Pushed

A little boy in Barbados has died. Not in sleep or because he had an illness. He did not die like so many little boys  walking certain neighbourhoods because he was black; Barbadian boys are supposed to have a real chance at a future here. He did not die by falling off the back of a cane-truck like a child I knew who would now be  diagnosed with ADHD, not that that diagnosis would necessarily be true. He died because someone did not listen and if they had listened, they did not hear and if they heard, they did nothing about it. He said goodbye to his classmates and left them for the day. He told them they would not be seeing him anymore, as if he had had a plan,  as if he knew that something was going to happen to him, even if he inflicted it himself. But did he cause his own death?

Someone said that there was a big gash somewhere on his head, that he didn't do it himself. But we all know what happens when there is too much speculation  through second and third party whisperings without confronting the source and Shamar Weekes, tiny it seems by any standard for a 14 year old,  is not here to tell his truth. In any case, whether he faltered  too sad  to scream or laugh or try to fight his pain anymore, to beg for an opportunity to live the life he wanted, Shamar Weekes was figuratively pushed. The literal take on the story, we will have to wait for later, when the second and third party versions of what went on in the house and Shamar's  mind are over, emotionalism has simmered down and investigators match evidence to speculation, or not match evidence to speculation and somehow we carry on with our lives, much as we did before. For barring a miracle, this is what I expect to happen. We are like ostriches; we come up for air to guzzle at the spectacle or even be sad, then we bury our heads again because indeed we need to carry on. Back to our corner of the woods, our designated roles, our own troubles, the lives we created for ourselves. Someone else will take care of it. Aren't we all playing our parts in the (re) construction of this beautiful country?

Shamar died here in  this land, where community is supposed to mean more, in his house  in misery and in pain. He is not the first child to have died but something about the way he came to his end opens up the country to examine its soul - not only the neighbours who must for the rest of their lives live with the knowledge that they heard the bumps and the thumps, the licks and the bruising of the teenager's spirit and did nothing; nor the people who saw him sucking limes but responded only so much and no more, nor the woman who thought  twice when he asked her  to,but she did not take him in. The entire nation will be put on trial whenever this case is heard. We have to go deep and ask, which child was/is in trouble that I did not/have not assisted? We have to ask, how much did I turn my head to hunger, to stories about sexual abuse, to a child's suffering which must surely be the mother of all sufferings? 

 What drives a young boy to be so cheerful at school, it is claimed, when something was so wrong? They say that men generally commit suicide when women only try but often fail. Why do little boys  and teenagers commit suicide? They also say "all" teenagers have some notion of killing themselves at some point in the transition to adulthood. But whether Shamar jumped, or was jumped, or whether his head was bashed with a hard heavy or metal object, he is dead. Barbados has to reason its way through the mire of this story and in so doing, come to terms with something about itself.

Remember when there were no murders in Barbados? Or only one murder a year and then two and three and so on? Now it is very commonplace. You say, "ah but this is the world. it is happening the world over. We have things here that are great and good and wondrous" and all of that would be true. It is the not so wondrous changes and shifts we still have to deal with and what is the future we wish for our country. Not ministers peddling sex for money, not boys being bashed for sex, not girls being molested. Everything is relative you say - ministers will peddle for sex or anyone else, neighbours do not have to respond, child abuse is a worldwide phenomenon, that is the place of the "useless" Child Care Board; But before the Child Care Board, there was the citizen. We are every bit as entitled to be watchdogs and caretakers in a country in which jobs are far fewer, child abuse is every other person's story stretching across the both the black and white communities, and the future that is changeable, is what we always have to look to... in a country in which communities teem with dust and a growth in "block children" and sure, yes, I may be overstating the case because afterall it is not Haiti or Jamaica or Guyana. And no, Shamar was not Shamar from the block - for all I've read and heard. 

