Glenda Simms, Contributor

WHILE I was at the United Nations participating in the May sitting of the Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), I maintained a daily ritual of reading the Jamaican newspapers and keeping up with the local scene.

In one of these local papers, the public was introduced to the possibility that Brother Anancy might be reinvented into the all-encompassing national symbol of cross-cultural peace, harmony and human understanding.

In short, Anancyism could be much more effective in our understanding of the positive side of the Jamaican persona, than the ideas of any other historical animal or human figure or fantasy of our imagination.

Of course, in our desperation to find solutions to the overwhelming social and economic problems which the nation faces, all kinds of ideas have to be put on the table in order for a path to sustainable development to be mapped and implemented.

PERSONIFICATION OF ANANCY

It is within this framework that this writer decided to comment on the notion of Anancy as the personification of the Jamaican national desire to find peace and harmony in our lives.

To this end, I decided to search my long-term memory bank to recall the Anancy story which had the greatest impact on my childhood imagination. I realise that persons of my vintage need to always check the long-term memory pool to appreciate the blueprint of ideas that challenged the cognitive forces and the imagination of our childhood, and helped to forge our present view of events and of the world in general.

This retrospective view forced me to recall a childhood firmly rooted in the sights and aura of the hills and valleys that still characterise the mountain ranges of the Malvern region of South East St. Elizabeth.

SALUBRIOUS ENVIRONMENT

This was, and still is, an environment of salubrious morning breezes, slithering green lizards, sluggish croaking lizards, busy fireflies, a host of duppies cavorting around the roots of the surviving cotton trees, and wild flowers that cleverly imitate a variety of human body parts, including the genitalia.

Predictably, Anancy and duppy stories were a steady dose of the oral tradition which characterised this region of rural bliss and breathtaking beauty.

It is within this setting that I learnt to question the type of character that Brother Anancy is, because the Anancy story which has never left my mind is the one that described that special day when Mr. Anancy returned home from his quest to put bread on the table, with only four plantains for the evening meal for his nuclear family of five.

Instead of giving thanks for his good fortune, the caring father started bellyaching about how unfortunate he was. According to him, he would do the manly thing and roast the four plantains, scrape them nicely and give one to each child and one to his darling wife.

He, the long-suffering and generous provider, would be content to do without food in order to make his family well fed and happy

Mrs. Anancy, who was a dutiful, traditional stay-home mother, must have been the perfect model of the nice rural women of my childhood.

WEB OF DECEPTION

I can well imagine that like many rural women then and now, she spent much of her waking hours planting in her kitchen garden, sweeping the leaves from the front of her house, washing and straightening out the spider webs after the children had gone wild over the flies that were stupid enough to get caught in one more 'web of deception.'

Mrs. Anancy was also the kind of woman who was too trusting to see how she and her children were being manipulated by the clever husband.

Like every obedient wife and mother, she encouraged each child to join her in giving poor Brother Anancy a half of each plantain sothat he would have something to eat.

Anancy probably kissed her and called her 'darling dear' after he washed down two plantains with a long enamel mug of sugar and water.

CONNED BY MEN

This Anancy story caused me to grow up with a deep sense of how women and children can be conned by men who set out to exploit their sense of duty and commitment to their ascribed role in families and society; so I was quite taken aback with the possibility of Anancy being reinvented as a latter day saint and cultural icon with redemptive potential to solve some of our current social problems

Of course, I did not want to miss some fundamental profound positive attributes of the creature who followed our ancestors across the Middle Passage.

I, therefore, approached my CEDAW colleague, Dorcas Coker-Appiah, who is from Ghana, and asked her if she can give me a sense of what Anancy represents in her culture.

"A clever rogue," she replied.

Dr. Glenda Simms is a gender expert and consultant.