Melville Cooke
THE POPULAR description of Tuesday's lockdown of the country does not need a hyphen or the three letters that follow it. They were not 'JLP-led protests', they were 'JLP protests'.
There was no mass expression of dissatisfaction with the price hikes and general state of the economy, as I understand the protest was primarily about, but a rousing of the rabble to do what they do best - rouse rubble and toss it in the road.
Not that this is a preserve of the JLP, as at the ripe age of 33 I am old enough to have heard tales of Michael Manley lying down in the road and seen the PNP lead a razing of Jamaica over gas prices in the 1980s, then see the JLP take its turn in the 1990s.
So I also understand that what I saw on Tuesday was ongoing political theatre, 'Black De Road Pt. 85', if you will. Dangerous theatre, mind you, where the curtains can really come down if you are in the wrong place (and every time is the wrong time), but role play nonetheless. For I have absolutely no doubt that the hierarchies of the two parties that have been sucking us dry for decades are on better than nodding terms. The pawns now, the uneducated and, save for sewing garments, heavy lifting and various sexual contortions, virtually unemployable, now they are the pawns.
Expendable, of course, but very much able to check the progress of the middle class as they pour out of places like Karl Samuda Avenue off the upper section of Red Hills Road, which was blocked solid and from which the gunshots echoed on Tuesday morning.
And this is one of the anachronisms of Tuesday protests. From what I saw on the news, a lot of the protest action was carried out by people in areas where a light meter is as recognisable as an unfurled condom in a convent and the NWC stands for 'No Water Collection'. The working people who are carrying the burden of a political legacy which makes a huge swathe of the population not only unemployable but also expectant of 'freeness' were largely the ones who were inconvenienced.
So the JLP did not lead anything. They planned, organised, orchestrated, executed and then gloried over it. And when it comes to the PNP's turn to be in opposition, they will very likely do the same.
I cannot help but thinking, though, that the protest was partially payback for the last general election loss. The JLP were so confident of victory that it was like Florence Griffiths-Joyner taking her heavily muscled stance in a women's 100m race, looking down her lane, looking across at Merlene Ottey and smiling. But they lost and I believe it still smarts.
Hey, if you can't win through the legitimate form of democracy, I guess a few old fridges, cars and a zinc fence across the road should count for a few ticks at the voting booth. Maybe we should just register every old, discarded car to vote, like '1968 Anglia, address middle of Olympic Way', complete with tyre prints for identification.
But seriously, though, the basic reason why the lives of those who block the roads and those who are blocked is the same. From the invasion of Christopher Columbus, through slavery, Crown Colony government, Universal Adult Suffrage and Independence, the basic principle of governance in Jamaica remains the same. It has not changed, regardless of the colour of those who hold the whip, literally or figuratively.
GUIDING PRINCIPLE
And that guiding principle is that the majority exists to ensure not only the survival, but the prosperity, of the minority.
So the JLP could never hope to lead me in protest action against economic conditions. Neither could the PNP. In fact, neither of the band of scoundrels, sometimes genetically linked, differentiated only by colours, can lead me. Sure, they can rule me through shaping the environment I live in, with the support of their beloved uneducated, but leadership is another thing entirely.
Well, come to think of it, if the JLP had started a protest against the lawlessness in the country and the PNP's treatment of police salary issues after murder of three policemen and a security guard in 24 hours earlier this year, I would probably have joined in. But that one never happened.
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.
