Jamaican Independence: The Fraud of Those Who Drone Above Society
Drone can mean those who express themselves with a whisper, murmur, or sigh and are depressed by the overwhelming tasks in front of them. A drone is also a highly advanced military technology that imperialists and their peripheral Black political classes insist are toys or the basis of safe and sustainable entertainment. Far more than we realize they are related if we are to understand contemporary Jamaica.
Openly Disbelieving but Celebrating Independence Anyway
For the last two consecutive years, Jamaica has celebrated its independence, the sixtieth and sixty-first year, with a drone led light show in the national stadium instead of the old fireworks. While this celebration is organized by the Jamaican government, its leadership has publicly said in recent memory, they are not independent but can only know limited sovereignty. Nevertheless, they would like to declare independence again from the British. Not even swatting the CARICOM reparations campaign like a pesky fly, for that would ascribe to it too much weighty credibility it does not have, the British will play their role (again) in the coming farce where a republic is declared.
Tell ordinary Jamaican people: A Republic is Against Democracy
A republic, in the classical and contemporary sense, is rule by professionals and elites, explicitly it is not a democracy led by ordinary people. Who in Jamaica is organizing to clarify this? Such individuals and small groups should be elevated in our hearts. But who proposes to share “one heart” with the rogue’s gallery that looks on the Jamaican state as legitimate in any way? Not as a result of the party in power, but all the parties together throw a party so the masses can celebrate their freedom that official authorities find dubious. The critique of neo-colonialism is supposed to be wielded against bankrupt regimes, not the chosen identity of those who lead them. Who throws a birthday party for someone who is dead or hasn’t been born?
The light show is very impressive where one considers it was accompanied by music and complex images that recognize the anthems that are compelling to ordinary people including “Welcome to Jamrock.” It is remarkable that rulers above society who exploit and degrade those of the dungle with huge airplanes flying tourists closely overhead to all-inclusive resorts, are permitted to share in the social identity which is Jamrock.
Think Again: Drones Entertaining but No Cause for Celebration
Governments are moving away from celebrations with fireworks as critics argue they are bad for the environment and trigger those with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Drone-based light shows may also be cheaper than the old fireworks of old though, spending tens of thousands on such events is still a peculiar means to capture the popular will for a time.
However, this is scandalous when we consider a few things. While drones can be purchased as modern day kites or toys at Walmart, the fact remains that those drones that can fly in coordinated formation performing in this manner are military grade. Such drones when flown by experts are rarely in danger of crash landing on crowds of people. But as everyone is looking up at the light show, there is nothing to stop the drones from placing the entire population, including through facial recognition, under surveillance. The same technology can be used to target assassinate people.
A Technology that can Target Assassinate People from the Sky
While some dispute the ethics of unmanned drones for military targets, it is a false start like trying to make sure police keep their body cams on — the ethical discussion of the technology in fact is not organized to consider our health and well-being. Were those drones steered by remote control that allowed the Barack Obama administration to target and assassinate people of color all over the world without trial ethical?
Notably, Obama pursued drone killings with impunity under the guise of the “long war on terror.” Who cares what happens to a terrorist you say? One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter — not to mention the countless civilians who were casualties of “anti-terrorism” strikes. To be clear, fundamentalists of all stripes are not freedom fighters with whom we identify. But we must remember in all wars, even wars of liberation, people die or are badly injured.
Tortured, Jailed, and Exiled for Telling the Truth About Drones?
The Obama administration admitted, only after the disclosures of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden who were jailed, exiled and tortured for disclosing it, that the American empire’s drone attacks also have repeatedly killed innocent civilians. And Colin Powell’s long patriotic public service to the American nation, reminds that Jamaican and Caribbean people can maintain a charismatic and ethical facade while being a killer when wielding state power.
It is never good to minimize the pain and howls of any mother or father who loses their child prematurely, especially in a violent incident. There is much pathological crime in the Caribbean streets but what of the governments? Jamaica, like Barbados and Antigua in their way, have openly admitted with their Queen’s gambit in the last two years that they would like to declare themselves “independent” again, become a republic and break with the constitutional monarchy. Do they think everyday Jamaican people are slow?
Jamaican commoners, who are very powerful, accept limited sovereignty?
The Government of Jamaica, every damn party, puts on a big show to celebrate independence, literally a circus of drones, but doesn’t actually believe their country is independent. Jamaica and the Caribbean, their cultural apparatus say, have a limited sovereignty.