Coupled with the flight of something  that overtook him, Shamar died, they said, from a rope, his feet hanging or dangling, barely touching the floor, at an age in which memories only just begin to gather. Those memories, it is said, were far from good. Bad memories, cumulatively they say may cause great depression and suicidal thoughts. Shamar in that sense, was already a big man, grappling with fears it seems no young person should have to entertain at that age. Hiding sometimes, asking for help at others. Yet there he is, in the picture,  resiliently smiling, gritting his teeth, eyes attempting to dissimulate his burden, until the light in them could shine no more. 

 Until he died, the little boy was an unknown to the majority of us. Before he died, he, it is claimed, searched in years so young to find an answer to the problems that seared his soul. So what was it that took him to his death? There are no two ways to answer this: whatever verdict is arrived at - Shamar Weekes was definitely pushed.

Death, the next frontier (Remembering my Father's untimely demise)

“I feel like I’m going to heaven.” Tupac.

I never thought much about death when I was younger. Life was either one of two things: getting an education and trying to raise myself up from the pitfolds of material poverty, finding a partner to journey through life with, finding work to feed and house myself and seeing what there was, if anything, that I could give back to society. Any extras were certainly the result of pure sacrifice and a strange mix of luck, hard work and prayer. Pain there has been and there is but none so asphyxiating as the pain of seeing a loved one die.

Death never entered the picture with any real immediacy until several school mates began to pass away, one by one. It meant in most cases that time had flown, that the years had whisked by and that that adage “time waits for no man” now had more significance. The first tinges of grey give us a sense of our own mortality, our own frailties before the passage of time.  But the deeper meaning of death and time caught me somewhat by surprise when my dad went to the other side, and then my grandmother and then her only sister, my dear aunt, all in the space of 7 brief months.  The undertaker had said almost prophetically: death comes in threes. And though the death knell had not been sounded for me, it was as if my life, held tenuously up by a thread in the midst of the recession, had now come to a precipitous and sudden halt. Strange as it may sound, I should have been more prepared than this. I should not have ground to a halt as if the world had come to an end, as anticipated and awaited as that is nowadays. But I had to concede that I had entered my first real meaningful season of death. 

We generally seem to go about our lives oblivious to our own mortality. We know it is going to happen but we do not prepare for the emotional impact on us. I first remember paying respect to the dead at primary school, where curiosity certainly overruled feeling. We were not forced to go to see the “deads” but it made more sense to do so, because Granny would always ask, “ did you stop by the church to pay your respect to Mr/Mrs. so and so?” Of course, she would be getting ready to head up the hill to attend the main service. She was one of these individuals who listened to the two early morning radio death notices every day and went to every single funeral within and outside of physical proximity until she died at 99. 

As children, we went in groups, tiny tots, between 5 – 10 years old, in our petite school uniforms made by the next door neighbour, filing past coffins to peep at the dead human beings. The ritual meant little more in our limited understanding, than tip-toeing past coffins in churches and looking down onto the corpses as piously as innocence would allow, and then making our way home. We were only children and not expected to stay for the service. Yet, the sight of someone you knew in a coffin, eyes closed,  eyelashes still and firm, face painted in an odd looking paste, dressed in their Sunday best, is a hard picture to remove from your memory. 

What it did say was that you fit into a community that was present with you at your birth, sheltered and protected you as you grew and was with you to see you off into the afterlife. The sternest test of Barbadian community spirit is that capacity to bond through funerals, birth and weddings as the centerpieces of tradition and togetherness.

But how should knowing that I am going to die affect my attitude to life? Is there any-way that we can stem the emotional impacts? Well this seems to depend on what we believe happens after death and that, really is a larger than life discussion. One of the most interesting and natural things about being human, however is that we return to the earth – that the soul goes to heaven, that it does not, or where indeed does it go, if there is a soul ? Death they say is as natural as being born. Yet to be born is seen as triumph; to die is seen as tragedy or harmful to both dead and the living, out of which may come growth. There are many examples to prove that out of death or its threat may come much good.

