Amina Blackwood Meeks, Contributor
A society is born when a people begin to feel an allegiance to it and believe, genuinely, that their country is important. No one else but the people can confer meaning and dignity upon their land.
- Selwyn R. Cudjoe
FOR THOSE of us who might not know, Selwyn R. Cudjoe is a Trinidadian member of the Caribbean family. A Professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College, he is also a visiting scholar at the Afro-American Studies Department at Harvard University. His teachings and writings have sought to help us understand Caribbean giants such as V.S. Naipaul and CLR James. His concerns extend to and include African-American Literary Tradition, African Literature, Black Women Writers, and Caribbean Literature.
In October, 1993, Selwyn Cudjoe was asked to join the delegation of educators and religious and community leaders to accompany exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on his return to Haiti. They were to assist in monitoring the restoration of democracy and human rights. That's another story.
I don't always agree with everything Professor Cudjoe says but I am very admiring of his determination to face the truths that so often make people uncomfortable. Just like Miss Lou and Bob Marley. And I wonder what he would say about us if he ever gets around to analysing how we love our way through how Miss Lou 'meck us laugh' and Bob sey 'forget your troubles and dance' and pretend that we did not hear their concerns for the plight of the poor and their revolutionary philosophy about equal rights and justice and using culture as the means to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery.
Professor Cudjoe might not have been announced and most people might not have seen him but he was very much present at our recent emancipation/independence celebrations. I saw him at the street jam in New Kingston. Okay, everybody know by now dat Amina seeing tings good an me proud a it yu see. So maybe I didn't actually see the flesh of the Prof but I certainly saw his spirit and his concern about how to build and sustain a Caribbean society in which we all feel we belong.
A SENSE OF PRIDE
I was minding my own business, more like doing what the TVJ producer ordered, which was to case the joint prior to the commencement of the street jam in search of sights and sounds for the live coverage. That's when I observed a man cleaning Knutsford Boulevard. He was dishevelled beyond description. Barefooted. Everything he was wearing was torn. Teeth missing. Balding spot on head needing attention.
But he was sweeping the street with a passion. Battling the wind that threatened to undo his work. His face was a study in professional concentration. And when he came across to where we were sitting, he very politely, unexpectedly politely, asked permission to sweep around us.
A couple yards away were two women nicely dressed, also sweeping the street but looking more like what we consider normal. I approached them and asked whether they knew the gentleman. Yes. Four months ago they were assigned by MPM to maintain that stretch of the road. On the first day the gentleman had approached them and asked for food. They had given him a little change and watched him purchase something to eat. When he was finished he returned to them and offered to show his appreciation in the way he knew best. He helped them collect the garbage and put in the bins. Since that time "every day him see we him come help, an we gi him a bills outta we packit. An him clean good, yu see, him doan leave one piece a piapa pan de ground."
And there is where Professor Cudjoe fly up into my head. I shared the thought with my colleagues and we sat around for the better part of 20 minutes observing this man and discussing what ordinary Jamaicans need to feel an allegiance to "land we love" turning 41. Here is a sample of what they said. "To feel useful", "work" "Feel like the word Jamaicans include them", "Feel like dem matter on national occasions."
Me: Den yu tink him know sey is a national occasion dis?
Colleagues: How yu mean, look pan de man face. Yu nuh see how him look like him feel important. Him know sey him working and work meck yu feel like a man.
POVERTY AND WASTE
I also referenced my friend Dorothy Noel who many years ago shared with me the experiences which had taught her that we too quickly conclude upon the insanity of street people. Many of them, she had told me, are well thinking human beings suffering nothing greater than poverty and a desperate sense of non-belonging.
Community, it has been said, is a fundamental life search for all. We crave to belong, we need to belong. How do we build healthy community? How can we experience significant belonging? What are the ingredients, and what is the recipe?
I don't really know. It just seems to me that it should not be so difficult for the many, as in "out of many " in Jamaica. Here we are, a nation that spent $50 million to refurbish, not build, refurbish a house for the Governor of the Bank of Jamaica, which turned out, by the way, not to be exactly what he wanted. So the house sits unoccupied for two or more years under the watchful eyes of paid security guards while said Governor is given an allowance to live in his own house which he no doubt prefers.
DIGNITY
I watched that gentleman preparing for the street jam and I wondered, at minimum wage, if we couldn't use that $50 million to provide work for, let's say, 10 street sweepers for 10 years. At an average of four persons per family that's quite a few Jamaicans who could experience the dignity of not having to beg for a meal? You know how many Jamaicans put their children through five years of high school on less than minimum wage? All of them pledging to do their best to do their duty so that Jamaica may under God increase in wisdom and the prosperity which others enjoy while they have to live in rent house all dem life and only get near $50 million dollars if dem watch it or clean it.
I hear Oku Onoura now asking "Is wha dis ya society yah a defen?" What does it take to confer upon ordinary Jamaicans the medal of appreciation that their country believes in their importance beyond their value as hewers of wood and drawers of water? As we move beyond 41, how committed are we to creating a culture in which we have all been conferred with the dignity of belonging? Eh, Bob, Top ranking, did you mean what you say, are you skanking?
