Peter Espeut, Contributor
EVERY CHRISTMAS, "Story come up to bump!" So much of our recent and distant Jamaican history comes back to haunt us at this time each year. I am told that for those in business and commerce, the Christmas trade is so lucrative that it can carry them through most of the following year. So much money is made at Christmas that it draws every higgler and would-be higgler on to the streets and sidewalks of every city and town in Jamaica to get a piece of the action. Even some Jamaicans who have migrated to foreign parts return at Christmas to sell on the streets. It is big business!
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SIDEWALKS
And every year the struggle for the sidewalks resumes. The annual Christmas drama is in four acts.
Act 1: the formal business community who owns stores, or pays rent, and pays taxes and utilities, complains to the authorities that higglers and vendors set up shop in their doorways. These higglers pay no rent or taxes, but obstruct potential customers from entering their stores; often they sell the very same things the stores sell, but more cheaply since they have less overheads. The formal business community protests loudly that they get no value for their taxes, and reap only reduced sales, and calls upon the authorities to act.
Act 2: Meetings are held between the authorities and the vendors, to reach agreement about Christmas vending: where it is to take place, and when, and under what conditions. The discussions drag out for weeks, and months; until Christmas approaches. Special temporary markets and arcades and vending areas are prepared. The formal sector prepares for a bumper year in sales. The informal sector braces for the struggle.
Act 3: Then the vendors make their move, "It is just two weeks more until Christmas", they say. "Let us sell our wares this year, and next year we will move off the streets". The formal sector howls! The authorities weigh the votes against the campaign contributions. There is more posturing and shaping. A few vendors are moved. The higglers scream and protest. The tension mounts. It is time for decisive action -
Act 4: Then the government relents and allows the higglers to stay on the streets this Christmas, after extracting a solemn promise that they will move off the streets next year. And the higglers laugh in glee, as they return to the sidewalks to pocket their spoils. And the formal businessmen hang their heads, and pick their way through the crowd of vendors to return to their stores, to try again next year.
This script has played out - with a few variations - over very many decades. A comedy or a tragedy? It is almost the archetype of class struggle - between the rich and the poor, between the poor and the powerless, between the merchants and the higglers, between the formal and the informal sector. It demonstrates how the powerful can amass the forces of the state to act in their interests; and it shows the ability of the Jamaican underclass to struggle and to survive in the face of great adversity.
HISTORY WILL REMEMBER THE TOLL
Students of history will remember the toll gates erected by the ruling planter class to tax (by foot of horse and wheel of cart) the higglers and market vendors coming to sell in the big towns (to force them back on the estates). The toll gates were systematically opposed. On February 12, 1859 the toll-keeper's house and the toll gates outside Sav-la-Mar were destroyed "by ruffians dressed in female attire". For three nights in a row, protesters tore down the toll gates. The legislation was withdrawn.
Students of history will remember the banning of Christmas John Canoe dancing in the city of Kingston by the Mayor and the ensuing riots, in the days when African culture was more openly suppressed in Jamaica. Defying the ban and the ranks of the armed, mounted police force, as well as the British troops in their barracks on the Kingston Parade, the John Canoes took to the streets and when the police tried to seize their musical instruments they pelted them with stones. The Riot Act was read. The crowd shouted that "white people" had the "liberty" to "indulge in horse-racing" while the "blacks were not permitted to pursue their pleasure". The people wanted their Christmas John Canoe, and the repressive actions of the state caused a new black leadership to emerge to challenge the state. John Canoe continued.
What is playing out in downtown Kingston right now is but a reprise. Jamaica's economy (narrow and undiversified) and education system (low quality and dysfunctional) create a nation of higglers, forcing people into the streets at Christmas to fight for their very lives!
NOT ORGANISED FOR CONVENIENCE
I do not wish to be misunderstood. I am not saying that the chaos that is downtown Christmas vending must or should continue. What I am saying is that Kingston (and Jamaica) is not structured and organised for the convenience and benefit of the majority of us. Very little serious planning has taken place to facilitate the comfort and working conditions of the thousands of Jamaicans who sell (and buy) in the many markets downtown, compared to the salubrious conditions on the wide landscaped avenues of King Street and the Parade. The higglers and vendors are being treated as if they are a boil and a sore on the flesh of the city and the economic life of Kingston, when in fact they are the very life of the economy of the city.
All governments since Independence have continued the colonial policy of marginalising the informal sector, and have failed to find ways to integrate the vendors and higglers (and farmers and fishers) into the mainstream of the island's economy, society and polity. This stand-offish approach has led to the emergence of local "governments" of Dons and their enforcers who provide security and collect taxes and function as states within states. They feed on the formal sector and provide essential "services" to the formal politicians which ensures their continued protected existence. "Story come up to bump!" So much of our recent and distant Jamaican history comes back to haunt us at this time each year. Happy shopping!
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and Executive Director of an environment and development NGO.
