Demeaned but Empowered: the Social Power of the Urban Poor in Jamaica / Obika Gray

DemeanedEmpowered.qxd 4/15/2004 12:30 PM Page i Demeaned but Empowered This page intentionally left blank DemeanedEmpowered.qxd 4/15/2004 12:30 PM Page iii Demeaned but Empowered The Social Power of the Urban Poor in Jamaica Obika Gray University of the West Indies Press Jamaica Barbados Trinidad and Tobago DemeanedEmpowered.qxd 4/15/2004 12:30 PM Page iv University of the West Indies Press 1A Aqueduct Flats Mona Kingston 7 Jamaica www.uwipress.com ©2004 by The University of the West Indies Press All rights reserved. Published 2004 08 07 06 05 04 5 4 3 2 1 CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA Gray,Obika Demeaned but empowered: the social power of the urban poor in Jamaica / Obika Gray p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN: 976-640-153-5 1. Urban poor – Jamaica – Political activity.2. Urban poor – Jamaica – Social activity.3. Patronage, Political – Jamaica. 4. Community power – Jamaica. 5. Crime – Jamaica. I.Title. HV4063A5G72 2004 364.2'56'21 dc-21 Cover photo by Phillip Harris Book and cover design by Robert Harris. Set in Bembo 11/14 x 24 Printed in Canada. DemeanedEmpowered.qxd 4/15/2004 12:30 PM Page v To Osonye This page intentionally left blank DemeanedEmpowered.qxd 4/15/2004 12:30 PM Page vii Contents Acknowledgements / viii List of Abbreviations / xi 1 Rethinking Power: Political Clientelism and Political Subordination in Jamaica / 1 2 A Fateful Alliance / 23 3 Fulcrums of Power in the Ghetto / 53 4 Exilic Space, Moral Culture and Social Identity in the Ghetto / 91 5 Badness-Honour and the Invigorated Authority of the Urban Poor / 120 6 A Fettered Freedom:Warfare and Solidarity in the Ghetto / 152 7 Crime, Politics and Moral Culture / 194 8 The Struggle for Benefits / 223 9 Uncaptured Rebels / 251 10 Criminal Self-Organization and Cultural Extremism / 277 11 The Cultural Contradictions of Power: Badness-Honour and Liberal Democracy / 317 Epilogue The Ordeal of Social Reconstruction in Jamaica / 337 Notes / 362 Selected Bibliography / 407 Index / 412 DemeanedEmpowered.qxd 4/15/2004 12:30 PM Page viii Acknowledgements BUT FOR MY HAPPY ADOPTION AT a young age by an upwardly mobile aunt who snatched her nephew from the slums, and from an errant working-class sister, my own life might well have made its contribution to the vast social power of the poor discussed here. The advantages of this escape from a troublesome destiny,the joys of lov- ing reconnection with my still working-class mother – together with Carl Stone’s inspired scholarship on the Jamaican people – made personal biog- raphy a powerful subtext for my social and intellectual preoccupations. A nagging concern for what might have been and worry for the fate of the urban poor therefore drove me to write this political account of their lives.As the reader will discover, I do so in ways that reject both contempt and apologetics. It is possible to write passionately about this socially despised group without the fear or the uncritical favour that inform so much of the political discussion of the group today, and I have tried to do that here. I have incurred many debts in writing this book. First of all, a heartfelt thanks to my mother, Gloria Cooke, and my sister, Suzanne Fletcher, for their love and abiding care during many research trips to Jamaica. Sharing their modest home and participating in their animated lives has been a gift and an unmatched tutorial in the travails and triumphs of the respectable poor. I also owe a special gratitude to the faculty and staff of the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies, Mona. In the years it took to write this book, I encountered only encouragement and welcome. I owe a special thanks to Professor Brian Meeks, an engaging scholar and friend, whose steadfast encouragement and practical help facilitated the publication of this book. Criminologist Anthony Harriott was more than an unsparing guide to the dark side of Jamaican politics. He became a friend, a wise counsellor on the politics of the poor and a patient sounding board for my ideas. viii DemeanedEmpowered.qxd 4/15/2004 12:30 PM Page ix Acknowledgements ix I am equally grateful to Anthony Bogues, a former member of the department and currently professor at Brown University in the United States. In the early months of this project, Bogues offered critical insights into the politics of the People’s National Party,and his timely intervention years later helped this book find its Caribbean publisher. I am also grateful to Professor Trevor Munroe for making interviews with leaders of the Jamaica Labour Party possible.All this and the warm collegiality of department professors made for agreeable research visits. This book could not have been written without extensive interviews with persons who witnessed the