For Zayda: Truth over Force

Force against force equals more force. (Ghana)

Symbol of Maat, Egyptian goddess of Truth, Balance, Order

Dear Zayda,

The police and the people of Tivoli Gardens seem to be getting ready for war. But force against force, as the proverb says, just ends up as more force.

In Jamaica, some parents still use force to make children obey, just as some teachers still use force to make children learn. But mostly what children learn is that if people are old enough, big enough, powerful enough, they can use force and get away with it. I talked to a young man recently, and he told me he believed in force because force had made him obey his parents and listen to his teachers when he was a child. He is grown now and he is a teacher who can now apply force to his students. Perhaps Jamaica has not left slavery that far behind.

During slavery, backra (the white plantation owner) could use as much force as he wanted against slaves who could not speak for themselves or protect themselves. But no one is ever really helpless, not even a baby. If babies choose, they can use their force to keep their parents sake all night; they can prevent their parents from going out when and where they want to go. Indeed, many babies act like tyrants even when they seem able to do nothing but eat and sleep.

Slaves also had their own force to respond to backra’s force. They slowed up the work in the cane fields, set fire to the cane fields, and were smart enough to act stupid enough to destroy machines and crops.

Many took back their freedom by running away to the hills where they set up communities to protect themselves. They organized themselves and armed themselves, and ruled themselves with their own laws. Now, from their Maroon towns, these ex-slaves could use force to drive back British soldiers sent to recapture them.

Force led to more force till the British gave in. Even with better arms and greater numbers, the British were forced to accept the right of the Maroons to be independent and free. Even today, the Maroons have their own government. They do not have to answer to the rest of Jamaica.

When all of Jamaica became free of British rule, the new Jamaican leaders still seemed to believe that force alone would solve problems. The police had the job of using force to control people who were poor, uneducated, and unemployed. Even today, poor people can be locked up for using certain words, smoking weed, or even for standing on the street in their neighborhoods. Worse still, they are often locked up for nothing at all. Some even spend years in prison when they committed no crime. Nothing much seemed changed from the time white backra was in charge.

Some therefore decided to seek the freedom they were still not enjoying under Jamaican leaders. This time, they set up their communities on the plains, with their own leaders, their own rules, and their own weapons. The new Jamaican backra (sometimes black but mostly brown) used force and more force. The new communities, now called garrisons, became more and more separate from the rest of Jamaica. They also became more heavily armed to keep their freedom and protect themselves against outsiders. Followers trusted their garrison leaders to look after them, even if sometimes these leaders acted like backra of the cane field – the punishment for disobeying a garrison leader could be injury or even death.

Today, Tivoli Gardens, the oldest of these garrison communities, has blocked itself off from the rest of Jamaica. The police have a warrant for the garrison leader’s arrest, and his followers seem ready to put down their lives rather than give him up to the police.

Force against force, over decades, has led to greater force. The black/brown backra government has not learned from the experience of the white backra government and the Maroons.

At this time, the rest of us look on. Some think was is bound to take place, especially if the government decides to use even more force than it has done in the past. Others hope that wiser heads will find a way to end the war without firing a shot or risking a life.

My hope is that all of us in Jamaica will choose being free and independent to using more and more force to maintain backra status.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

For Zayda: The Strength in Unity

Cross the river in a crowd and the crocodile won't eat you. (African proverb)

Adinkra symbol for unity in diversity

Dear Zayda,

Many of us talk inside our homes or on the phone with our friends about how Jamaica is to move forward. We have solutions to our problems, but often we talk about what someone else needs to go. For example many people think Bruce Golding should resign as Prime Minister, and then what?

The challenge comes when we need to stop talking among ourselves and act. A lot of us are scared of being punished for acting on what we believe to be true. I saw some of that this week. People told Golding they did not want a leader they could not trust, and he had to say he was sorry even after claiming he had nothing to apologise for. But the next steps looked scary - like insisting that politicians make a habit of listening to the people.

