Youth for Social Change: It’s The People Who Must Govern (1972)
Youth for Social Change was the last manifestation of the Ben Monroe led Unemployed Workers Council (UWC) movement in Jamaica (1962–1972).
UWC’s publications, difficult to find today, included Socialist Revolution and Right to Work. They understood that monopoly capitalism and the police state had to be destroyed but often used the discourse of “rights” to undermine in the short-term police brutality and home evictions. They made class struggle inflected appeals in Rasta and Rudie idioms whose faith and popular music often spoke about “rights” differently than conventional civil rights or international law premises.
George Myers (aka Joseph Edwards and Fundi the Caribbean Situationist) was a part of both groups. This skilled worker’s (he was a refrigeration mechanic) rhetoric of popular self-government flavors the pamphlet. Beverly and Percy Graham, Henry Matthews, and Lyn Richards were also part of both formations.
Jamaican Unemployed Workers Council activists among slums and shanty towns of West Kingston united Black grassroots independent thinkers who resented middle class electoral party politics, the trade union hierarchies that served them, and the patronage networks that undermined fair distribution of housing, jobs, and other needs to the most marginal toilers. Orienting to youth as the “Black Power” idea was still fresh in the Caribbean, it drew a line of steel between ordinary toilers and rebellious youth and the claim Norman Manley was father of the nation, that Hugh Shearer and Edward Seaga could capture the meaning of Black popular culture, and Michael Manley could advance “better must come” when he acted against the radical Caribbean activists who wished to unite the region from below.
The pamphlet has been subjected to slight edits for clarification. Keep in mind this was produced before the era of the personal computer.
This pamphlet is written as a fusion of a collective of voices. We must imagine the voices of the yard and dungle, those who live in ramshackle dwellings, who are disproportionately unemployed and desire “good jobs.” The wage-less imagine a future where they can provide for their children, educate them, and keep them safe. To their mind, they want an opportunity to live a good and creative life with dignity.
Orthodox, left libertarian or autonomous interpretations of communism are not on the minds of everyday people. Creative cultivators of the popular will have to inquire about what common people need and feel and place their instincts and impulses into an outlook that wishes to more consistently arrive on its own authority. Ordinary people don’t always know exactly what they want. They can intermittently condemn hierarchical government or feel the pull to identify with one party or politician as the measure of citizenship. Any gathering of forces among toilers and the impoverished will express these conflicting tendencies. It is up to popular democratic-minded community organizers to help clarify the common wisdom that wishes to delink from the old politics.
The pamphlet begins with a strong stance against the exploitation of poor women and how a pornographic culture (over fifty years ago — in 1972!), not simply films and magazines, but corporate advertising for Jamaican tourism was using poor women’s bodies as degraded objects. The Government framed reproductive rights from the premise that these young women would always be economically down pressed by society and population control was necessary — this was a eugenics argument that assumed ordinary people were unfit to govern their lives and society.
Youth for Social Change rejected these propositions. They understood there was a clear connection between hunger and crime, lack of adequate shelter fit for human beings, and that lack of literacy was a problem. How many radical democratic thinkers rooted in toiling communities today admit the problem and campaign against illiteracy today? How many admit the unemployed need skills not merely to get a job but to govern society? Too many are concerned about teachers as organized labor without regard for whether youth have literacy or skills or not. Without these capacities no self-directed socialism is possible. Devoid of these skills, it makes it more difficult to overcome the elitism of many of the formally educated and professional planners.
At no time do the UWC/YFSC activists, who were fiercely anti-imperialist, express sympathy for the pressures that global capital places on the Black political class who rule above society in Jamaica. For “anti-imperialism” to their mind does not advise or critically support peripheral Caribbean rulers. But remains independent of them regardless of party or politicians. They are viewed as a social class of exploiters who wish to manage servile lives. Still there are elements of a national-democratic spirit to this pamphlet. Ten years after post-colonial independence in 1962, Youth for Social Change ask which social class leads the national liberation struggle? Such a framework in the new millennium would be totally inappropriate — unless there was a consensus that the Black political class in Jamaica and the Caribbean could administer fascism. Still, anti-fascism need not establish or restore a bourgeois republic. It can fight on for direct democracy and workers self-management as the basis of society.
The strategic goal was to push the hierarchical government from behind by making demands on it that can be implemented regardless of the party in power. It’s starts from the social consensus established by the formally educated and the cultural apparatus of the state. And it underscores, the facts and statistics gathered on unemployment and the burdens of youth are not taken seriously. The pamphlet makes demands for jobs and family assistance. But the narrative also invades the welfare state of mind and doesn’t let it rest secure. It is in this transitional context that its advocates highlight ordinary people must directly govern.
Popular councils in each local district are advocated to tell the elite representatives of the nation-state what is expected of them, what to do, and how to do it. It is not a proposal to write a letter to your member of parliament or politician in office thereby sustaining their legitimate authority. The perspective is hierarchical government’s legitimacy has come to an end. The public budget is in fact the resources of ordinary people to appropriate as they wish. The local councils will make all decision on economic planning, education, health, housing, and judicial affairs.
Whether the called for rally at George VI Park (now National Heroes Park) in Kingston had enough safeguards against professional planners and politicians to ensure the unemployed and youth maintained the initiative was not a mere dilemma for Youth for Social Change. It is a dilemma for those who wish to bring the new society closer today. Popular councils and assemblies can push toward direct democracy and workers self-management but they can also be a dependent participatory form where the authority of elite representative government is not sufficiently undermined. Still these creative conflicts often clarify to the sincere and observant how to build a stronger popular democratic institutions in the near future.
