The Tivoli model

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listen bredren its plain an simple nobody supports garrison for garrison sake, if yuh liv inna a one yuh give it props, if you from the garrison yuh understand the garrison, any garrison.But yuh waan tek whey yuself but yuh caan move from one garrison to the nex so is a love hate relationship

as long as the prime minister is chosen from how many seats are won garrisons will remain

[Mosiah]

exactly! (i should leave this topic alone.)

jamaicans are a proud people. "nuh sorry fi mi", even when you have a lot to be sorry. so, we'll have chunes bigging up garrisons and dons but most people would rather do without if they had alternatives. that is what they don't have!

[Don1]

all politicians are and yes he is.

First is to go and represent Tivoli
and second to act as if he is interested in ending Garrison. He is mildly interested but don't have the courage.

Wrong track...Tivoli is the PERFECT place for Golding to represent if he truly wants to begin the process of reduicing the garrison culture.

He has just chosen NOT to do so...but rather to reaffirm and entrench the garrison model... even promoting its proliferation!! Amazing!!!

The only place to start the de-garrisonization process is from WITHIN...not outside. Such an effort from outside would have zero credibility and guaranteed to fail.

The process starts with changing the mindset.....here Golding and ALL the misleaders we are infected with....has been a colossal failure.

Sad.

[Don1]

The Tivoli model
HEART TO HEART
With Betty Ann Blaine

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Dear Reader,
Ever since I returned home almost 30 years ago, I have had concerns about the community of Tivoli Gardens. My return to my homeland landed me squarely and voluntarily into Fletchers Land, and into the east/west belt of downtown Kingston. I would later work in the communities of Matthews Lane, Trench Town and Jones Town, among some of the poorest and most vulnerable groups in the country. It was those experiences that opened my eyes to the cunning game of "divide and rule" and the deadly phenomenon of garrison politics.

The insights and friendships I have made over the many years of community work have made me aware of a very crucial fact - that there is a dichotomy between the deep, personal longings and desires of the citizens, and the calculated herding together of masses of people into excluded zones under the fluttering banner of party politics. To put it more plainly, the people of our inner cities by and large have the same intrinsic instincts and ambitions that other Jamaicans have, but unlike the other areas of the country, they have been locked out and kept back by a deliberate strategy of divide and rule, and for the vulgar gains of political hegemony.

I have long called for the decent, hardworking people of Tivoli Gardens to free themselves from the shackles of bondage called garrisons. What is happening to the citizens of our inner-city communities is worse than slavery, for as abominable as that was, there were enlightened and courageous slaves who understood the calculated nature of slavery and were prepared to fight back, and an external abolitionist force, however weak and disjointed, that worked tirelessly to bring an end to that dehumanising institution. In the case of Jamaica's inner cities, neither of those liberating forces exists.

I continue to liken Jamaica's inner cities to the system of apartheid that existed in South Africa where lines of demarcation were drawn and where people were relegated to specific enclaves, not being free to move around as they pleased. While, admittedly, Jamaica does not have laws that restrict habitation or movement, we continue to practise a kind of de facto apartheid, where the poorest are confined to certain spaces, and where the more affluent communities continue to be out of reach and out of bounds, even though unprescribed.

I'll never forget the day I drove my "mentee" through the rolling hills of Cherry Gardens and Norbrook as we made our way down to Constant Spring. She was mesmerised, and kept staring with amazement at the surroundings. Finally, she blurted out, "Ms Blaine, I never see anything like this before. Is the first I see houses like this. I never know is so Jamaica stay." That morning left an indelible mark on my memory, and I vowed to work hard to free the children.

Those who don't know at all, and those others who would care not to know, should be forced to enrol in a course called "The exigencies and risks of exclusion" before it's too late. Instead of sitting in hotel lobbies and on elevated verandahs to debate the reasons why the masses are shiftless and lazy and don't want to work, those who don't understand should be educated about the psychology of exclusion, and the behavioural manifestations associated with that type of separateness. They may be surprised to know that for many inner-city residents, the outside world is not New York, Canada or England, but north of Half-Way-Tree.

It is against that background that one has to examine the statement made by Prime Minister Golding at his recent constituency meeting in which he proudly affirmed that Tivoli and other communities along the western belt are some of the safest places in Jamaica. Nobody could fault the prime minister for stating an item of fact, but the question is, how come? Why is Tivoli Gardens safer than anywhere else in Jamaica, and if we all agree that it is, shouldn't Tivoli be used as a best practice - as a model?

After all, every single one of us wants to be safe, and all of us want to know that our children and our families are safe as well, so we should all be asking, how can the Tivoli model be replicated across the country? Better yet, I am of the opinion that any person who is able to achieve what no national leader has been able to do - and that is, to maintain complete and consistent peace and prosperity in a volatile inner-city community like Tivoli, should probably be given a chance to run the country.

If we could just simply chalk up Mr Golding's remarks to partisan putridity, then for me what he said would neither be here nor there. But the truth is that there are deeper and more serious connotations regarding excluded, self-governing enclaves like Tivoli Gardens. What the politicians of this country have done is to corral the decent, hardworking citizens into "safe-seat" zones in which none of them would choose to reside themselves, and having done that, they then leave them up to their own devices.

Safe indeed, Mr Golding, but at what price?
With love,
bab2609@yahoo.com

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...OLI_MODEL_.asp

Betty is 10000% on the money.

