Jamaican Till I Die!

The Dutty Black Gyal as the opposition like to class her achieved something in her personal life that 99.9% of us will never, ever achieve and when we die no one will know we ever existed within half a generation time. Portia Simpson-Miller was not born with a golden spoon in her mouth, she was not high colour, upper class or even middle class. Some people believe that Portia Simpson-Miller and people like her should never achieve much in life. So little are their expectations of poor black people. In various debates people have told me that Portia belongs uptown as a maid, that a person of her Stature belongs on her knees scrubbing floors and washing clothes for upper St. Andrew, as she was not good enough to even be an upstairs maid. It is also ironic that most of the hatred and venom that is thrown in her direction came from poor black woman who felt she should never achieve anything in life. She was not packed with high-end education, nor was she well-spoken (speaky-spokey...

Cultural Conditioning or as the British historians Niall Ferguson calls it, the use of Soft Power to control hearts and minds. Making the subjugated do what you want them to do and think how you want them to think. This concept came back to me while I was watching the 1939 movie Gunga Din. A story about the exploits of colonial Great Britain in India. Growing up in post-colonial Jamaica, as in most other colonial countries, meant we inherited the mind-set that White Great Britain was Right, good, benevolent and we the black, brown, indigenous people wrong, useless and worthless. This is what the British spent over 350 years beating into us as a means of control. To relinquish control to the British, one must first accept the British concept and narrative about who we are as a people. That we are useless and worthless, uncivilized savages and without the British, without the Mother Country to save us from ourselves, we would be in a worst off. Where would we be without the Mother Cou...

A series of unfortunate events, Brexit and Trump has played right into the hands of both Russia and ISIS. EU president: Donald Trump's election has placed America's relationship with Europe at risk, EU president Jean Claude Juncker has warned. In a series of blunt and forthright remarks on the shock winner of the US elections, Mr Juncker accused the new President-elect of ignorance and said he must be taught "what Europe is and how it works". Russia supported Brexit because Russia wanted the UK out of the European Union, they were happy like a pig in slop about the outcome of the Brexit vote. The United Kingdom was like a thorn in the side of Russia because the UK would use her position as a top member of the EU to counter and block Russia's moves. On top of all that the UK was the eye, ear and mouthpiece of the USA in the EU, they both would work together to influence the EU activities, countering and blocking Russia. In fact Russia also wants the Europe...

The more I travel and the more I communicate with people in different countries both in person and online, and the more I explore global news and current affairs as it happens in countries around the world. Is the more I have grown to appreciate my Jamaica and my Jamaican people even more.  I am not saying we are better than anyone. I am not saying we are superior to anyone and the fact that for the most part we do not think on those levels make me appreciate us more. As a matter of fact most of us Jamaicans know our limitations and enjoy our mediocre simple life. I will go even further to declare simplification of life is a much better way of living than an overly complex life. Simple things make my day and life worth living. Like finding a big East Indian mango, golden in colour, ripened to perfection and sweeter than sugar and it is big enough to be a single meal. I spent one part of my life chasing the dreams of my parents, thinking about corporate ladders, having...