Mostly politicians think they have power over people, but this was one time the people showed their power and the politician had to listen. We can still insist tht our leaders listen to us, but I think people are starting to feel scared of what might happen to them if they go all the way in demanding respect from politicians.

Someone called me to suggest that we have a demonstration to demand that politicians know they have to answer to the people. The idea seemed good, but most people did not want anyone (least of all politicians!) to see them on the side of the road holding up placards. Some may have worried bout what their friends would say about them, especially as better off people in Jamaica almost never take to the streets. The biggest fear, I think, was of violence. Human rights advocates received threats, and a youth activist's car was bombed, apparently because they spoke their minds about Golding's not telling the truth. That fear is real. In fact, all fears are real for those who feel them.

People are not brave because they feel no fear. Mostly they are brave because they act despite their fears. Often their fears make them more alert to possible danger, and so they try to unite with others who think as they do. Fear therefore has a role – it can lead or mislead us.

Right now, a lot of people act as if they want to step back to the bank, after they seemed to be at least putting a toe or two in the water. They may be afraid that the water might be colder and deeper than it looks. They may think people will be unreliable, and might say “I will be there next to you in the crowd crossing the river,” but fail to turn up for the action.

If we really decide to cross the river with crocodiles on the attack, we may need to find others who share our dream. The desire to cross the river will need to be stronger than fear of being eaten. The risk is always going to be there, but if we stay closer together, the crocodile might well swim away to find others who travel alone. And if we keep going, we will be on the other side of the river, rather than always wishing we were there.

Putting action behind our words will not be easy, Zayda. However, if we unite, it will certainly be possible.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

To Zayda: Not entering fire

Even if you are brave, you can't enter a fire. (Ghana)








Dear Zayda,

Prime Minister Golding came out and apologized on Monday night. He admitted he misled the nation, but once trust is lost, it is hard to regain. So what is happening since Monday night is like a fire that is out of control. And the Prime Minister has gone absent, instead of doing what he can to put out the remaining flames.

My sons had a direct experience of a fire that got out of hand. They were about seven or eight years old and staying at my parents house for a day or so. One of my parents was not well, so my sons had time for unsupervised play. Well, there was a pile of rubbish in an outside room, and these two little boys decided to help out their grandfather by burning the rubbish. The flames were fine for a while, and then they just got bigger and bigger. If the flames are determined enough, a little water can see to make them burn even stronger. So finally someone had to call the fire brigade. Fortunately this was an outside room, and nothing much burned except for old newspaper.

Golding has a lot more at stake than burning rubbish. Telling the truth too late, suddenly doing what he had said was impossible had kept the flames alight. The man he was trying to protect is the gang leader in Golding’s constituency, a man termed a “don” This man is called Christopher Coke. The United States currently wants him for gun running and drug trafficking. This is the man Bruce was protecting for the past nine months. Now the police have a warrant for his arrest, but they cannot reach the street where they think Coke lives. The people in that community have put roadblocks on all streets leading into the area, so the police would have to remove the roadblocks before they can come to get Coke. A couple of days ago some soldiers in an armored vehicle tried to push past the road blocks, and gunmen fired at the vehicle. So the roadblocks remain. They are illegal, but no one has moved them for the past four days. The Mayor of Kingston represents this community. He has the job of clearing the streets, and one time he removed my car because I parked in a no-parking area. But he cannot or will not remove these old cars, old fridges, and other debris used to block these streets.

All because of lies. And probably because of fear as well – the bigger the lie, usually, is the bigger the fear.

We may not always tell the truth, Zayda, but we can avoid telling lies that cause as much damage as a fire gone out of hand. Even if we are very brave, not to mention very clever, we still can't enter fire without damaging ourselves.


Blessings,

Your shangazi

For Zayda: Telling the whole truth

A fault confessed is half redressed. (South Africa)

Adinkra symbol of understanding and agreement

Dear Zayda,

Saying sorry is never going to be easy, but we can do best if we say sorry quickly and truthfully. The longer we wait is the more questions we are likely to need to answer. The more willing we are to answer questions, is the less people will think we still have something to hide. .