This effort foreshadows a dual power of popular self-directed liberating activity in Trench Town, Tivoli Gardens, Cassava Piece (St. Andrew), Denham Town, Arnett Gardens, Grants Pen; Flankers, Rose Heights, Canterbury, Salt Spring, Glendevon, and Norwood (Mo’ Bay); Whithorn (Westmoreland), Race Course (Clarendon), Portmore, and Spanish Town (St. Catherine).
If yuh cyaan pree dis, unnu nuh ready fi dis yet.
IT’S THE PEOPLE WHO MUST GOVERN
Our Case for Social Change; Mandate of Oppressed Youth to the Politicians
Social scientists, criminologists, psychiatrists and everyone scientifically trained to understand and effect solutions to the youth problems of existing societies consistently declare that the youth problems of today are products of unemployment and poverty and denial of full opportunity to youth to develop their creativeness to aid social advancement and can only be resolved by the fundamental change of the socio-economic structure. of the societies in question. Evidence of this truth is readily found in the oppressed communities of this country.
In these communities poverty has imposed extreme rationing of daily necessities in the homes of the Black masses, forcing children to begin stealing sugar, milk, bread, toys, etc at early ages. Extreme cases of social oppression have driven already illiterate parents to madness, and they have to continue the responsibility of the upbringing of their children. This forms a significant part of the background to the cultivation of criminal and other anti-social tendencies in vast numbers of Black youth who are eventually abandoned to survive on their own in a society which deny them the right to jobs.
In these communities, literature which cultivates prostitutes of our sisters and obscene and sadistic films is made highly profitable business by both the foreign companies which make them and the local businesses which import them. This also provides favorable conditions for the alcohol and tourist industries which greatly depend on the prostitution, and other obscene misuse of our sisters’ bodies, to promote market. These sisters are mainly drawn from the oppressed communities.
In spite of this moral decay the society continues to promote this situation because it forms a significant part of big business and the development of prostitution lightens the responsibility of government to provide civilized jobs for the tens of thousands of our unemployed sisters. Birth control is being used as a counter to the rapid production of children which is the obvious result of a population cultivated and driven to a wanton sex indulgence.
The deeper our examination of society the more evidence is produced to show that the dehumanizing of our youth is caused by the manner in which society is structured. It constantly deforms the minds of our youth and gives them a warped outlook on life. And this can only be ended by effecting fundamental change in the structure of society.
Such truth is totally ignored by those who rule the society. They are the only ones greatly benefited by keeping society in its present form. So they are using every means to prevent social change.
Every community of mass poverty is now a prescribed area for unbridled police and military repression. No search warrant is needed to enter any home at any time. Basic human rights do not exist, especially for the youth of these communities. But history proves that the failure of government to redress the bankruptcy of a society cannot be successfully taken over by police and military functions. This step only deepens the social conflict. The situation requires social change.
We oppressed Black Youth of this country declare that no society can succeed in crushing the aspirations of its youth nor survive its youth, for young things must replace the old as a law of life. We demand full and equal opportunity to achieve everything good, but more urgently we demand the following…
Jobs for every unemployed youth or unemployment assistance particularly for those of us with family responsibilities.
Social scientists of [the University of the West Indies] UWI presented a program since 1967 to resolve unemployment and effect genuine and overall development of the national resources (See pamphlet Unemployment! What is it! Why It Exists! What We Can Do About It!) This has been ignored by Government in spite of the rapid increase of unemployment, forcing our youth to a life of crime and degeneration at an equally rapid rate.
We oppressed Black Youth demand immediate implementation of the social scientists’ program by any government which may take office following the results of the general elections of 29th February.
We Demand Suitable and Adequate Housing Especially for Youth Families
An housing expert who was brought to this country in 1960 reported to Government that the country needed to produce at least 25,000 new houses each year for 20 years to meet the basic demands for housing. Eleven years have already passed and enough houses are not produced to meet even the requirement of a single year.
The present great need for houses have given rise to unscrupulous landlords and financiers carrying out a fantastic scale of robbery of the masses in rent and sale of houses, which burdens mostly youth families.
We oppressed Black Youth demand an immediate end to this monstrous housing exploitation of the masses and [the] implement[ation of] a meaningful program of house-building by any government which takes office after 29th February.
We Demand Improved Facilities to Provide Adequate Education and Vocational Training for All Youth
Let the people of each constituency decide what their representative must do in parliament. Let them establish people’s councils in each district and take all decisions concerning their welfare by way of these councils. Let our workers, peasants, scientists, teachers, doctors, ministers of religion, etc., and our youth be given their right to decide on the country’s welfare. Let their decisions have government authority…
And in order to deal with police brutality and frame-ups against youth, the district council must have the authority of establishing juvenile courts in each district which must be made up of a panel of our elders who are known for justice, along with those persons trained in youth psychology and psychiatry.
We Demand That The People of Each Community Have The Power to Decide What Is To Be Done By Government
It is only by these means that there can be a genuine democracy. It is only by these means that the wisdom and creativeness of the people, particularly youth, can be applied to move the nation to genuine progress. It is only by these means that a step can be taken in the right direction to effect social justice and change.
We call everyone with a sense of justice to a public gathering at Paul Bogle’s statue (George VI Park) where we will be committing the social scientists, the criminologists, the psychiatrists, the ministers of religion, etc. to testify to the nation to the good things they say must be done for the welfare of the masses and the nation as a whole.
We call upon the news media (Radio, TV, Press) to give their service to this matter of national interest.
We also call upon representatives of both contesting parties to stand before this deliberation and be committed on the issue raised before the nation. This deliberation will be held on Sunday 27th February, at 4:30 pm.
Oppressed Black Youth Demand Social Change!
