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For the Party, the party's the thing
Keeble Mcfarlane
Saturday, May 05, 2007
The evening's proceedings were drawing to a close, and the hundreds who had gathered in the square in Clark's Town in front of the main Chinese grocery shop were preparing to disperse to their homes. But they had to engage in one final important ritual piece of business: they sang, loudly and lustily, "We will follow Bustamante till we die."
The time was the early 1950s, and I was a youngster living close to that town square. I went off to sleep that night with the sound of the singing in my ears. This was right after all Jamaicans had gained the right to vote, and politics had become firmly implanted in the national consciousness.
The PNP, which had been launched a scant dozen years before, had been doing a significant job of political education through its now defunct group system. People would gather regularly in small groups to discuss and debate concepts and ideas they had read about - mostly from a socialist perspective - and try to figure out what kind of policies their party should formulate. The younger JLP was an outgrowth of the eponymous union Bustamante had founded in his epic struggle to improve the lives of working people. It didn't concentrate so much on political ideology, but on the mechanics of politics and the paramount task of gaining power in order to carry out its desires for change.
As a fellow columnist discussed in these pages a few days ago, the centre of political campaigning was, and remains to this day, the boisterous, colourful outdoor public meeting. It doesn't matter if the crowd is 50 or 5000; what matters is to give the faithful an evening filled with entertaining speeches, thanks for their efforts on behalf of the party, attacks on the political opponents and exhortations to do more to either get the local candidate elected or continue in office. Those attacks on the opposing party, candidate or leader were a ritual which had to be observed, and the more colourful, humorous and snide they were, the more the crowd appreciated them. Most platform speakers chose not to use a verbal machete, but rather a stiletto or even a surgical scalpel, to dissect the supposed shortcomings, foibles, misbehaviour or even the actual policies of the opponents.
Many people who don't pay much attention to politics often wonder why so many people are attracted to politics - not as candidates for office, but as foot soldiers who campaign from door to door, help out around the constituency office, keep the member apprised of happenings in the constituency, organise the social activities which are a big part of the political culture, and provide the bodies to fill the meeting place for political rallies. There is, in all of this, a reflection of the religious experience. It's not an accident that political meetings are arranged much like a church service - warming up the congregation with the familiar partisan songs, the commentary on current events, the build-up of speeches by rising party figures and the local candidate, then the feature address by the party leader or a particular party firebrand. The benediction and final song endeth the evening's activities.
What the outsiders don't understand is that, apart from supporting your party's ideology, platform or leaders, politics is a social activity which provides lots of opportunity to, well, party! In my time as a political reporter, I witnessed many instances of just that aspect - the party! (as opposed to the Party). Going out with leaders campaigning in various parts of the country, the day's activities invariably ended with a bash laid on by a prominent party supporter in the district, with the obligatory sacrifice of a goat or pig, washed down with copious quantities of the national political fuel. Election night provided the biggest excuse of all for the Parties to party - in exhilaration for the ones who won, while the losers drowned their disappointment and vowed to renew the struggle for the prize next morning.
In the early days, political violence consisted largely of stone-throwing or fist-fighting, but nowadays, the spectre of gun violence has darkened the political picture. The advent of the electronic age has altered the political landscape, but the meeting still plays a central part, for the simple reason that the best method of communication is face to face.
That perhaps explains why North American politics seems so synthetic. One of the things that struck me forcefully upon arriving in Canada was to see politicians reading speeches from a script. On one occasion, as I clucked about this, a colleague asked how politics was conducted in Jamaica. I replied that any politician who mounted the flatbed of a truck parked in a public square and started reading a speech would be booed off the stage. Of course, not all North American politicians are cookie-cutter figures - there were, and are, people who would fit quite well into the
Jamaican political picture, as they are quite able to stir up the crowd, rouse them to think by means of decent oratory and sound ideas. A contemporary example is Barack Obama, the young black man who is a rising star in the US Democratic Party who has set his sights on the White House.
Apart from taxing the nerves, muscles, digestive system and depriving the politician of sleep, campaigning presents some other interesting hazards. I once went to Trelawny with the late Tony Spaulding as he campaigned for a friend in a parish council election.
They went from town to town and spoke to the faithful as well as people they hoped to convert to the cause. I didn't actually witness this particular event as I was at the back of the crowd, but Spaulding afterwards told us that of all the attacks he had weathered in his political career, this one was the most trying - a woman who hated him and his party hawked up a huge gob of spit and spurted it right into his face!
I heard another story from the late Hugh Shearer, who on this occasion was speaking at a street meeting somewhere in Hanover. The platform was the customary truck body, and the crowd was pressed in close to the makeshift platform. Mass Hugh related that someone close to the truck had eaten eggs for supper, and was now silently venting the hydrogen
sulphide gas produced by the digestion of the eggs. "What could I do? I turned to the left, and preached to that section of the crowd. No help - the sulphur was still with me. I turned to the right, and the same thing happened. I tell you, those were the longest few minutes of my entire life!"
keeble.mack@sympatico.ca
Keeble Mcfarlane
Saturday, May 05, 2007
The evening's proceedings were drawing to a close, and the hundreds who had gathered in the square in Clark's Town in front of the main Chinese grocery shop were preparing to disperse to their homes. But they had to engage in one final important ritual piece of business: they sang, loudly and lustily, "We will follow Bustamante till we die."