Tupac Shakur famously and eloquently put into words some of his convictions about death and how he had grown from tragedy and mistakes when he felt that he was nearing the end, “A coward dies a thousand deaths, a soldier dies only once...I believe that everything that you do bad comes back to you. So everything that I do that’s bad, I’m going to suffer from it. But in my mind, I believe what I’m doing is right. So I feel like I’m going to heaven.” Tupac was prodigious not only for his rap art but his effortless poetic and honest thoughts on many subjects, including death. “And I hope I’m forgiven for Thug Livin when I die.” “My only fear of death is reincarnation heart of a solider with a brain to teach your whole nation.” “Oh Lord, help me change my ways, Show a little mercy on judgement day, It ain’t me I was raised this way, Never let em’ play me for a busta, Makin’ hell for a hustler.” I put the pistol by my head, and say a prayer. I see visions of me dead, Lord are you there?”

Some people depend on religious and spiritual strength to prepare for it, which cushions them from its shock and removes the fear of death. Martin Luther King as my friend Mrs. Walcott reminds me had seen the Promised Land. “I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the Promised Land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I am not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” With a very different idea of death, Winston Churchill, who guided a whole continent to victory over Nazi Germany said, “I am ready to meet my maker, but whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”

But whatever we believe in, it is very hard to lose a good friend to either life or to death, and to know that all our reasoning, human strength and might cannot bring them back. There is some speculation by older people in Barbados, who are anticipating death, about who will put down whom first. Barbadians travel from the four corners of the earth to “put down” loved ones. In China in the Donghai region, like Barbados, the more people turn up at a funeral to pay respect, the more prestigious for the grieving family. In Barbados this might mean honour mixed with spectacle and curiosity depending on who the person is. It was not the same thing for King Dyal to die as it was for Prime Minister David Thompson. In Madagascar, there is a dance with the dead where mourners take the unsuspecting corpse over their shoulders and together they revel in the streets. In some rural villages in Brazil, the dead are buried outside the door since the soul is felt to be in closer proximity to the living. This coincidentally also happens in some parts of Jamaica. Culture and ritual often make little sense except in the hearts of the people who live them.

Death, it is said, is the depth of the measure of humans. Then life must surely be the measure of the potential to live our lives well for as long as possible. As this unknown author said, “No matter how hard death tries it can’t separate people from love. It can’t take away our memories either. In the end, life is stronger than death.” The mystery about it is that we can only know for certain once we reach the other side.

***

Hating Hate

I hate the word "hater." When I see quotes like “Hated by many, wanted by plenty, disliked by some, confronted by none." "It’s so funny how the people who know the least about you, have the most to say." "My haters are my motivators." "You hate me because I wasn't who you thought I was or who you wanted me to be. From start to finish you never knew the real me;" "If you don't like me remember it's mind over matter; I don't mind and you don't matter.” I get a little scared. I wonder who is hating on who.

I think that the world war of words has taken another turn. It is easy for someone to be shot in the aim of fire by accident, as to   have the word “hater” indiscriminately brandished before you as the new weapon of choice. Well intended or not, to me,  it is an unkind and intimidating term, a form of name-calling that is just as harsh.  But, I understand the logic that those who call haters haters are really meaning to do us all some good, to reinforce and strengthen us against the pitfalls of malicious and harmful   practices. Hating is the opposite of a search for peace just as name calling is. Attributing the “feeling” to someone else or calling someone a “hater”, seems to me though,  to also point the finger in the direction of the person who is  doing the name calling.

I decided, because of my growing ambivalence over the meaning of the word hate and haters and the frequency with which it seems to be occupying minds, to figure out why it has so become a part of our lexicon. Ever so often, someone will post something about haters. I get confused about what the word actually means. I have never used the word to describe anyone to date, because  that makes me confer a judgment  or characteristic on someone because they have said something I might consider to be distasteful.

