Jamaica, United We Win, and Divided We Kill!

What sense, what honor is it to even want to kill for what you say that you believe in, when you only stand for it with your mouth?

Jamaicans are quick to say with intense passion that, they are of this, or that allegiance, yet many are ignorant and very indiscipline in being so. They will quickly declare, this is what I am about and “bun a fire pon dat”, for the things that they are against – and you would tune into the news later and heard someone was brutally murdered. However, if they were to benefit from, or through what they say they are against, then they would easily forget their stand and align with that thing, or person. Such disposition is not only ignorant, but disgraceful. You were against it, but now that you can get some food, some money from it, through it, you are for it, you uphold that thing, or person with that way, but look, you just killed someone for having that same preference. What nonsense, what madness.  Now I can see why people say that Marcus Garvey was, “Sold out for Rice and Peas.”

When you say you are of this, or of that, it is not your love for a cause, but your love for division, which springs from your love for only yourself. You only believe in, care, and have love for yourself, thus you see things as only you that matters and relevant. Only your way is right, you are against him not because merits shows he is wrong, but just because he is not you. Therefore, you kill because someone is not you, you have no tolerance simply because someone is not you. You kill and put loved ones to suffer, merely because another is not you. Great madness. What about individuality, what about every man has a right to decide his own destiny? So, when you say, “me ah Gorgon”, you’re just simply saying – “regardless of my merits, regardless of my fellow man merits, it is only I that matters, I am the best, and that means – man fi dead.” Now tell me what are you really about? That’s a rhetorical question, I know you really don’t have a clue. You will have two Jamaicans reasoning, and if one say something and the other can’t see it, or if it oppose to what he is saying, he will say, “nuttin nuh guh so” (nothing goes like that), because he strongly take it that only his way is right, and as they continue arguing their point, he will get loud and start a fight, and sometimes even kill the other for that. The problem is, Jamaicans need to learn that if someone is not open, then he/she should not argue.

Now, It is a popular saying amongst Jamaicans that, ‘Jamaicans like to put up with almshouse’; they will talk against slackness, but still will uphold slackness if they can benefit from it. When you have a belief, a stand, to truly practice what you preach you must not contradict it. To simply say that you are this, or representing for that, and battling against this, with it just being that, only with your mouth, lip service, is not a real dedication to a cause, breeds division and makes your stand a fall. It is sad that many Jamaicans don’t know what they truly stand for, and yet lives are taken away with them being so. In fact, it is a waste, and it’s all just like what Bob Marley calls it, a “Rat race”, where some are: ‘Wagonists’, ‘Ginigajs’, ‘Hooligans’ ‘Jack City’, ‘Gorgons’. But it doesn’t stop there, lives are taken away as some play the role of even ‘Shotta’, ‘Pelpa’, ‘Goodas’, ‘Sketel’…. If you stand for justice, then that is what you are living for, you breathe it, and nothing or no one can sway your commitment and dedication to that purpose, you will be even ready to die for it. However, you can’t act for your cause this minute, and the next minute you are contradicting and betraying yourself. This is the self-annihilation reality of Jamaica; people kill others for being different from themselves, yet when you observe them, you will find that they are not even firm and true in their stand for which they claim they have to kill for. All of that means lives are lost through ignorance, for nothing, senseless killings… Moreover, sad as it is, you cannot tell them they are wrong, as this brutish ignorance is so deeply embedded as the cultural norm.

In closing, Jamaicans are full of potential and self-belief, but most of that confidence is only applied to the effect of individual gratification, only for the self, and in the process be to the expense of the fellow Jamaican. If Jamaicans become united then one will build the other, and then athletics dominance will just be one of the many branches of the great tree of success the nation would have for both the locally and internationally platforms. The current state of the Island is very despairing and self-destructive; having one of the highest murder rates in the world, is mainly attributed to the disregard of anyone but our self, the intolerance of anything but our own. This has been going on for decades now, with no end in sight, but there got to be a campaign for change now, a self-exemplary campaign for unity, with a great focus for its implementation through the education system, at every level, in all communities. Right now it’s a nation growth playing second fiddle to blood spill, but love and unity every single Jamaicans now must will, because Jamaica, only united we win, and divided we kill.