Retreat to Stupidity

Jamaican Patois is NOT a language.
It is what linguists called a Pidgin.
Like 'Ebonics' it is a haphazard
invention by those who were never
taught English; such as slaves.

Pidgins are made up of mispronounced
or misused words from the dominant
tongue along with replacement words
when one does not know the correct term.

Often there are bits of other languages
mixed into the soup of a pidgin so that
it is not of one piece.

In Jamaica there are a few words from
the Akan dialect; yaaba, fenky-fenky,
bumba, etc. As well as the 'me/wo/oona
which corresponds to I/you/us in English.

Patois was considered the 'slave tongue'
up until 1980.

English was enforced in schools and in
business and those who could not speak it
were looked down upon.

Marcus Garvey, Jamaica's first National
Hero never went beyond primary school, but
spoke and wrote absolutely first class
English.

For Jamaicans to speak standard English
would, as the experiment of the 1970s
proved, allow even the poorest to
attend High School and qualify for
University; and as education was free
the child of Kingston 13 would gain the
space that had been reserved for the
child who lived far above Crossroads.

The upper class, in the 1970s was
devastated when the helper's child
was accepted at the University of the
West Indies, and their child was not.

This is because selection was based on
achievement, not on money.

This had to change.

In 1978 there was a great push to
have Patois accepted as the Natif Langwij.

The poor bought into it.
The rich did not.

Branding on the tongue has been used in
England from the earliest days.

No matter how good someone looked, as soon
as he or she spoke one could 'class' them.

Slaves had been punished for speaking
English so that one could know by voice
the status of the speaker.

Although one might have scoffed and assumed
Jamaicans were far too intelligent to fall
for this apartheid, reality proves the truth.

Jamaicans have bought into Patois as they
did with Cash Plus and Olint, proving they
really are that stupid.

Today, it is very easy to segregate.

The uptown child can speak perfect English.
The uptown child will pass the English exams
and will gain places at the best institutions.

The downtown child can not speak English.
He or she speak the version of Patois in
their district.
The downtown child will fail the English exam
and will not gain a place save at the very
worst institutions.

Never again will the employer suffer the
embarrassment of her helper's son attending
UWI, while hers is discarded.

One would think, watching the descent of
the English pass rate from 23% at the last
G.C.E. exam to it's current 13% at the local
CXC level that the public would be up in arms
demanding their child be taught English.

No.

Patois continues to be enshrined.

Hence, the brilliant young man who can not
speak a grammatical English sentence will
be passed over for the average intellect
who can.

The ex-pat from a low level college will
gain the job that should go, and would go to
a local, if he or she could speak English.

Often, thinking they sound 'cute' or 'clever'
an educated or semi-educated person who can
communicate in English drops into Patois when
pushing forward a point of negligible value.

One will find it, for example, on Facebook
where a response is written in gibberish which
is supposed to be patois.

Some people may try to decipher, most can't be
bothered.

With Haiti so close to Jamaica, and the
clear evidence of the dangers of speaking
an 'unknown' tongue, one would have thought
that the lesson would have been learned.

The non-French speaking Haitian is condemned
to poverty.

If the upper class has its way
this will hold true in Jamaica.

Different Face/Same Line

Andrew Holness has the same nose as Bruce
Golding.
This is not all they have in common.

Both start their Prime Ministerial Journey
pretending to be decent urbane gentlemen
who had proper home training.

I would think if you bought an Acer Computer
and it proved to be a pile of crap, that you
wouldn't buy this year's version.

Yet, the same Veranda sitters who were lauding
Bruce Golding up until the minute of his resignation
have, just like those in 1984 changed
their mouths in mid chant.

"Bruce Golding is the best Prime Minister we
ever had, Andrew Holness is the best Prime
Minister...."

The fact is, the policies of the JLP have
exacerbated every possible disaster that
could have been averted.

To claim that it was the Ponzi schemes
which gave the PNP buoyancy is insane as
many people lost a great deal of money.

It wasn't the Cash Plus or the Olint, it
was that prices were lower and more people
had jobs.

That is the nutshell.

What happened with the JLP was the coagulation
of money in certain pockets.

Jamaica has always had its corruption.

As the years from Independence increase so does
the level of corruption.

If everyone gets a bit of it, fine, they carry
it to the supermarket. If only a small minority
gets it, they carry it to the Benz dealer.

The JLP hasn't a clue how to get the economy
moving. It knows how to fill its pockets.

The recent snafu with Scrap Metal is just the
very tip of the ice berg.

The government 'closes' the trade so small people
are squeezed out, big people continue.

Dan Walker, surprise, surprise, is now running on
the JLP slate.

He's been pretty good over the years in playing
indignant and wrongly accused; especially when
he's guilty.

There was no way that Scrap Metal could have
legally been exported if there was a ban.
No way without Walker granting a license.

This isn't a guy getting free light bulbs and
whatever went on with them; this is a guy giving
contracts to friends while barring non-friends
from engaging in a trade that the Government
demanded stop.

So Tufton runs up his mouth, Walker ignores him
and who's bad?

This kind of mouth saying one thing
to hid the obverse actions is standard.

This was Bruce's signature.
It is also Holness.

Let's face it, Holness, like Golding has
a contempt for the 'little people'. He
is in power to make money and create debts.

Greg Christie might be a victim.

Doily over Stain

Residence in Jamaica requires one not merely read
but absorb 1984.