When I google the word “hater”,  a term that I hardly heard before the mega explosion of social media, entertainment feuds and scandals, I notice that they’re entire websites dedicated to its usage and that quotes are not at all hard to find. More difficult to discover is what “hater” and hate now mean. The origin of the majority of these sites, needless to say is the USA, where the word hater sounds more like an expletive.

If I am a hater does that mean I hate everything? The word seems to be such an absolute and finite description of a person. Am I allowed to hate something, an event or action but still like something associated? Am I categorically hateful and spewing with hatred because I hate a particular action or actions? Or does it mean that I am jealous (secretly of course) because I hate something or someone’s behavior? I might not hate or dislike all  their behavior but I hate and am absolutely disgusted at something they did.

Never have I seen the word hate used to convey jealousy before now. Jealousy and hate, according to my understanding of the words, are two different things, though one may lead to the other. The discussion about hatred, haters and jealousy becomes  less of an exercise in semantics than this.

Hater according to the Online Slang Dictionary is “someone who disapproves of something”,  a person who is jealous, one who criticizes something,”  37% of the 66 people who voted in the Online Dictionary Poll thought the word “hater” was vulgar.  In another poll, 136 people said they used it.  7, no longer used it, 33 had heard but never used it;  6, had never heard it at all. Well, such is the nature of slang. Where did the word originate? Let’s have a peek at some information that hopefully,  is correct.

The Urban Dictionary has a slightly different twist: “A person that simply cannot be happy for another person's success. So rather than be happy they make a point of exposing a flaw in that person.

Hating, the result of being a hater, is not exactly jealousy. The hater doesn’t really want to be the person he or she hates, rather the hater wants to knock some else down a notch.” The second meaning by the urban dictionary is:

“Overused word that people like to use just because someone else expresses a dislike for a certain individual.”

Then there is a third: “A person who feels anger and/or jealousy for someone who has succeeded in something they have worked hard for.  A being who speaks badly, and/or takes negative actions in attempt to create problems for a successful person.”

The fourth meaning in the Urban Dictionary makes me even more curious:

“A person that develops a strong dislike for another, solely basing their own opinion on personal judgment rather than objective merit. The formation of a hater's contempt commonly arises from jealously and/or resentment. Individuals that make fun of, or "hate," others for justified reasons cannot be legitimately classified as "haters;" although many faggots attempt to rationalize their own situations by doing so. Additionally, the word "hater" is frequently overused, mainly by members of the rap and hip-hop communities.”

And the list goes on and on. Still I wonder what is the word “hater” doing in our everyday jargon. I mean, it doesn’t sound like “cool” or “hip” or any of those new words that come from the States. I shudder to think we are part of this urban rage that exists in the States, with all its contradictory usage: hate bitch hating loser jealous haterade haters asshole racist gay jerk player hater lover stupid mean idiot player dick hatin slut (more)...

Then in my search I came across these words by Maya Angelou.

“A hater is someone who is jealous and envious and spends all their time trying to make you look small so they can look tall. They are very negative people to say the least. Nothing is ever good enough! When you make your mark, you will always attract some haters…That’s why you have to be careful with whom you share your blessings and your dreams, because some folk can’t handle seeing you blessed…"

For the first time, I disagreed with something one of my favourite poet has said. I wondered, Why Maya Angelou are you engaging in name calling? “The name-calling technique links a person, or idea, to a negative symbol. The propagandist who uses this technique hopes that the audience will reject the person or the idea on the basis of the negative symbol, instead of looking at the available evidence.”

I understand what you have said Maya, but I agree with this other viewpoint: “You can’t critique anything anymore without being labeled a hater and I just don’t agree with that so, I love haters aka, people who have great taste, style and originality who aren’t afraid to express their opinions.”

“ …calling someone a hater is dismissive. It completely shuts down dialog and makes it possible to miss important feedback about yourself or your business. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that haters don’t exist. I am saying that if you fail to recognize who the real haters are, then you will be guilty of alienating yourself from those that matter. This is a real issue that I have seen community managers and entrepreneurs fail at.”

