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Brand Jamaica, the dark side
Our high profile can work against us
Franklin Johnston
Friday, September 18, 2009
Jamaica is a venerable global brand known for both good and bad - sugar, rum and bloody pirates. We must manage the brand well. Michael Manley did most for our brand. I have been quizzed about his ideas and passion in Africa, Russia, Europe, the Middle East, all over, by the curious, admirers and opponents. I still do projects abroad and have never been asked about Bruce, Portia, Eddie or PJ, but, often about Bob Marley and recently Usain Bolt.
Franklin Johnston
When Manley died, I was training black workers and white managers in post-apartheid South Africa to fulfil a pledge to help SA, which I made to Bayard Rustin - a sidelined civil rights hero. I used my days off to fulfil my pledge and I was with hopeful black and fearful white Africans, trying to graft black managers into lily white Afrikaaner firms, and all were united in grief for Manley and Jamaica. Jo'burg was sombre with love and respect for us. Where have all the flowers gone?
We were newsworthy, centuries before 1962. We had sugar, rum and the "wickedest city on earth", but the aura was of daring and romance - the pirate Captain Morgan, Three-Fingered Jack; a white witch, buried treasure and a dusky wench in a Port Royal tavern. Our brand has a bright side and a dark side, and the one we feed most grows fastest!
Last week we made UK headlines, "British Consul in homophobic murder in Jamaica - called '******************** man' by locals". Was I paranoid? Was the entire train reading the paper that day? My project was cold and I said little. I had no desire to chat. "Frank, have you seen the papers?"; "Not yet, too busy now!" I avoided contact and left early. My escape was temporary, as I volunteer to mentor some oafs who live in the "big house with razor wire and steel bars". At the session I was greeted by "Doc, yu nuh si bak a yaad deh pon TV, a so wi fi dweet yah so to!" When abroad I try to help my own, but their mouth is more than brain. What do I say to the white and Asian yobs in the group? I should just do my day job and not waste time with these cretins. I will not be wearing my Usain Bolt cap anytime soon! Our brand gets a beating from our own at home and abroad.
Some of these yobs have caused legal changes abroad which affect all of us. First, to smuggle drugs in a pumpkin; shoot at unarmed police; be deported, then use a dead man's birth papers to get a passport and return for revenge. In the days when white rum was smuggled, I was at UK customs as they searched a lady of "riper" years. She had a bottle of rum in every nook and cranny of her Sunday couture and her gizmik. Every time customs found one she looked back in the line for support and I gazed at the ceiling. She was adamant to the end, "Ef oono neva look onoo houlden fin' nutten!"
When the "cashless" card system was tried on JUTC buses, the firm told me we had taught them new ways to beat their own system. Eastern Europeans and Nigerians have prompted internet and credit card laws; Italians, organised crime laws and Jamaicans immigration laws. The panache and exuberance of our athletes is also evident in our evildoers and our behaviour abroad aided some harsh regimes as follows:
. Noise pollution, litter and public order. Our sound systems, late night noise, quarrels caused night clubs to lose licences, parties and Carnival to end early.
. Stop and search. Why carry a machete, knife or gun to school, a party or Carnival? The English get drunk, smash windows, sleep in the gutter and wake up in a lock-up, penitent and in tears. We murder and injure yet are callous and unrepentant.
. Ganja laws. Ganja for personal use carried no arrest until we ended it. We had to show off our "boasie" self and blow ganja smoke in the Bobby's face to humiliate the law. Our stupidity caused all to suffer as ganja now carries the same penalty as cocaine.
. Police and guns. Our impact on arming police, stab-proof vests, metal detectors at parties and schools, black-on-black crime and drug posses are well known. Public order, public space, even Carnival is now cramped and not because of the 1.3m white people who attend, but the few whose fun is to do evil. One oaf said: "Me 'ave mi ting an di fool-fool police bwoy dem a seh, 'Sir, please put down the knife and come with us'; mi mek afta im an' wen dem a draw bak, mi jus' run lef dem."
. Immigration laws. Our airline and marine security ideas are now used globally. Tactics for drug, bomb and firearm interdiction used by us were built on abroad, post-9/11. Drugs on our seized aircraft and baggage on the tarmac meant that sniffer dogs, "rubber glove" cavity searches, profiling, scans of baggage and shipping containers, were perfected on our drug mules, innocent travellers and exports. The closure of our private and GA airfields hit the big-spender, private-flyer tourist market too. We also sabotaged visa and deportation and this led to immigration reform. They saw the large sums some paid for a forged visa, and now they make all of us pay dearly for the real thing. To stop the illiterates they added paperwork, required competence in English and went online so spyware can now trace all visa applicants.
Don't get me wrong, it is not all our fault, but our dark side is so well known that when a wrongdoer says, "I am Jamaican", they believe him. Our high-profile works against us too! Lord, deliver our brand! Stay conscious!
Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston Consultants, currently on assignment in the UK.