The time was the early 1950s, and I was a youngster living close to that town square. I went off to sleep that night with the sound of the singing in my ears. This was right after all Jamaicans had gained the right to vote, and politics had become firmly implanted in the national consciousness.
The PNP, which had been launched a scant dozen years before, had been doing a significant job of political education through its now defunct group system. People would gather regularly in small groups to discuss and debate concepts and ideas they had read about - mostly from a socialist perspective - and try to figure out what kind of policies their party should formulate. The younger JLP was an outgrowth of the eponymous union Bustamante had founded in his epic struggle to improve the lives of working people. It didn't concentrate so much on political ideology, but on the mechanics of politics and the paramount task of gaining power in order to carry out its desires for change.
As a fellow columnist discussed in these pages a few days ago, the centre of political campaigning was, and remains to this day, the boisterous, colourful outdoor public meeting. It doesn't matter if the crowd is 50 or 5000; what matters is to give the faithful an evening filled with entertaining speeches, thanks for their efforts on behalf of the party, attacks on the political opponents and exhortations to do more to either get the local candidate elected or continue in office. Those attacks on the opposing party, candidate or leader were a ritual which had to be observed, and the more colourful, humorous and snide they were, the more the crowd appreciated them. Most platform speakers chose not to use a verbal machete, but rather a stiletto or even a surgical scalpel, to dissect the supposed shortcomings, foibles, misbehaviour or even the actual policies of the opponents.
Many people who don't pay much attention to politics often wonder why so many people are attracted to politics - not as candidates for office, but as foot soldiers who campaign from door to door, help out around the constituency office, keep the member apprised of happenings in the constituency, organise the social activities which are a big part of the political culture, and provide the bodies to fill the meeting place for political rallies. There is, in all of this, a reflection of the religious experience. It's not an accident that political meetings are arranged much like a church service - warming up the congregation with the familiar partisan songs, the commentary on current events, the build-up of speeches by rising party figures and the local candidate, then the feature address by the party leader or a particular party firebrand. The benediction and final song endeth the evening's activities.
What the outsiders don't understand is that, apart from supporting your party's ideology, platform or leaders, politics is a social activity which provides lots of opportunity to, well, party! In my time as a political reporter, I witnessed many instances of just that aspect - the party! (as opposed to the Party). Going out with leaders campaigning in various parts of the country, the day's activities invariably ended with a bash laid on by a prominent party supporter in the district, with the obligatory sacrifice of a goat or pig, washed down with copious quantities of the national political fuel. Election night provided the biggest excuse of all for the Parties to party - in exhilaration for the ones who won, while the losers drowned their disappointment and vowed to renew the struggle for the prize next morning.
In the early days, political violence consisted largely of stone-throwing or fist-fighting, but nowadays, the spectre of gun violence has darkened the political picture. The advent of the electronic age has altered the political landscape, but the meeting still plays a central part, for the simple reason that the best method of communication is face to face.
That perhaps explains why North American politics seems so synthetic. One of the things that struck me forcefully upon arriving in Canada was to see politicians reading speeches from a script. On one occasion, as I clucked about this, a colleague asked how politics was conducted in Jamaica. I replied that any politician who mounted the flatbed of a truck parked in a public square and started reading a speech would be booed off the stage. Of course, not all North American politicians are cookie-cutter figures - there were, and are, people who would fit quite well into the
Jamaican political picture, as they are quite able to stir up the crowd, rouse them to think by means of decent oratory and sound ideas. A contemporary example is Barack Obama, the young black man who is a rising star in the US Democratic Party who has set his sights on the White House.
Apart from taxing the nerves, muscles, digestive system and depriving the politician of sleep, campaigning presents some other interesting hazards. I once went to Trelawny with the late Tony Spaulding as he campaigned for a friend in a parish council election.
They went from town to town and spoke to the faithful as well as people they hoped to convert to the cause. I didn't actually witness this particular event as I was at the back of the crowd, but Spaulding afterwards told us that of all the attacks he had weathered in his political career, this one was the most trying - a woman who hated him and his party hawked up a huge gob of spit and spurted it right into his face!
I heard another story from the late Hugh Shearer, who on this occasion was speaking at a street meeting somewhere in Hanover. The platform was the customary truck body, and the crowd was pressed in close to the makeshift platform. Mass Hugh related that someone close to the truck had eaten eggs for supper, and was now silently venting the hydrogen
sulphide gas produced by the digestion of the eggs. "What could I do? I turned to the left, and preached to that section of the crowd. No help - the sulphur was still with me. I turned to the right, and the same thing happened. I tell you, those were the longest few minutes of my entire life!"
keeble.mack@sympatico.ca
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