And that folk, is what I learned in effective conflict resolution. Allow other persons the opportunity to make their statements, to have their opinions. If they are reasonable, they will come around to your point of view or you will come around to theirs. If not, agree to disagree. Calling people haters is just as bad. It’s like the kettle calling the pot black.

Sick and Tired

I am tired of religious sanctimoniousness. Not angry but tired. The way to God is through a very private door, some sage said.  In fact I am tired of many things on this island. Let’s leave the religious holier than thou’s, always a contentious subject, aside for a moment. If there is anything besides religious smugness that annoys me, it is the politically self-righteous – those whose corn beef and biscuit principles are transferred to the parliamentary living room, where symbolic smoking guns are drawn as if on a pasture for cowboys and nothing happens but the imagined twirl of mist in the air.

I am sick of people who think that to travel to St Maarten to shop and to have a car, house and piece of the rock and dollars in the bank are the seventh wonder of the world but who cannot understand why an unemployed neighbor would need assistance.

I have a suspicion that a country that stakes claim to being forward-looking, leaders among leaders in  developing countries, cannot see our own moral and ethical bankruptcy – not that these have any place in our sensationally globalised world.  Well, to me, Barbados is stuck in provincial primitivism under the guise of progress. And yet, the irony is that our modern forefathers were far more intuitive, knowledgeable and sophisticated in their treatment and understanding of fellow humans. Our fore-parents who built this country with hardly more than their wills had less than us and gave far, far more back to society.

We have all the paraphernalia and trappings of the big society – Plasma TV, computers and internet, BBs, the latest BMWs, the latest Mazdas, the latest rice and salt at the table, and our hearts and souls are trapped somewhere between Nirvana, finding our Avatars and escaping the plantation mentality. But what was that film of all films – Avatar - other than a beautiful one? Has the symbolism in it been lost on us forever as we switch the channel to view the next episode of The Vampire Diaries? Has the collective wisdom of the bible escaped us for individualistic self worship and self righteousness? Are we all possessed by demons?

I am tired of the race to nothing. What are we driven by? Leadership has to be imbued with some kind of instinct for survival other than a warped brand of competitive humanism that becomes poisonous in a small society. I am sick that people think that leadership is the purview of parliamentarians only and that many parliamentarians themselves may even have that obscure view. We are the government; we are the people but we forget that power to participate that has been given us by the simple act of having been born.

I imagine this to be part of the nature of smallness. The legacies that we will leave will not be shown by the houses we have now nor what we drive,  nor the bottles of Perrier we can buy nor the cars outside each door – a most nonsensical and idiotic conjecture about a future dream for country. Let the cold axe of the executioner come down on my head once again. This country is seemingly tied up on the cow pasture to a stake with the cow getting knotted ever more tightly by the rope that he tries in vain to, but cannot unravel.

Sadly, we are so artless most of the time. We are letting our country – like the mahogany furniture we did not know was valuable – go down the drain, by crass and crude pretentiousness on the one hand or apathy on the other or some sort of pact with the self that we and only we are right. If everybody is right then no one can be wrong. We all speak about God and spirituality and how to be better people. I have never seen a people more spiritual and God fearing who give so little spiritually. The practical reality is that we clamor for and cling to a hostile culture that is becoming less and less alien to us. Soon, if it has not already, it will become us and we will become it.

When a person does not know him/herself that is a very dangerous place to be. His/her obliviousness to that fact can turn into the proverbial dagger that is wielded against this innocence. When we can see no further than our own naked hunger for prestige and some idea of greatness without recognition of the need not to lose ourselves in the pursuit of transcendence, then we trade away the very thing we say is important. I have seen in the last year a lot of initiative stifled by misplaced administrators mainly concerned with personal ambition. Cooperation – not subjugation - is what is needed to take this country forward. Smallness is indeed a double edged sword.

