Why Today’s Young People are not interested in Jamaica’s Politics

I once asked my father what complexion was Micheal Manley and Norman Manley?  My father glared at me and I was banned from that day from even saying the (LLLL) ‘the L sound’ in his house. I was fourteen years old and the only rationale my dad gave me for supporting his MP was that he was black and came from Micheal Manley’s Legacy. I was not interested in that, I only wanted to see another party in power.

I wanted to give the other party a chance to rule. I was fourteen but challenged adults at the Pipe Stand when I carried water in the morning and they warned my father about my ‘Labourite’ leanings and how he could not afford for labourites to capture my young mind for I was very intelligent. My father further emphasized the ban on the the word “Labourite” within his earshot. 

The same thing happened when I was in sixth form and Bruce Golding went up against Portia Simpson Miller. I remember my peers and I being elated that Portia Simpson-Miller won. I  recall being in heated arguments with the men on the corner after school when they made assertions such as  “No one seeing their period” should run the country. They claimed that men could not rule under a woman’s frock tail. This is the place that I am from. This is how people think where I was born and socialized. I wanted to see a female at the helm, it was important to me as a young woman. It was a testament that regardless of my sex with hard work and perseverance, I could one day rule the world. I wanted Portia to win for I was from similar circumstances like her. She triumped against Peter Philips and my classmates and I were happy for we young Jamaicans wanted to see progress. I cried when I saw her on Television after the bitter presidential battle for the PNP leadership and heard Shaggy’s ” Strength of a Woman” playing in the background. I was genuinely happy for her. 

When the next General Election came around my peers and I were still interested in seeing a another Party in power. One afternoon I entered my father’s business place and was in a Lime Green blouse with sequins on the front. My father’s political activist friend was there and I will never forget how he pointed at my shirt and asked how my father allowed me to wear such a disgraceful colour in the house. He said that his house was painted in Orange and that he did not even drink Heineken. He said he hated the colour Green. I did not argue with him for my father shot daggers at me with eyes that told me to shut up. I felt sorry for my father, watching him struggle everyday selling food to send me to school, a child as brilliant as I am and after placing third in the CXC National Awards and Second for  CAPE Literature in English, I asked him one evening if he could not get some assistance from his “Political Party” to send me to university. He smiled at me, his face etched with understanding, crows feet at the corner of his eyes and for once I believed my father understood why I gave him hell about politics. I was not promoting tribalism, I was a child questioning the political process and why this business of politics did not seem to brook any developments for my peers and I. I will not question my family’s loyalty to the PNP. I did some reading and I have heard stories of some awful things that took place in the eighties and that might be the grounds for their resentment. I was born in the late eighties and my father said ” Young Bud nuh know storm” He was not particularly pleased about buying female paraphernalia with food items I believed he said one day  in a very colorful language and he did not want to experience that again. 

Albeit Bruce Golding was intellectual and represented the change my Sixth Form Liberal Arts Classmates and I wanted. We were disappointed. We had high expectations and Bruce ruined it. We might have expected too much of him to erase the ills of a system established by another for years. We suffered in the west, we were suffering before and we suffered more for as my granny put it ” Socialist was not in power”.  I remember one day on the cusp of adulthood at twenty years old and entering the corner shop and hearing the owner, an Activist croak in contempt. ” Them nuh say a change them did want. See them get change deh for them did feel say Bruce coulda help Jamaica and now me live fe come see Labourite a trust down me shop”.  I wondered if he was making reference to me since I owed him three hundred dollars for a pack of tough crackers, a Tin of Sardine and a Pepsi. I thought about the fact that I supported him with little regards for party lines and he had the nerve to bring politics into business. He did not seem to have a problem collecting my “Labourite” money when I bought from him during the four year tenure of Bruce Golding. He judged me based on the arguments I had for a change of Government and I did not even vote in the election that ushered Bruce into power. I did not have a vote. I was not on the electorate list. 

