Amina Blackwood Meeks, Contributor
ON THURSDAY, August 11, the LTM marked the 25th anniversary of the passing of Randolph Williams by staging a dramatic presentation of some of his works and involving some of those persons whose careers in the theatre intersected with his. Randolph is of course the same Ranny "Mas Ran" Williams. Obvious to those in the know, but there are more than a few who are still among the unknowing.
Twenty five years is almost an entire generation. It represents, in this case, a significant number of Jamaicans who would never have heard the name, who might never have heard the voice, you know our history and penchant for dashing out old tapes or not handling them as if we recognised them to be precious, and many could care less in this age of carelessness about national inheritance. Furdermore, Ranny dead and we dealing now with de yute, stars of one chune. Yute who pave no way for others and illuminate very little, point the direction to nothing, who might not even know that there is a direction that leads to anywhere, but the grand prize money.
Don't blame them you know, it is very difficult to learn what has not been taught. It takes some doing to be inspired to discover more about anything if there has been no introduction to the basics.
A VOICE FOR THE POOR
For some people Mas Ran might be remembered to varying degrees only in his association with Louise Bennett, as a man who brought laughter to Jamaicans in the Pantomimes or the Lou and Ranny Show. Ranny Williams, of course, contributed significantly to the struggle to liberate the language of the Jamaican people from ridicule, from confinement to "certain situations in which it may be appropriate", forcing it into public spaces and putting it on the radio, that powerful tool for liberating so much, at least airing them, that increasingly indispensable vehicle for giving a voice to the voiceless.
The remembrance came one week before the 118th anniversary of the birth of Marcus Mosiah Garvey and nearly 70 years after his death. Meaning that Ranny Williams died 40 years after Garvey ceased walking on this physical plane. Garvey of course continues to be celebrated in the artistic outpourings of not only Jamaicans, but by people around the world whose lives continue to be affected and transformed by his philosophies and opinions. He will be honoured again in the theatre at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts on Wednesday, August 17 by the dedication of the opening performance of 'Matters Arising' to his life and contribution.
It is not a production about the life of Garvey per se but the opening on the anniversary of his birth. The hosting of this performance by Liberty Hall is a proper recognition of Garvey's own involvement in the arts, his concern with the cultural development of black people, his active encouragement of those artistes who in his opinion recognized their responsibility to be real stars, guiding lights, throwing light long after their passing and his facilitating the development of so many.
GARVEY'S INFLUENCE
I digress to mention the young media worker who called me up to say that she noticed that the show was being hosted by Liberty Hall and she wanted to know when it would be playing in Kingston. It took me a while to figure out that she read Liberty Hall as an out of Kingston location like Lime Hall or White Hall or the name of some such district in rural Jamaica. Don't be alarmed. Not so long ago another, I assume young, reporter wrote "Elder Louise Park" in and it seemed to have escaped the notice of everyone and appeared in the newspaper. The only comment I wish to make here concerns what we have come to take for granted and the amount of work that still has to done and maintained so that we nuh teck everything that dem granted.
Okay. Ranny Williams was one of those pioneers who benefited from Garvey's vision of culture as a tool for personal and national development. Garvey not only provided Eldeweis Park at 67 Slipe Road as a venue at which Mas Ran staged some of his great dramas such as "Old Black Joe" but is credited by Ranny himself as providing the context and the content which inspired him to enter the theatre by creating monologues to represent some of the persons he had been facilitated to observe and listen to at the debates and fora that were so central to the purpose of Eldeweis Park and Liberty Hall.
MEAT OF THE MATTER
In Garvey's vision culture was not a sideshow, was not to be confined to a space on the entertainment buzz, was not a worthwhile break at a political rally to relax people and prepare them for the meat of the matter; it was the matter. It was education, part and parcel of the mission of achieving political objectives. Garvey himself wrote plays and poems, encouraged singers, dancers and actors towards this end. It is a vision that we have yet to catch. We have to strive for integrated development as we are learning in the classroom.
Education should be entertaining and engaging and we should not have to put ourselves through the linguistic gymnastics of coining phrases like edutainment, to define that which we do, the one is the other.
All entertainment educates, it might not pass on lessons, which are widely approved, but there is nothing packaged in the shape of the arts which does not teach a lesson and there is no lesson to be learnt which cannot be taught through the arts. Why yu tink political parties buckle-hold the most popular singers, songwriters and musicians on their campaign trail? Why yu tink people get upset with artistes for not embracing or promoting any given cause? Why is there such effort to get artistes if not of a certain calibre of a certain reach in the marketplace to endorse this or that product or send this or that message?
Part of the Garvey vision of culture that we need to catch in this millennium of which some still speak as if it just dawned or is yet to yawn, must be in the treatment of art and the artists, in how they are encouraged, promoted, facilitated to make a contribution and ultimately in how they are remembered.
GREATER VALUE
I get asked quite often by people who should know better, "Amina why are your columns in the Arts section." It is a very confusing question. It suggests that it should be placed someplace that has greater value, be elevated so to speak, too important to sit there. Maybe other articles need to be elevated to the arts section ... hahaaahaaaaa ... dem kill me now. Well it seems to that that's what Garvey and Mas Ran were about. The vision that everything is everything. It seems to me that Garvey's mission was also to articulate and implement a cultural policy that lift artistes out of the confines of the entertainment buzz and place them into the centre of development work.
But policies are only worth the value placed on them by the people who can make them work. We must advance Garvey's vision on this score. Engage more seriously in the assessment and meaning of culture and entertainment and facilitate our full and integrated development.
We need to discover the value of the work of people like Maas Ran and underscore Garveys' conern with culture and the arts. Sometimes we are so busy being serious political fighters and activists that we ourselves forget that the substance of our contribution has been through the arts. The South Africans often credit Jamaica with producing the largest body of artistic work, which led to the demise of apartheid, the freeing of Nelson Mandela and the establishment of a black government in South Africa meaning of course, democracry in South Africa since the vast majority of its inhabitants are black. In the recognition of the tremendous impact of the arts we honour Garvey's vision of the sense of responsibility the artist should have to race and we move from just remembering to celebrating and continuing the building on. Thank you, Marcus. Thank you Mas Ran. Honour de man, still.