Our high profile can work against us
Franklin Johnston
Friday, September 18, 2009
Jamaica is a venerable global brand known for both good and bad - sugar, rum and bloody pirates. We must manage the brand well. Michael Manley did most for our brand. I have been quizzed about his ideas and passion in Africa, Russia, Europe, the Middle East, all over, by the curious, admirers and opponents. I still do projects abroad and have never been asked about Bruce, Portia, Eddie or PJ, but, often about Bob Marley and recently Usain Bolt.
Franklin Johnston When Manley died, I was training black workers and white managers in post-apartheid South Africa to fulfil a pledge to help SA, which I made to Bayard Rustin - a sidelined civil rights hero. I used my days off to fulfil my pledge and I was with hopeful black and fearful white Africans, trying to graft black managers into lily white Afrikaaner firms, and all were united in grief for Manley and Jamaica. Jo'burg was sombre with love and respect for us. Where have all the flowers gone?
We were newsworthy, centuries before 1962. We had sugar, rum and the "wickedest city on earth", but the aura was of daring and romance - the pirate Captain Morgan, Three-Fingered Jack; a white witch, buried treasure and a dusky wench in a Port Royal tavern. Our brand has a bright side and a dark side, and the one we feed most grows fastest!
Last week we made UK headlines, "British Consul in homophobic murder in Jamaica - called '******************** man' by locals". Was I paranoid? Was the entire train reading the paper that day? My project was cold and I said little. I had no desire to chat. "Frank, have you seen the papers?"; "Not yet, too busy now!" I avoided contact and left early. My escape was temporary, as I volunteer to mentor some oafs who live in the "big house with razor wire and steel bars". At the session I was greeted by "Doc, yu nuh si bak a yaad deh pon TV, a so wi fi dweet yah so to!" When abroad I try to help my own, but their mouth is more than brain. What do I say to the white and Asian yobs in the group? I should just do my day job and not waste time with these cretins. I will not be wearing my Usain Bolt cap anytime soon! Our brand gets a beating from our own at home and abroad.
Some of these yobs have caused legal changes abroad which affect all of us. First, to smuggle drugs in a pumpkin; shoot at unarmed police; be deported, then use a dead man's birth papers to get a passport and return for revenge. In the days when white rum was smuggled, I was at UK customs as they searched a lady of "riper" years. She had a bottle of rum in every nook and cranny of her Sunday couture and her gizmik. Every time customs found one she looked back in the line for support and I gazed at the ceiling. She was adamant to the end, "Ef oono neva look onoo houlden fin' nutten!"
When the "cashless" card system was tried on JUTC buses, the firm told me we had taught them new ways to beat their own system. Eastern Europeans and Nigerians have prompted internet and credit card laws; Italians, organised crime laws and Jamaicans immigration laws. The panache and exuberance of our athletes is also evident in our evildoers and our behaviour abroad aided some harsh regimes as follows:
. Noise pollution, litter and public order. Our sound systems, late night noise, quarrels caused night clubs to lose licences, parties and Carnival to end early.
. Stop and search. Why carry a machete, knife or gun to school, a party or Carnival? The English get drunk, smash windows, sleep in the gutter and wake up in a lock-up, penitent and in tears. We murder and injure yet are callous and unrepentant.
. Ganja laws. Ganja for personal use carried no arrest until we ended it. We had to show off our "boasie" self and blow ganja smoke in the Bobby's face to humiliate the law. Our stupidity caused all to suffer as ganja now carries the same penalty as cocaine.
. Police and guns. Our impact on arming police, stab-proof vests, metal detectors at parties and schools, black-on-black crime and drug posses are well known. Public order, public space, even Carnival is now cramped and not because of the 1.3m white people who attend, but the few whose fun is to do evil. One oaf said: "Me 'ave mi ting an di fool-fool police bwoy dem a seh, 'Sir, please put down the knife and come with us'; mi mek afta im an' wen dem a draw bak, mi jus' run lef dem."
. Immigration laws. Our airline and marine security ideas are now used globally. Tactics for drug, bomb and firearm interdiction used by us were built on abroad, post-9/11. Drugs on our seized aircraft and baggage on the tarmac meant that sniffer dogs, "rubber glove" cavity searches, profiling, scans of baggage and shipping containers, were perfected on our drug mules, innocent travellers and exports. The closure of our private and GA airfields hit the big-spender, private-flyer tourist market too. We also sabotaged visa and deportation and this led to immigration reform. They saw the large sums some paid for a forged visa, and now they make all of us pay dearly for the real thing. To stop the illiterates they added paperwork, required competence in English and went online so spyware can now trace all visa applicants.
Don't get me wrong, it is not all our fault, but our dark side is so well known that when a wrongdoer says, "I am Jamaican", they believe him. Our high-profile works against us too! Lord, deliver our brand! Stay conscious!
Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston Consultants, currently on assignment in the UK.