If I seem to be patronizing, it is that I am also tired of those people whose everlasting refrain is that somehow while we are alive, the positive is all we need see when the negative is staring us right and hard and unrelentingly in the face. Tell that to the old woman who lives in squalor. Or to the child being trafficked in Haiti. Or to woman who was raped and attacked many times over in her life. Now you might say if she had been positive earlier. One of the “positive” things I learned recently about Christianity – to get back to religion – is that it is a theology about freedom and liberation and charity and generosity.

We who so believe in God must surely understand that our human capacity to bear up to the many and nagging challenges we face in daily recession, can severely defy the power of positive thinking. We are after-all human not divine. We are so used to sweeping things under the carpet, blind-sided by fear of being called “difficult” or being shoved aside or less favored or less popular.  It’s time to turn over the page. Development is not only about economic capability or the number of computers and internet access we have on this island. It is about how developed are our hearts.

Nigga Nigga

The sultry 90s. Everyone wants to do a country, a town or a village.  I decided to "do" Paris. Cheapest flight through Martinique. I am petite. My hair, like now, is cut down to my skull. I am growing like a beautiful rose bush, thorns, flowers and all. I feel good about myself. Life could not be better. I have a good job; I am sent regularly overseas to work. I exercise a lot. I feel that I am "arriving" slowly but surely. I could do with a less airy fairy vision of the world, I am told, but that's Ok. I am me and I am happy with that self. I am doing things that I really like and being paid for it to boot. The world indeed is my oyster.

I purchase my designer spring wear ready for the most fashionable city on earth: my little boots, my fancy sweaters (A work colleague wished to lend me one of his but it was far too big), my thick trousers; friends rummage through town with me to find the right gear. I am a friolenta; I get cold very quickly. The only thing I do not have are a pair of gloves. It's just not possible to buy gloves here, at least not then. I am anxious to see the fashion gardens; I am dying to see Notre Dame. Is it really as beautiful as they say? Most of all - I want to see the original art of some of the French and other European Masters and I want to eat some great French food.

I have an image of Paris that is almost picture perfect. Nice spring weather. Great food. Wonderfully intellectually stimulating conversations. Good wine, not plonc. I am imagining walking down the Rue Montmatre, the Harlem of Paris, where all the famous writers and artists and general Bohemian types like what I picture myself as in my dreams lived. 

Paris. Paris. Paris and names and icons pop out of my head like champagne from a bottle - like a deluge. Josephine Baker, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Charlie Parker and the lot, fleeing from post World War II  America - to freedom of a kind. George Lamming from Barbados  attended the first international congress for black writers and artists in Paris. I am excited. I still want to be a writer when I grow up. So Gaie Paris for me represents a coming of age - part of the litmus test of growth and change of seasons.

Then I step off the plane from Martinique. I had read all night, all nine hours. I was reading "At the Bottom of the River" by Jamaica Kincaid. It was a tiny novel and I finished it by the time the flight ended. One mission accomplished. Before I started to read “At the Bottom…” I happened to sit next to a gentleman going somewhere. He loved Martinique and black people he said. I was happy to listen to his banter about this and that,  about the city and country to which I was travelling.

I couldn't help wondering though, why that woman in the seat to the right of me in the other aisle is glaring at me with not a trace of warmth on her face. She scowled. What was that about I asked myself? The old gentleman chatted merrily on and I listened until he went off to sleep. As I started to read, the woman to my right, took out her book. She kept reading and looking across at me. When all the lights had been put out and we should have by now been both sleeping, we were both still reading. The woman kept staring at me in that intimidating way.

Now realizing that this was a duel, I refused to close my book, as she refused to close hers, all the time sneaking glances at me as I was at her. Finally, someone capitulated. It was not me. 

I stepped off the plane. The nice gentleman made sure that I got to the correct baggage claim area. Right next to me with her scowl was the lady from the plane, her strange awkward stare still extremely discomfiting and unfriendly. I remember that the gentleman had told me a bit about racism. I couldn't help but wonder if the woman was sending me the message that she did not want me there in what might have been her country. But I didn't want to speculate and left it at that.  

