Central European folklore states that the undead, in this case a vampire, cannot enter the home of a potential victim unless invited, once invited they can only be removed by killing them. Western European folklore tells us of the wolf which prowled the land looking for food and the people who instead of taking on the wolf allowed it to eat their neighbours until they themselves were eaten. These may be works of rural fiction handed down from generation to generation in order to scare children onto the straight and narrow, but like all bits of folklore they hold eternal truths which we must come to terms to if we are to progress.
The oldwives tales hold true today for us as they did hundreds of years ago when they were first thought up. Jamaica has been and remains an unwitting host to a vampire, a creature which in its parasitic mode feeds from the life force of the nation and having invited it in we now find ourselves unable to ask it to leave. While doing this we have also as a nation allowed the wolves to roam our little shire, barricading ourselves and praying that with each neighbour destroyed the beast will be satiated leaving us alone.
The vampire we have willingly invited in is the cult of materialism and individualism and the wolf we have seen prowling and attacking other but have been avoiding in vain hopes is American aggression. No on doubts the need for material things or even better things just as we all acknowledge the rights of the individual, a car is more convenient and efficient than a horse and buggy after all and no right-thinking person accepts the curbing of their individuality. The issue with this vampire is that it invariably devours community, hollowing out the collective leaving only an individual, staying with the literary comparisons, creating a zombie or an automaton attached to nothing and as such always liable to destructive activities towards the remining communities so they too may become part of the cult.
American aggression across the region is an ever-present reality and an open secret, as is our national dithering and throwing of others in their path as we pray that if they focus on others then we will not be looked at thoroughly and attacked. This dithering, the blithe hope that the wolf will magically disappear or change tact, is seen as the nation refuses to take up or even engage in negotiations with new and emerging nations international financial organisations so we can build our country. We have tied ourselves not simply to American dollars because of fear but have also as a result shut ourselves off from thinkers, builders, and advisors from outside the ascribed US consensus. We watch nations such as Venezuela, Bolivia and even Haiti all get devoured by the vicious wolf and we stay silent, making only the faintest protest if abuses become too excessive but always faintly lest we draw attention to the fact that we too have Chinese and Russian dealings, the scent which draws the wolf in for the kill.
Our nation, once a home to many communities working towards a goal has now become a house of individuals climbing on each other, none able to escape the black hole. Our industry is gone and the hopes of it coming back are slim as bankers and financial institutions as the cathedrals and shamans who control this monster refuse to finance things such as industry or any other community-oriented project – read nation building project – instead, financing things such as cars, the building of ghost apartment complexes and parties the trademarks of the materialistic vampire-zombie lifestyle we have succumbed to. Unable to produce shirts, pants, shoes or even the jewellery which we seek to adorn ourselves with banks lend to companies who import, and individuals borrow to buy from abroad as opposed to funding companies to make these things at home or even paying just a bit more and keeping the money in the community thereby helping everyone. With this cult of individualism where each is out for their own we have seen the accompanying rise in violence and more recently (notably a decade after the full proliferation of American TV in the 90s) we have seen the dawn of heinous acts of brutality which or most vicious and notorious murderers in the past would shudder and loath to commit (see the routine rape and murder of the elderly as an example).
Our nation which once understood the cold reality that a bully will not go away unless stood up to and that the wolf will not stop prowling the shire till it is exterminated and stood boldly against international aggression and imperialism, especially within the region, now sells Venezuela out and engages in subterfuge to weaken CARICOM from within. We are silent while Haiti burns, say nothing while black people are lynched in the Dominican Republic going so far in our silence to award the then president our highest honour while the killings were going on. We are silent as nations such as Cuba and Nicaragua are slowly squeezed out of existence and into rationing simply because they choose to go their own way and do nothing while coups are launched to secure resources from non-American actors. We do this, that is allow the destruction of others, in the hope that the US forgets or puts aside the fact that Jamaica too in the end wishes to go its own way, trade with other people and even have friends who the US does not approve of. We have always been a small nation, but we have always appreciated the old adage ‘first they came for…’ and since at least the 50s have taken tough stances (even endorsing the Cuban revolution in 59/60) not only for principles sake, but to show that we will stand up to the wolf which will in the end eat us all.
We have tough choices to make, we need to build a society if we are to deal with things like crime, our waste of finance or our lack of education and to do that we have to drive a stake in the heart of the vampire of individualism we have invited in. It will not leave of its own accord, it cannot be budged or negotiated with, everyone who watched Christopher Lee or read Bram Stoker knows this the monster must be destroyed if we are to be saved. The prowling wolf must be put down, it must be done because it gets stronger with each passing victim, and even with no altruism in us, it must be done because it will come for us when the others are gone. we must banish these demons, destroy these monsters and usher in a world if not free from these monsters then at least free from the constant fear of these monsters.
jamaicachange 