politics of the poor at first hand. I am espe- cially grateful to Paul Burke for sharing his intimate knowledge of the rough-and-tumble of Jamaican street politics. Much of what I now know about the underbelly of Jamaican politics I owe to several late-night interviews with Paul in his Kingston office. Arnold Bertram offered a similar purchase on the rough politics of the People’s National Party and the Jamaica Labour Party,particularly his compelling memories of ghetto nota- bles and the party civil wars. I am also grateful to “Churchill” and Sidoney Massop, who shared their time and unmatched perspectives on the life of Jamaica Labour Party ghetto leader Claude Massop. In their turn, Pearnel Charles and journalist John Maxwell gave riveting accounts of the “dutty politics”practised by both the Jamaica Labour Party and the People’s National Party.I am most grateful to Anthony Johnson for sharing his insights into the political culture of the Jamaica Labour Party. Janet Grant-Woodham, Frances Madden, Father Richard Albert, Professor Barry Chevannes and the late Errol Anderson also shared their perspectives on the costs of inner-city poverty, the perils of factional party politics, and the vocation of notable groups and personalities in the slums. Thanks are due as well to Mark Figueroa and Michael Witter of the Department of Economics at the University of the West Indies, Mona, for their critical yet always supportive remarks during the research for this book. A special thanks also to former front-line policeman Keith “Trinity” Gardner for an eye-opening tour of Kingston’s badlands, and to Bradley Lecky for introducing me to the good citizens of Rollington Town. Many friends and associates offered good cheer and opportunities for recreation during trips to Jamaica. D’Arcey and Dell Crooks, Clinton Hutton, Chris Charles, and Ian Boxill were unfailingly generous as they escorted me for sojourns across Kingston. DemeanedEmpowered.qxd 4/15/2004 12:30 PM Page x x Acknowledgements A big thanks also to Linda Speth and Shivaun Hearne of the University of the West Indies Press for recognizing the worth of this work and to their capable staff for seeing to its immediate publication. I thank David Scott, edi- tor of the journal Small Axe, for his wise suggestions for making this a bet- ter book. I am indebted as well to Dr Christopher Lind and the staff of the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire for supporting this work with a summer research grant in 1996. Parts of this book appeared elsewhere and I thank the publishers for per- mission to reprint versions of them here. Chapter 1 appeared in New Caribbean Thought: A Reader, edited by Brian Meeks and Folke Lindahl (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2001); a version of chapter 4 appeared in Modern Political Culture in the Caribbean, edited by Holger Henke and Fred Reno (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2003); parts of chapters 5 and 10 were published in Understanding Crime in Jamaica, edited by Anthony Harriott (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2003) and in Issues in the Government and Politics of the West Indies, edited by John Gaffar LaGuerre (St Augustine, Trinidad: School of Continuing Studies, 2001).Versions of this book’s findings also appeared in Social and Economic Studies 52 (March 2003) and in Small Axe, no. 13 (2003). Lastly, this book is dedicated to my wife,Tess Onwueme. Her steadfast encouragement and pedagogic love spurred completion of this work, as did the inspiring example of her own prolific career. DemeanedEmpowered.qxd 4/15/2004 12:30 PM Page xi Abbreviations BITU Bustamante Industrial Trade Union JLP Jamaica Labour Party NDM National Democratic Movement PNP People’s National Party PNPYO People’s National Party Youth Organization TUC Trades Union Congress WPJ Workers’ Party of Jamaica xi This page intentionally left blank DemeanedEmpowered.qxd 4/15/2004 12:30 PM Page 1 1 Rethinking Power Political Clientelism and Political Subordination in Jamaica THE DIALECTIC OF OPPRESSIVE STATE POWER, and opposition to it, remains a compelling subject for political analysis. Studies of this phenomenon have emphasized the ability of socially marginal and disadvantaged groups to constrain power holders in ways they find hard to suppress.1 Although mainstream social science has traditionally paid little attention to this theme of power from below,increasing interest is being given to the subject of the social power of the urban poor and to their relations with contemporary states. It has become more apparent that the social actions of the poor are politically relevant and these actions are increasingly being examined. Among the studies that focus on the poor and their relations with the powerful are those which call attention to their fugitive and evasive tactics.

Load more