I thanked the kind old gentleman for his help and he went on his way. My friends were there patiently waiting and we set off for some place in the heart of the city. I was tired of course and so like all very weary travellers I was unable to sleep and then when I did, I slept like the proverbial log. Next day, I went out alone for an early morning walk, to feel the city, its air and life.

I stepped on to the pavement in the direction of the Eiffel Tower which I could see just up ahead. Wow! What a joy to be in Paris. I can't believe I am actually here. God is certainly good and great. I continued my walk slowly and purposefully, enjoying the moment. From out of nowhere, I heard a voice. It said, "Negre, Negre."  "Nigga, Nigga." 

The Other Country In England

I sit at my computer frantically searching for information on the Riots in London. I live on a small Island where the last riots took place in 1937. I can’t imagine what one is like except for the vivid picture of my dad, a boy, up inside a tree looking down on the rioters in the city of Bridgetown. When I see a picture of a blazing bus in London sent via Facebook, I know that something is desperately wrong. Again. 


I wonder why many English commentators are so shell-shocked.  I only spent a year in the country but I could tell something was not right in the communities where youth went "feral", where they Mend It Like Peckham. I walked through South Peckham in 2007 to open ducts and despair.  I saw broken windows and ugly flats in estates. I heard stories too numerous to tell about the plight of the underclasses and the subtle, contemporary invisibility of the urban beast. Riots are about the unheard, the voiceless, Martin Luther said. Riots are about economics and social deprivation. In 1937 the British Royal Commission investigated the Barbados riots. The overwhelming finding: the riots were a response to poor economic conditions. 

I  overheard a man in Tottenham give instructions to a young woman about how to place drugs on her body. I walked with my head straight and pretended I did not understand English. It was dark. They stood huddled under a bridge. I don’t know for the life of me what I was doing there at that hour except that I have this naive notion that if you are kind to people they will return kindness and, to get some Jamaican Jerk chicken. That’s another thing. I, a student intern, noticed very quickly that you could rarely get Jamaican Jerk or many other West Indian or “black creole” items or products anywhere in this city other than in the black  or non-white neighbourhoods. It was as if you had to travel to another country.

You were in another country. An underdeveloped one.  Children had been killing and were killed in areas such as Peckham prior to and when I was there. The news was splashed all over the papers and TV. Even the good ones, the ones who had risen like phoenix from the ashes. Men have disappeared without a trace at the hands, it is claimed , of police – at least once a year. People are seething and raging, not only at the growing criminality in their districts over which they have lost control, are disinterested or have given up. Adequate procedures to address these gaps are absent. Anthony Hamilton: "Ain't nobody worrying - the homeless have no where to turn when their stomachs start to burn cause they ain't got food to eat.”

I stood in a bus and received the butt of a woman’s anger. I clearly was being mistaken for yet another immigrant crowding her space. And what if I was? The person in question did not know if I had been born in England or had just come off the plane to visit or what I was doing there, but I was objectified and judged by some silent, hidden criteria. “These people, these people,” she said, stomping her way through and shoving me aside on the #38 bus at Victoria station as if I was a nasty vagrant. She wanted to pass to the back of the bus and did not know how to say so. I only remember the sad look of the woman (white) next to me in the aisle as we let her make her way through. When the bus stopped at St James’ Street and I got off there, with that same woman who had so unceremoniously and rudely pushed me aside, she looked as if she would have a heart attack. I was well-heeled, looked polished and by any account, I had disembarked in one of the ritzy parts of town.

If this happens to immigrants and citizens on a regular basis, then can you imagine the kind of resentment that builds up over time? Some commentators speak of a particular moral that exists in certain civilizations and another moral that seemingly exists in others – a moral relativism. In the inner cities there is a one kind  and elsewhere there is another. In one culture there is one moral and in others, there are others. This is treading on very dangerous ground. Wars have been started for less.