Last Monday night, Jamaica's Prime Minister Bruce Golding apologized after behaving for weeks as if he had nothing to apologize for. Up to Sunday night those closest to him said he had nothing to apologize for. I commend him for finally apologizing to the whole country on television, even if he was forced to change his mind. But that was just the job half done.

Let us suppose a girl, whom we shall call Betty, hid her school report from her parents because her grades were so poor. Her parents found out Betty lied when they called her teacher to ask when the report would arrive.

Betty could write her parents a letter of apology, confessing the fault. However, as part of redressing the fault, she needs to sit with her parents to clear up a lot of questions that go well beyond the hidden report. Betty’s answers to her parents’ questions might show many other problems that need to be solved. For example, Betty might need to move to the front of the class where she could see the board and hear the teacher better – perhaps she has sight or hearing problems and needs to see special doctors. Her brain might be showing her the letters of the alphabet the wrong way around, and so she will need help and patience. Perhaps Betty has difficulties with her teacher, or with her classmates. Perhaps something happened to Betty to cause her mind to drift away from schoolwork. She might be keeping a secret that is a burden on her mind.

If she doesn’t answer questions, her parent just have to guess what caused her to lie to them. They could most likely guess wrong, and Betty might lie again to hide her problems. Or next time around the cover up could be worse. In the meantime, Betty and her parents might continue to have problems trusting and understanding each other.

So Golding still needs to talk. He still needs to answer questions. Yesterday he had a chance to answer questions in Parliament, and he didn’t. People in Parliament could have questioned him the way you can’t question a face you are looking at on television. Often the way people answer questions can tell us if they are genuine or not.

Therefore, we are still waiting. A half-way apology is never enough to build back trust.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

To Zayda: Price of wisdom

Only a fool believes everything he is told. (Ethiopia, Eritrea)

Adinkra symbol for wisdom, creativity

Dear Zayda,

We can be in big trouble if we believe everything we are told. That is why we need to ask questions. Children are great at asking questions, and I hope you remain a questioner for life. Children also have great instincts for truth, and I hope you always trust your instincts. Some of us as adults swallow our questions and deny our instincts. That’s when we open ourselves to being drawn into a cult.

Yesterday I thought I was watching a cult when Samuda and Baugh, two persons from Golding’s party, say Golding would neither resign nor apologize for telling lies to the country. They said the whole party believes Golding and supports him. They said people were being unfair to Golding to ask him to go when he was innocent of doing anything wrong.

Sometimes adults create their own fairy tales, and then try to convince us that the fairy tales are true. If we ask too many questions, the adults might find ways to punish us, whether we are children or grown-ups. It takes courage to stand up against a cult, and I am happy to tell you that one person (so far), someone close to Golding, has been brave enough to think for himself, even if he is alone. He has said openly that Golding should apologize.

You need to ask questions always, my grandniece. You need to learn to trust your instincts and your judgment. You have a right to your thoughts, to your own opinion. I hope you always remember that you don't have to believe all you are told, no matter by whom.

You will find cults everywhere – at home, at school, and later at work. You will hear words like “loyalty”, and “team work”. Loyalty is important in relationships, and teamwork is important because we can do so much more together than we can do alone. However, you will know you are in a cult when you have to:

• follow exactly what the group tells you, without asking any questions;
• depend on the leader and defend him even if he hurts others or breaks the law;
• avoid any sign of disagreeing with the group; and
• dislike outsiders and say bad things about them.

When I was growing up, adults wanted children to be seen and not heard. When there were family quarrels, I was supposed to take my parents’ side even if no one told me what the fuss was about. If they didn’t like someone, I was supposed to dislike that person as well and even stop playing with their children. Sometimes families act like cults, and prepare us to fall in with cults when we are adults.

Traditionally, boys get some room to be independent, but girls are often under pressure to obey without question. I hope your world is different from the one I knew. At that time, many of us girls believed that we belonged to our parents when we were young, and would belong to our husbands when we got older. I was grown with children of my own before I realized that I could belong to myself.