Due to my dissatisfaction with the Jamaica Labour Party and the cruelty that was meted out to the people in the Tivoli Garden’s Incursion, I wanted the Labourite Government out of Power. I was twenty two years old and I gave my first vote to the People’s National Party for I wanted to see what the Portia Simpson Miller, the woman who rose against all odds to become the leader of the People’s National Party could do. I believed in equal opportunity and  I prided myself on making a sound choice as an adult. I was not voting for my MP. I saw him once on a campaign, I was like my father voting for a party and not my constituency candidate. He can never seem to fulfill his promises. We asked for better roads and each morning after trucks of Marl were deposited on my street, I had to throw water on it to keep the dust down. The entire community was afflicted by the common cold and the flowers that fenced our yards were white from the deposit of dust. It was a white Christmas in my district.

The “socialist” laughed and said ” Seet it deh, dem ago fix the roads” and yet joined hands with us each morning watering the road to keep down the dust. I laughed for therein I found an epiphany. It mattered not who was in power, whatever decisions they made affected us all. Labourite and Socialist babies caught colds and even the PNP activist hung his head in shame but still murmured. ” Anno really the Mp we vote for is the party”. I was angry that these elders would gamble my future and that of my peers on favoritism each time they went to the polls. I weep sometimes because they have destroyed my Jamaica. I had high hopes for a future here. Now I like many of my classmates am  considering migration. Jamaica no have nothing fe offer we. These old people mash up mi country. I just broke down in tears writing this because that is exactly how I feel. I once considered entering politics but was discouraged when I approached young people to talk to them about politics. They did not want to hear anything from me about any “P’s”. They did not turn out at the last election for they did not know who to vote for. They rather not choose the lesser of two evils. 

I have nothing against the shopkeeper or my father. They grew up in a different time and I cannot adequately understand what shapes their beliefs. I however know that they are going and I am coming and I am tired of these feelings of depression and disillusion. I admire my father and the shopkeeper for they are hard working people, struggling and it;s a shame that their loyalty has never benefited them much above the ordinary. I am upset that they may have been taken for a fool. Maybe when I get older I will understand. They are victims like so many other Jamaicans. 

A lot of young youths that I grew up with are laying in tombs including my own family because they did not see a way out of this paucity and turned to a life of crime. On top of that I have to go on Facebook each day and read posts from my peers who claim they will never return to Jamaica and encourage me to leave as soon as possible and ‘leave the old neygahs dem down there with them stupidity and corrupt politicians’. I am looked upon as a fool for having any confidence that one day a Jamaican leader will rise up and take us out of this decrepit context. A leader like Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Marcus Garvey. A  leader so visionary that he/she will move the gun men to put down their guns and if they ever take up arms it would be to become rebels for a cause behind a revolutionary leader. 

Now the prices on the  items in the shopkeeper’s shop have tripled in the last four years. The tin of Sardine that was fifty dollars is now a hundred and thirty dollars. Almost as expensive as the chicken back that I use to buy for twenty dollars a pound. When I ask him “how the things them just a go up so”, he said it did not matter who was in power, it would be the same thing. I knew what he meant.He would rather suffer under his party government than experiment with another. He shouts that ” Labourite” will never rule this country again.  My community is overrun with young men with nothing to do but “pree” illegal. I foresee that this coming election might be a bloody one. These youths are frustrated, tired of old people forming governments with no regards for this youth generation. I admire Lisa Hanna but standing from where I am and maybe I am wrong, maybe I have not read enough or experienced as much of this world at twenty six years but I am yet to see something being done about our youths. 

For now I will continue to vent in my stories, write on my blogs and make disenchanted posts on Facebook to irk my former classmates until they unfriend me for all this negativity. Maybe a better Jamaica is just a dream but I won’t stop dreaming. I do not think asking for a better Jamaica for my three year old is too much to ask for. Or maybe it is? People say that I should shut up and do something about it. I do not care about any parties, I just want a good leader and this is all I can do.

 I am frustrated. Tears continue streaming down my face. This was not what my forefathers fought for, they would be ashamed of what we have become. Tired of Journalist writing recondite prose in their political reviews instead of addressing the real issues! Tired of my brothers complaining that the only work available is Cane Cutter, Hotel worker or Scammer! Tired of politicians quarreling over foolishness while this country is on its way to becoming another Haiti!  I am tired so I wrote this article for the course of history was never changed by the many but the few who risked exposing facts; reminds me always that the pen is mightier than the sword.

Let the Chips fall where they may! 

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