I agree with the view that a poor morality exists at all strata of society. It always has, whether it’s hedonism, crafty speculation that causes spurious money to fall quickly into the hands of a protected minority or the zealous guarding of obscene wealth – jewels, golden bowls and spoons in which one could swim, some of which are the rightful property of other nations or other notable examples of indiscretion at the highest levels. 


People without power carry images of such infractions in their memories and may erect alternative systems in which they reclaim it: gangs, anarchy, criminality. It's not unusual to see a select group of poets and writers emerge  who exorcise the demons of their childhood through art. (Lindon kwesi Johnson, ER Brathwaite, even Seal reports a dire childhood saved only by his singing...)  The equation is simple: the dispossessed wish to possess. Is England immune to what history has time and time again proven by burying its problems in legal apparatus that do not eliminate cultural sores nor the poverty seemingly endemic to its inner cities?

So I don’t know why people are so shocked. I sit in my corner of the woods, here on a peaceful island, with beaches and water at my feet and try to remember not what  history books said, but what my father told me. The poor in Barbados had nothing. The under-classes had been marginalized and they rebelled against anything they considered to be the establishment. Echoing the statement – “Today is a funny night,” they wreaked havoc all over Barbados. Man, woman and child ran feral, damaging not only the goods of the rich but of the poor. They were fighting against  English colonialists. My dad ran up a tree because he was genuinely scared and he had become tired of throwing stones. The riots caught on from parish to parish and there was no internet or Twitter. So don’t blame them on Twitter and mobiles and FB. That would be far too simplistic. 


Blame them on the classic symptoms of riots the world over: social discrimination and rejection,  lack of positive adult role models and proper discipline, economic deprivation, low self esteem and character building tools, the perpetuation of the material over the spiritual, lack of purpose and entrenched systems of endemic poverty and hopelessness.   Yes, someone lit a match under England again. No it is not right. But when in history has that match not been lit to alter  the circumstances of the poor. When in history were wars and uprisings not waged because people felt so miserable? When did opportunism, looting and vandalism not play a part? When did women not cry at loss, pillage and plunder?

The apparently smallest incident always seems to spark rife, open physical malcontent. In the case of these London riots, it just took one stone in the water to create the ripple that exposed the chronic decay. 

Mankind aspires to a higher morality. Unfortunately, the basest of human nature may present itself  when men and women feel their backs are against the wall, when they feel themselves at the edge. So if indeed there is that layer of society that considers itself more morally correct, I wait to discover if men will be men, or indeed mice. It’s up to the leaders - by that I mean police, community, parents, church, media, institutions, the private and public sector and generally all in authority - of England to decide which they are on behalf of the children and young people who rioted and on behalf of the reputation of the country and the innocent, people who have nothing to do with the urban terror that's been perpetuated from both sides. Leadership includes gangs. In the L.A gang Wars series, reformed gang leaders are important catalysts for change.  

Someone said: parents of these teenagers, young men and women are already a lost generation. Judging by the initial reactions of some leaders, they too are lost in the haze. Rephrasing earlier remarks will not erase the first blunders and impressions in people’s minds.  Mother always says, "Words have meaning and once said you cannot take them back." Granny always said, “Give the right men the wrong tools and see what happens.” It takes a supreme wisdom, desire and action  to quell dangerous passions. I also saw the greatness that good organisation can bring in a country with the wealth and standing of Britain.  That prosperity needs to be spread out in more meaningful ways in the inner cities.

Many see the 1937 riots in Barbados as one of the precursors to independence, which came to the island nearly 3 decades later. What does this new flare-up in England portend? One author claims that subcultures exist because problems are solved by a collective and that the individual survives through the respect and recognition they gain. There is only one real answer then to solving this puzzle: the collective conscience of Britain - not a self-prescribed moral majority - must return to the trenches and fight peacefully in this most important social war. Go on England. The world is watching and waiting.