So you can love your parents and your elders, and still disagree with them. Parents, teachers, and bosses are human, so they are allowed to be wrong. And you are also allowed to make mistakes; you are allowed to be wrong as well. As you will soon find out, we learn to walk by falling down.

I do not think Golding’s followers do him a favour by treating him as if he were a cult leader who can do no wrong. He might be better of if his followers loved him well enough to ask all their questions, and trust their instincts to know when he is telling them the truth. They could then be able to help themselves and all Jamaica by showing him where he went wrong, and helping him to correct his mistakes.

Zayda, you can be sure that I will support you in thinking for yourself, asking questions, trusting your instincts, and coming to your own conclusions. We pay a price for being wise, but an even greater price to allowing ourselves to be fooled.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

To Zayda: On Saying Sorry

Today's African proverb: Sorry doesn't heal a wound, but it can clean a wound. (Africa)











Dear Zayda,

Some people think Prime Minister Bruce Golding should apologize to the country. As today’s African proverb cautions us, saying sorry might clean the wound, but the cut still has to be healed.

When I was a little girl living in the country, a family came to visit us for Sunday lunch with their son. My memory of this boy is that he had a cap he loved, and that he teased me all that day. All day. I was a plump child, so perhaps he was making fun of my weight. None of the adults did anything about his behavior. I didn’t complain because my dad expected me to learn to look after myself with my mouth or my fists when other children bothered me.

So I put up with the teasing the best I could. All day. That evening, my parents walked the boy's family part way home. As we crossed a bridge over a river, I snatched the boy’s cap and threw it in the water. All the adults were then angry at me, and the little boy was crying as he watched his cap sail downstream.

I felt secretly pleased at what I had done, but I apologized to save myself worse punishment.

However, wounds tend to remain unhealed and may even get dirty again if left alone after the initial cleaning. I was still angry that I was the one to apologize after all I had gone through that day. No one had made the little boy apologize for mistreating me. In addition, I expect my apology did nothing to help the little boy get over the loss of his favorite cap.

For healing to take place, all the persons involved need to act and think differently. For example, in this incident I needed to be able to accept that being angry is all right, and then to know how to manage the feeling so I wouldn’t have to choose revenge. In addition, I may also have needed to contribute in some way – loss of pocket money or privileges - to restoring the cap that I threw in the river.
My parents could have taken this as a change to teach me healthy ways of dealing with teasing. They could also have helped me to love myself so well that this boy’s teasing could have no effect on me. The boy's parents could have realized that their child was a bully before he was a victim. Those are important lessons to learn.

Avoiding further trouble is usually one of the main reasons we say we are sorry. The test comes when someone wants us to follow up the cleaning with healing. We may then say, “Didn’t you hear me say I am sorry? What else do you want me to do?”

Sometimes an apology contains a sting that adds to the hurt. For example, we may say, “If this bothers you, I am sorry. But why do you have to be so sensitive? Can’t you take a joke? Besides, I spoke the truth. It’s not my fault that you are fat.”

The less we are ready for the healing is the more false our apology is likely to sound. Even if the apology is well meant, others might not accept it without seeing signs that healing will follow.

Prime Minister Golding might want to remain Prime Minister, or his party might want him to continue to lead them. Today they have a meeting where they will discuss his future. He might be persuaded to apologize to the nation. However, his apology is not likely help him or his party if so much damage is already done that people don’t trust his words. So there may be a problem at this stage even with the cleaning of the wound, let alone the healing.

So, Zayda, an apology is less than half a job done, worse still if the apology is empty and forced on us. The healing is the major part, the part that shows our good faith.

Apologies therefore need to come with reparations. If we are truly sorry, we also need to be willing to repair whatever damage we have done. Besides, when we act wrongly, we often need to start the repair job inside of ourselves.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

To Zayda: Truth and spilled water

Today’s Proverb: When water throw away, we cannot pick it up. (Jamaica)



Dear Zayda,

What is happening to Bruce Golding now shows just how hard it is to to pick up water once we have spilled it.

