Celebrating the Jamaican in us

Groundins

By: Charles H.E. Campbell

THE Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts successfully executed the inaugural, of what they hope will become a biennial event, Rex Nettleford Arts Conference, over two days, last Thursday and Friday.
The conference theme was 'The Arts: Catalyst for Caribbean Development'. To quote from their website, "The purpose of the conference is to create a platform for discourse with practitioners, writers, researchers and arts educators. The conference further seeks to create interdisciplinary dialogue on the role of the arts in economic development, generate discourse around the arts being a viable medium for wealth creation and to create a space for critical exchange of ideas that make the connection with the arts to society." I was able to attend a few of the seminars, and was very impressed with the research, scholarship and presentations of our locally based, as well as the overseas presenters.

A random sample of papers include: Pipe dream or reality: Towards an enabling policy framework for the development of the cultural and creative industries by Denise Salmon; Reviving Jamaica's commitment to the art-driven curriculum in schools by Brian Heap, a most enlightening paper, filled with both alarming and encouraging statistics and facts. He made it clear that the legislative framework and curriculum guidelines were already in place, but the arts fraternity is 'asleep at the wheel' (since vehicle analogies are popular these days), in not aggressively lobbying for its implementation in all of our schools.

Other presentations included: Why are funny men so funny by Owen Ellis; The power of art to heal, by Carol Campbell; Promoting an "experience" economy: Exploring the intangible paradigm shift taking place in Caribbean heritage tourism, by Janice Francis-Lindsay; The existence of the Jamaican visual arts industry: Contemplations on the present and the future, by Winston Campbell; The creative process: An analysis of Rex Nettleford the choreographer as cultural philosopher, by Monica Lawrence; and youth empowerment through the arts, by Sheila Graham.

There was such a wide array of relevant topics addressed, that I would do a disservice to the conference if I even attempted to highlight all of them, in this column. Needless to say, as it was so eloquently stated by The Most Honourable Edward Seaga, in his remarks at the opening ceremony in the Vera Moody Concert Hall last Thursday night, 'this type of conference was well overdue'.
Seaga gave an analytically brilliant dissertation, contextualising our international renown for artistic and sporting excellence and achievements within Jamaican cultural norms, impulses and complexes.

At the risk of oversimplifying his sociologically informed definition of a main personality characteristic (flaw or attribute) of the average Jamaican; as he puts it, he/she is "not a team player", in essence, he posited that the causation for this trait, is the general lack of regimentation in various critical aspects of our lives, starting from birth, with our mothers firstly rejecting a proper infant feeding regime, then making us believe we could do no wrong and fostering our penchant for instant gratification by willingly satisfying our whims and fancy, rather than saving to invest in our future through education and training.

He then chronologically, took us through all the life-stages to adulthood, demonstrating how our society had failed in many respects, to inculcate discipline in its children and citizens, unwittingly re-enforcing those traits that have come to serve some of us so well in our personal creative pursuits. These same traits, he pointed out however, have made us largely ungovernable, and prevented us as a society from forging unity over common goals to drive our quest for true nationhood.

The former Prime Minister's dissection of this dominant, but largely overlooked feature of our everyday lives was so incisive that he's had me reflecting on its many implications and consequences, since I heard him. Ironically, those of us who sat at the back of the concert hall were simultaneously experiencing, first hand, the 'every nigger is a star' syndrome, through continuous interruptions of his speech by so-called ushers, and cast members, who felt oblige to hold small talk with each other, seemingly on the top of their voices.
What is amazing though, is that while being so clinically observant about this sociological background, which in my view is of relatively recent vintage, Mr Seaga's speech paid scant attention to the pre-condition of political tribalism, and the pre-existence of garrisons ruled by thugs, which made the very warping of our cultural ethos and norms a prerequisite for its perpetuation.

It makes one wonder, if any of our current politicians, who have benefited from the corruption of our culture and regression of the society, can now be relied upon, to make the fundamental changes that a majority of Jamaicans — fed-up of the rot — are clamouring for.

While congratulating him on his ascension to the pinnacle of political power in Jamaica, if Andrew Holness truly wants to leave a lasting legacy that, in the long run, will accrue to the eternal benefit of the average Jamaican he may begin by taking concrete steps to dismantling the garrisons and its attendant anti-social habits and cultural manifestations.

Email:che.campbell@gmail.com


Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/entertainment/Celebrating-the-Jamaican-in-us_9987841#ixzz1biWwC2iB