"We are at war with Eurasia,
we have always been at war with
Eurasia"

is the kind of 'double speak' which is normal
in Jamaica, where a Labourite can hail Golding
as the Messiah on Saturday, and cast him to
the pit on Sunday without the slightest blush.

Before Golding resigned one could not say his
shoe was untied before the usual mind dead
minions.

After he resigned he was tossed onto the
bone yard, and everything that had been
said against him from 2008 - 2011 was
repeated as if it had always been evident.

With Andrew Holness hailed as the new
Messiah, the Labourites form the line,
and turn their face from a very cheesed
off Bruce Golding.

It was clear to anyone who had seen
Golding on between the day his resignation
was leaked to the media and the day he
made his his resignation speech, (8 Days)
that this was a very angry man.

This was a man who, (unknown to the lumpen)
had been in almost physical conflict with
members of his Party during the year, and
that the polls, which hailed Holness, were
seen by him as insults.

Golding surrounded himself with the kind
of syncophants who insure that his reality
does not match Jamaican reality.

His 'team' was a slapped together botch
of those who had despised him for leaving
the JLP, creating his NDM, then forcing his
way back in, much to the displeasure of
Edward Seaga.

The 'team' was not loyal to Bruce, they
were loyal to Power; and as he was the
'leader' they would be as 'loyal' to him
as they needed be.

They knew, from his entrance into office
and the 'look yonder' style that a lot of
nasty business would be going on.

To focus on PNP scandals as Government
meant that like any magician it was
misdirection; look there not here.

Having appointed Dorothy Lightbourne,
a doddering fool on her best day as
Minister of Justice and Attorney General
insured that Golding would be Minister
of Justice and Attorney General.

He needed this because he knew that
there was an intensive investigation
of the "Shower Posse" which was run
by his campaign manager, Christoper Coke.

Without Coke, Golding couldn't have run
and been elected in Tivoli.

Aware that there might be repercussions
Golding couldn't chance a person of
integrity, so shoved the very round peg
of Dotty into the very square hole of
Justice.

The indictment was stonewalled, and if
it wasn't that the Police Commissioner's
wife worked at the American Embassy it
would not have been leaked so early.

But leaked it was, for it was beyond
evident that Golding would do all in his
power to avoid extradicting Coke.

Of course, the Coke/Manatt situation was
just one of many acts of corruption.

Joe Hibbert, a trusted MP had been getting
kick backs from an English firm for years.

Questions about another MP, the somewhat
erratic Warmington and the contracts he
received were whispered.

The Garbage collection so vociferiously
proclaimed by Webly, another JLP MP was
proven a lie as TV crews filmed the
pile up.

The costs of things fell under question,
and the number of trusted persons who
embezzled funds, whether at the Ministry
of Finance, the Student Loans Bureau, on
and on.

Golding so believed in his brilliance and
immutable status he strode as a colossus
never appreciating that those behind him
weren't followers but executioners.

It was not until 2010 and the disasterous
Inquiry that those in the JLP gained their
voice, and together decided to force
Golding out.

They knew what the public believed, they
let Golding make a clown of himself with
denials.

Holness, a protoge of Eddie Seaga knew
how to create a self-destruct mechanism,
and made sure that while Bruce fell apart
his stock would rise.

Why should Holness have gained the greatest
support of the people?

The teachers hated him, he didn't so one
thing to assist education during his time
in office.

He was not a long time stalwart as Pernel
Charles or a respected Ken Baugh, he was
just there...

Unlike a Paulwell, who during the PNP's term
became the giant killer who defeat C&W, unlike
a young Portia Simpson who would stand in front
of a bulldozer, Holness never did anything.

So how did he gain so much standing?

Statistics are easy to manipulate. Everyone
who takes Sociology 101 can write a treatise
on it.

Where one does the survey is crucial, what
the demographic is; hence taking a survey
in an area which is strong for Manchester
United F.C. will turn up different results
than taking one in Arsenal F.C. territory.

All Holness had to do was get the proper
place, the proper demographics and he would
appear to be the most popular member of
the JLP.

Anyone who writes online knows how to
manipulate hits; knows that traffic is
sent to a site by Google.

If one can hit on the right Search Terms
and sort of seed the path, thousands
maybe millions of people will click on
the site and their click raises the item
higher in results so that the items on
the first page of a Google may not be
the best but have had the most hits.

This kind of self-filling simpleton rally
is the paradigm Holness used.

If the crowd is marching behind him, the
simpletons join the crowd.

Golding saw it coming and couldn't get
out of the way. He was forced out, he
didn't resign; that speech was crafted
for him and as a zombie he read it, word
for word.

Those who had gotten the early copies
of the speech followed along, insuring
he kept to the script.

The special reference to youth almost
gagged Bruce Golding. He was never a
man who thought youth some special
magic in politics.

But the reference was there to guide
the public to Holness as a

"Secret Hideout, 1 Mile"

The Party hierarchs were trotted out
to support Holness, and they dare not
buck the tide.

Mike Henry knew he was going nowhere
but the grave so didn't have to
attend the coven at Terra Nova...
the coven which could NOT be held
at Party Headquarters on Belmont
road due to the large number of
persons in the JLP who were not
supportive of this kind of Holness
coup.

For the next weeks Bruce Golding
must pose as P.M. for a Party that
despises him.

And finally he realises it.