She describes not just the reasons for Jamaica's mass violence and social anarchy but also the reason we have an economy that does NOT GROW.

The reason is completely DYSFUNCTIONAL SOCIAL RELATIONS...between classes and also within class groups. The garrison phenomenon is only ONE MANIFESTATION of the social disease and dysfunction...our problems go WAY beyond that.

This state of affairs is IMPLEMENTED AND MANAGED BY THE POLITICAL LEADERS (aided and abetted by their stupid sycophants..examples of whom we see here)...but also OVERSEEN and SUPPORTED BY BUSINESS LEADERS.

Until the social relations are repaired and more in harmony with nature there is no prospect of real and sustained development.... they can borrow all the money in the IMF, World Bank, IADB, CDB, EU combined...it won't matter.

Fix the social relations FIRST and FOREMOST....only then will we have a chance.

We need a 21st Century Norman Manley....but repeatedly end up with clowns and pretenders for leaders.

[Assasin]

call it what you want but you get my drift.
In order to do anything worthwile any leader will have to go against their party and the opposition and other powerful forces, and that is where the courage come in.

[TDowl]

"The fact is it is talked about but garrisons are very popular with Jamaicans" Are you sure, I don't know about Garrisons in Hanover, what am I missing? Some poeple don't even know Kingston from that Parish or care to go there, so to make that statement is incorrect, is it?

Mi loosing off of you, Kingston is not Jamaica.

Politicians are the biggest problem in Jamaica, followed by the Corrupt Police.

[Assasin]

TDowl go a Lucea or any other major town and listen the youngster them talk about the garrison they have never been. Listen to it inna the music and the praising of Don men which is a direct results of the garrison.

Check in Hanover if you nuh have some place, some team or something call themselves little Tivoli, Little Jungle, or something like that.

It is like Hip hop and whites. Even though they don't experience it personally they have a romantic view of the lifestyle. While others support it as a matter of keeping their parties in power. They will never tell you they support it but come election time man from Tivoli and Jungle a man their ballot boxes.

Take for example bus loading(extortion) started downtown parade and west street and now if you look in every town a taxi man can't get a break, there is some badmen to collect some money fi load a taxi.

Isn't that supporting it.

[Islandman]

Most white kids who listen hip-hop gangster music enjoy it the way thier grandparents loved John Wayne movies. Humans have a dark side that finds gangster life exciting and intriguing from afar but most know it is destructive so they would never want to live it.

I think most of those country youths who may have a team called Little Jungle etc would never want to live there any more than a middle class kid who listen hip hop or dancehall gangster music wants to live in a garrison or be a gangster. If I am wrong then we are worse off than I think we are.

[Assasin]

They may not want to live there and maybe disappointed when they get their but in the big scheme of things they are supporting the lifestyle and glorifying it.

You maybe right but you may also be wrong. The last time I visited Mobay my friend told me how many of the youths in his middle class community are caught with illegal guns. He could point out the neigbours to me. Hopefully it is not worst than you think.

[Muadib]

yuh bettah hurry up and jump on di bandwagon !

lol !

[Mosiah]

There are times when you need to admit that you misspoke. You'll be the bigger man for it.

[Jawge]

Boss what you are saying won't work. Lower interest rates then pass out money to an elite few to pursue various enterprises? what these enterprises fail? Now the govt. must step in with tax payers' dollars to bail them out?

The Govt. should get out of the business of building hotels, financing airlines and other private ventures. Last time I checked Ja isn't communist country (MADE THAT CLEAR IN 1980). What the govt. should do is collect taxes on businesses and give tax breaks to encourge business in areas vital to the national security of the island. The govt. should be more in involved in the municpalities of the island (roads, adequate water supply low income housing, quality education and the list goes on). Anyone who wants to build a hotel or start a major corp. should go seek out venture capitalists for seed money (therefore yuh wi tek care ah di business betta).
The people of the island needs a better quality of life.The slavery way of doing business must come to an end.

[Muadib]

Who said anything about passing out money to an elite few ?

The Govt IS getting out of the business of building hotels and financing Airlines.. a place the PNP Govt put us firmly into.. you know.. the Omar, PJ and Vin Lawrence Plan...

Try and keep up to date.. Bruce is rationalizing UDC as we speak.. you need to pay attention.

The Govt is creating low cost funds for Small and Medium enterprise and have gotten NCB and Scotia to chip in...

I am glad you have finally seen the light after 18 years of darkness.. welcome to the bandwagon.

All Aboard ! Toot ! Toot !

[Muadib]

lol !

I think the reason is Govt Policy betwen 1972-1980 and Govt Policy betwen1989-2007... a combined reduction of 79% to the GDP...that is what I think the reason is...

Just a suspicion mind you.. but gwaan sing Kum-Bye-Yah.. just incase..

lol !

[Jawge]

Ben stop yuh foolishness: That has been my cry since 2003. When it comes on to the economic well being of JA; mi nuh deal wid di party ting.

Low cost funds fi small an medium business, oh yeah?

Well ah nuff all inclusive the govt. (taxpayer) help build an nutten. There should be a new law: Once your hotel is AI; profit sharing (for all staff, even the gardener) at the end of the year and not in Jakan but USD. This way the island recapture lost revenue and it's injected directly in the economy. Also workers pay city/Parish tax for whatever area the AIs are built in. Unnuh nuh serious bout turning roun Ja so mi know unnuh wi laugh at this. Seeing that we used Ai to water down our Brand in the tourism game.