Let us say someone lies, and then lies to cover the lies. The day he tells the truth, do we believe him? First thing we are bound to ask is why now? Why decide to tell the truth now? Can the spilled water return to the bucket?

Not long sago, a policeman named Lyn Sue admitted that his lie sent a man to prison. He arrested a man and could find no witness to say the man was guilty. Lyn Sue so strongly believed the man to be guilty, that he created a witness and wrote an imaginary statement. The case went to court and the judge accepted the statement because Lyn Sue said the witness could not attend court. That was actually true, how cold the witness attend court if he did not exist? The arrested man was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to spend several years in prison.

Well, Lyn Sue had a change of heart. Since the court case, he had become a Christian. He therefore wanted to confess his sins so he could find peace in his heart and with his God.

Still, Lyn Sue had done wrong. He had misled the court. Because of his lie, a man spent time in prison for a crime he did not commit. At least there was no proof the man had committed any crime, so he was entitled to his freedom. As a result, Lyn Sue had to pay a penalty. He was tried for obstructing justice, and spent about six months in prison for that offence. Some people thought he should not have been punished for telling the truth. However, Zayda, actions have consequences, and it is never all right to lie especially if that causes other people to suffer.

People confess to lies for different reasons. Let us imagine a little boy whom we will call Fred. He took some money from his mom’s purse, and bought ice cream. When his mom found out that the money was missing, she looked all over the house for it, and she decided she probably lost it when she went shopping. She didn’t ask Fred about the money, and he said nothing. Some may say Fred didn’t exactly lie, but he did. That was a lie by omitting to tell the truth.

Fred felt he got away with lying (as well as stealing) and he boasted about it to his friend Jimmy. “My mom thinks she is so smart, but I fooled her,” he said. Jimmy didn’t advise Fred to admit the truth to his mom. He didn’t tell him to try to find the money to pay back his mom. He said, “That’s a great way to have ice cream whenever you want it.” So Jimmy joined the web of lies.

A couple of days later, Jimmy came across Fred who was eating chocolate chip cookies, the tender moist cookies that made Jimmy’s mouth water.

“Give me a cookie.” Jimmy said.
“This is my last one.” Fred swallowed the last of the cookie and brushed away the crumbs.
“No, I can see you have another one in the bag.”
“That’s for my mom.”
“Tell her it fell and a dog ate it.”

Jimmy tried to grab the bag, and Fred held it behind his back.

“Well, I am going to tell your mom what you did to get ice cream.
Did you steal her money again to buy cookies?” Jimmy said
“She won’t believe you.” Fred’s upper lip trembled as he spoke.
“Try me.” Jimmy said as he walked away.

Fred realized that if his mom heard the story from Jimmy, she would probably ground him for life. When his mom came in from work that evening, the dishes were all washed up and the table is set. His room was tidy for once, with all the toy cars lined up and the books on the shelf. He had also done his homework.

When his mom was seated on the couch, sipping a glass of red wine, Fred sat down next to her, with tears in his eyes. He told her he found the money on the floor and put it in his pocket till he could give it to her.

“I just forgot about it,” he said. The tears are spilling now. “So I spent it with the rest of my pocket money. When I heard you asking for the money, I just didn’t know how to tell you without your getting mad at me.”

“You know you won’t watch any television this weekend. You can’t just take money and spend it without knowing where it came from.”

“I am so sorry, mom. I wouldn’t be in this trouble if it wasn’t for Jimmy.”

“What does Jimmy have to do with this?”

“He tells lies all the time. He told me not to tell you about finding the money. I don’t think I want to be around him anymore.”

“I agree,” his mom said. “You did wrong, but you are a brave boy to come and tell me the truth.”

Many people think Bruce Golding is brave to have finally told the truth. Many others wonder whether what he said was as yet the truth, or whether he was trying to excuse himself by pointing fingers at other persons. A few people wonder why he is telling the truth now after lying for so long. Was he converted to the truth by a baptism of some sort? Was he forced to confess before someone else spilled the story?

Your best bet, Zayda, is to tell the truth the first time around.

Peace,

Your shangazi