Amina Blackwood Meeks, Contributor 
BLACKWOOD MEEKS
THE DAY after the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the birth of Robert Nesta Marley,
I was afraid to turn on my radio. No, I was not afraid that I might have heard reports about violence and killings on what was supposed to have been a violence-free day. We live in hope but, given what we knew about JamRock, up to and including February 5, 2005, we harboured no
illusions that that would have been the case, as honourable and nobel as the intention of the organisers and promoters of that initiative was.
I wondered what Bob Marley himself might have thought the man who urged us to "come together to fight this holy Armageddon" to "wipe away downpression, set the captives free", ensure the utter destruction of the philosophy and system that hold some people inferior and some superior, the man who recognised that this very system was the foundation of the wars and rumours of war everywhere. You think Bob would be under any illusion that George Bush would be part of this unconditional one love?
PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE
And wherever he was with his brethren the Stepping Razor, Peter Tosh, what were they holding us accountable for, in this promotion of peace without justice, for this asking the small fries to put down their guns without bawling out pon de harbour sharks fe stop distribute de guns, fe go tek dem back from who dem give dem to, fe "tell Kingfish what dem know" bout kidnappings and murders and the like. Eh, Bob? "These are the big fish who always trying to eat down the small fish?" The ones who couldn't stand dem ground and had was to haul and pull up when Jah Bunny liff up and musically pint out "de hypocrites dem a galang deh, man woi."
Still we applaud the effort as much as we recognise that 24 years after Bob gone and Peter gone and Dennis Brown gone and Garnett Silk gone an all who sing bout de gun ting fe stop an who leff yah still a sing de same ting, if de debilitating context that continues to breed crime and violence is to be arrested everybody have to perform major surgery on their contribution at one and the same time so we can stop de hand-wringing and the lamentations, and really embrace the route Bob saw to One Love.
ANYTHING GOES ON RADIO
Which brings me back to why I was afraid to listen to the radio. The truth is, I hardly listen to radio these days, my gramo-phobia grows with afternoon and weekend radio. I am appalled at what passes for commentary. I mean is there so little to say that what happens in the privacy of people's bathrooms becomes fit for airplay? Announcers actually return after commercial breaks and tell us that they have been to the bathroom, not once not twice but with abnormal bathroom regularity. Do we see this as contributing to a society in which anything goes so if is a life that goes in the process, it doan really matter, a jus so?and advertisers continue to pay for the airtime anyway.
You may well imagine that after these comments is not Joseph Hill dem playing, or Luciano or Marcia Griffith or any of the entertainers whose works epitomise pride and dignity, who have never been in a brawl with another entertainer and, some of whom at any rate, get so little airplay that a certain age group have no clue that they even exist. My question is, where are the programme managers, the station managers, the people who own the radio stations? Probably analysing the latest survey to ensure that they have maintained or increased their share of the market, with these hip young jocks connected to the socio-economic grouping to whom advertisers need to appeal in order to move their products.
Where are the advertisers by the way? Are they listening? Are they watching the music videos? Do they really know who is on their billboards? Do they know whose "birthday bash" they are endorsing, who they are feeding, whose bills they are paying in order to facilitate them turning out and wallowing in the vilest gun and murder lyrics? And don't tell me now bout how I mean to be blaming de music. If it is true that music can heal and Bob was a healing musician, which nobody denies, how come we are so adamant about not confronting the opposite truth?
Jah Bunny Wailer is right, in the way he lectured at the One Love Concert in New Kingston? if we are to change the behaviours against which Bob railed, the pattern of spiritual wickedness in high and low places, we cannot continue to feed our children on the same crap, or worse, and then declare that violence was always in the music as some apologists have grown fond of doing. And we must not support the purveyors of our collective destruction, from lyricist to studio owner to producer, promoter, those who facilitate the airplay and those who big dem up inna newspaper.
MONEY TALKS
Corporate Jamaica must tek dem off dem billboard. Stop use dem to endorse products? no? now I'm hoping for too much. Popular boys and famous people sell and we all go home with the Money O. We even have enough left over for bullet proof cars and vests, more grills for the gates and windows and more to contribute to the funerals of the innocent. But is One Love still. We still have enough to sponsor more healing concerts. Listen to Fantan Mojah but naw buy fe him music, lock up Sizzla fe two bad wud, cause him mussi tink seh a him name Bob Marley, not utter a word of condemnation for de circumstances and context that lead to Bogle's death, and still bow to pressure from the international gay community and broker agreement about how not to offend dem. And is a one love still. Money O? ah dat a dweet.
