said: "We Are arbiters of our own destiny. God and nature first made us what we are, and then out of our own creative genius we make ourselves what we want to be." So, I guess the question is what do we want to be?

"Intelligence rules the world, ignorance carries the burden."

Melody Cammock-Gayle is the director — business development and marketing at Communications & Business Solutions (CBS) Limited. cbsmarketingja@gmail.com

October 21, 2013

 Jamaica Observer

Friday, August 2, 2013

Did Marcus Garvey fail?

Was Marcus Garvey Preaching to The Wrong People?



BY MICHAEL A DINGWALL:


Marcus Garvey The Great


WHEN Marcus Garvey was urging us black people to take charge of our own destiny and become great, almost a century ago, some admired him, while others thought he was some sort of quack.  In this season of Emancipation and Independence, one has to ask: Was Garvey preaching to the wrong people?

At the time when he was preaching, my race, the black race, was the most insignificant on the planet.  Africa was under the control of Europe.

We blacks in the West were totally dependent on the great white powers for our very existence.  Garvey didn't think that black people should be at the bottom of the barrel — being so insignificant and dependent.  In this respect, he was one very unusual black man indeed.

I strongly suspect, though, that Garvey would have still felt the need to preach the same message today, almost a century later.  Though we blacks have made some progress, we still have a very long way to go.  While some of that progress has been had through the efforts of other peoples, other things haven't changed at all.

Take black Africa today.  While preaching, and even before, Africa was controlled by the Western powers.  Her natural resources were being maximised to the fullest to the glory of these powers.  Africans on the continent were either powerless to alter the then situation or willingly gave away these resources.

The same is true today.  These days, it is China that is maximising the resources of Africa to create a Chinese superstate.

Just as it was in the days of slavery, when we gave away our own for trinkets, we are still doing the same today.  The trinkets then were used kitchen utensils, old clothes and even cats; while today, they are cellphones, laptops and shiny new cars.  Garvey would have buried his head in shame at the way his message has been ignored.

We in the West also really didn't give two cents about his message either.  Our island nation-states in the Caribbean are too insignificant to influence any global issue, except entertainment.

Maybe Garvey meant we should be great entertainers; as that is the only area in which we seem good.  Nothing great in governance, science and technology can be truly attributed to us black people -- as we keep our exploits to ourselves, or sell them still for trinkets. Garvey would be very disappointed indeed.

We demonstrate how contrary we have been to his message by our actions.  We think our own universities are worthless.

As such, we crave for the Oxfords, Cambridges, Harvards, and MITs.  We think our music is good only when it is validated with an American Grammy.  We see our societies as totally hopeless — which explains why we fight so hard to get visas to live in the white paradise of North America and Europe.  What was that "Africa for Africans" message again?

I said before that Garvey would have been disappointed, but I sometimes wonder.  In the end, it seems, even he became a realist and realised that he may have been preaching to the wrong people after all.  When the time came for him to retire, he didn't choose his Jamaican homeland or his African would-be homeland.  No, looking at things realistically, he decided that the best place for him after all was Britain.

Maybe the reason he failed to convince us black people that we can be a great people is not only because we think he was nuts — maybe he never really believed his own message either.

July 30, 2013

Jamaica Observer

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Jamaica: Michael Manley, Garveyism and Matalon

Manley, Garveyism and Matalon

By MICHAEL BURKE

Jamaica
Forty-three years ago today Michael Manley was elected president of the People's National Party. Twenty-three years ago today, the PNP returned to power and Michael Manley once again got a chance to be prime minister. In this 50th anniversary jubilee of our political Independence, perhaps the man with the greatest impact over the last 50 years was Michael Manley. Whether he was the most effective prime minister or he did the most for Jamaica, was the greatest negotiator or was the worst thing to ever happen to Jamaica are all debatable topics. But not even Michael Manley's detractors can successfully challenge the impact that he had.

I call myself a Norman Manleyist, in that I recognise Norman Manley (Michael Manley's father) as the person as "the man with the plan". Indeed, Michael Manley, for the most part implemented his father's ideas. While I am not in favour of Michael Manley being made a national hero unless another 50 years have passed when there can be a proper evaluation of both the way he lived his life and contributed to the growth of Jamaica, it has nothing to do with the massive impact that he had on Jamaica, the Caribbean and the World.

In 1969 when he was Opposition leader, Michael Manley visited Ethiopia and returned to Jamaica with a rod purportedly from Emperor Haile Selassie. That fact alone inspired Rastafarians to participate in the Jamaican democratic process from which they had hitherto stayed aloof as they awaited a return passage to our African motherland.

From the 1960s there were Rastafarians and Pan Africanists campaigning for Garveyism to be taught in schools. During the Social Services debate in 1992, then education Minister Burchell Whiteman announced that as of September that year, Garveyism would be taught in schools. I had advocated the teaching of Garveyism in my columns in the now defunct Jamaica Record, so I celebrated. But it was not to be.

The teachers said that they were not trained to teach Garveyism and that there was no Marcus Garvey textbook. To my mind, their stance was nothing but delaying tactics and I wrote as much. Now we hear that as of September Garveyism is to be taught in schools and a textbook has been provided. Is this another announcement which will be followed by delaying tactics for another 20 years? If it is not, then it will be ironic that it took a white man (education minister, Deacon Ronnie Thwaites) to implement the teaching of Garveyism in schools.

Children who were born out of wedlock could not inherit property until Michael Manley piloted the act to abolish the illegitimacy law in 1975, so that "no bastard no deh again". There was no minimum wage in Jamaica before 1975, some 84 years after Pope Leo XIII encouraged it in his encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891. There was the adjustment of the land tax law in such a way that the rich paid more land tax. The establishment of the National Housing Trust so that ordinary people could access housing has done a lot to empower the poor. This was done under Michael Manley's watch in the 1970s.

And this brings me to the subject of the late Mayer Matalon, former chairman of West Indies Home Contractors who recently passed away. By the way, Mayer Matalon was chairman of the Jamaica College board of directors (1967-71) while at the same time his brother, Eli Matalon, was chairman of the Kingston College board of directors. Had it not been for the Matalons, who invested heavily in housing, we would have serious housing problems today.

As an aside, no one might know that housing in Jamaica also contributed to the ecumenical movement, where churches of different denominations come together for prayer and action. The Church of Reconciliation in Bridgeport, Portmore, St Catherine, was opened in September 1977. It is a church that is jointly used by the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches.

For its 20th anniversary in 1997, I was asked to prepare a history of the Church of Reconciliation. I approached the late Archbishop Samuel Carter (already retired from 1995), and asked him whose idea it was to have the joint church: was it his, or was it Bishop Herbert Edmondson's, then the Anglican Lord Bishop of Jamaica. "Neither," Archbishop Carter answered. "So whose idea was it then?" I asked. After a pause, the archbishop said "Matalon". However, he did not say which of the Matalon brothers.

Yes, it took a Matalon (who is of Jewish religion) who evidently wanted more space to build more houses to earn more money, when the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches applied for land within the Bridgeport Housing Scheme to build churches, to say, "Why don't you two bishops just build one church?" The truth is stranger than fiction.

I am not aware of any move by the powers that be to include in our celebrations a way of teaching our young people about the achievements of the last 50 years so that they understand that we truly have something to celebrate this year.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com


February 09, 2012

jamaicaobserver