Primarily as a result that global capital in its underdevelopment of the Caribbean has maintained trade deficits particularly in the realm of technology. They complain that the imperialists do not share their most advanced technology with them. And no matter how much they share, they will always share outmoded technologies to the empire.
Still, it is good that Jamaican and Caribbean youth familiarize themselves with drones. But they are not for delivery of oxtail and jerk chicken or a photoshoot in the beach. While we need not fear all technology or treat it in tones of absurd conspiracy, for it matters the social relations, whether ordinary people control technology as part of controlling community.
Wise-up: Military-grade Drones Are not For Light Shows but Policing
Nevertheless, some of us need to wise-up. Military grade drones, which Jamaica doesn’t manufacture, though not the most up to date version, are sufficient for “national security” or policing Jamaican commoners, not just to sustain the atmosphere of a circus.
[credit Marcelo Brodsky, series “The Fire and the Ideas, Kingston 1968-2016,” photo original by the Jamaican Gleaner]
Walter Rodney, whose banning inspired the “Rodney Riots” in Jamaica of 1968, six years after official independence where the Black political class came to power, taught that the Jamaican government that “appears to be black” will use the images of freedom from slavery and the search for self-government, the heritage of Queen Nanny the Maroon, Sam Sharpe, Paul Bogle, and Marcus Garvey to contain the Black popular will. This was recorded in the classic Groundings with My Brothers (1969). Now the Jamaican state uses “Bob,” Rodney’s generational peer.
The Government that “Appears to be Black” will Target Assassinate
Those enchanted by the Jamaican Independence Gala lend us your ears.
The day is coming where across the night sky in the government yards will be images of Garvey, Marley, Selassie, and the beauty of Black woman in a high-tech light show. And out of these “lights” will rain down with laser precision target assassinations from the sky. And it will not be up to date secret technology to the American empire. It will be their scraps distributed to its underlings running scared looking for the last resort against Jamaican commoners.
When we, our people not those people, get target assassinated by images in the sky of Garvey and Marley whoever does this to you will most certainly be “black.” Unless being “black” embodies a special ethic we have yet to discover? We at Clash! underline 61 years after Jamaican independence and 55 years after the “Rodney Riots” it most certainly does not.
Breaking Our Chains and Ruling Is Not A Light Show in the Sky
Independence galas with images of breaking our own chains and ruling when everyday Jamaicans suffer through their battles for survival and search for happiness, are not something invented by the “white” or “colonial” minded. Our servile lives are administered by Black people who like the same music we do, the same food we do, and tell us they share the same heritage we do. Why argue about this anymore? The days where people joked with insight that the leaders above society “appear black anyway” are over. Look at the elder cultural workers employed by the government and its cultural apparatus who say so. Something new is required.
Technology Transfers Unequal but Sufficient to Sustain Black Police State
The United States and Britain have collaborated with Caribbean nations like Antigua, Grenada, Guyana, Trinidad, and Barbados for years. The imperialists are willing to share technology to coordinate a regional armed force which could never defend the sovereignty of the Caribbean against imperial centers. Everybody knows this. But Caribbean aspiring rulers want equitable technology transfers not to be peers of Britain and the U.S. but to define self-determination as the capacity to police their own people. If individual politicians and the culture talkers that protect them really thought as they like to pretend, they could abandon the state and its party politics, to build contemporary Maroon communities with those in the dungles of Jamrock, and among the bauxite, tourism, and agricultural toilers, leaving behind their authoritarian one-party unions. Their contempt for everyday people can only be veiled so much.
It is time everyday people of Jamaica unleash their creative capacities on the Black political class above society who gathers drones for national security and drones (murmurs, whispers, laments) that we can only be limited in our sovereignty and presents this as the highest stage of Caribbean political thought for an entire epoch. Like their repetitive strategies of circuses with no consistent bread, they will soon declare independence again, without a war for liberation, more than 61 years after it was done the first time. Then and now ordinary Jamaicans have always been at war — against slavery, empire, and the Black political class that wishes to overlord.
Don’t Share Image and Identity of “Jamrock” with the Black Political Class
The independent thought and organization found in the dungles and yards of Jamrock, there is not just “crime” there, is historically and at present far ahead of the formally educated and bureaucrats who overlord Jamaica. No genuine political independence can be expressed by those who mumble but conspire and gather weapons against Rastas, Rudies, and Dreads — their relative contemporary pride in their hair and skin will not stop them from conquering us. Let’s begin to act like we know. Arguing who has a “white” or “colonial” mentality is now a diversion from the challenges we face.
