Blackwood -Meeks
Amina Blackwood -Meeks, Contributor
MARCH 8 IS International Women's Day. It was in the making since 1908. It has been observed in a variety of ways by women around the world and reached its high point when 1975 was declared International Women's Year. The following year the first of two consecutive International Decades for Women began. They occasioned all the schizophrenia, doubts, fears and suspicion that tend to dog initiatives to correct imbalances of race or gender, or focus on what women or black people need to know about themselves and their history in order to move forward.
Many women made full use of the opportunities presented by the decades, at least to clear their headspace of all the taken-for-granted attitudes, ideas and ways of behaving which had kept them from learning about all the things that they didn't have to take any longer less pay for the same amount of work, chattel status, voicelessness and the like. Many men, and some women, thought that this circus would pass and in time would become a pleasant conversation piece of the once-upon-a-time variety. My friend Miss Lady suspects that much like the man in Mutabaruka's famous poem, the women who made use of the opportunities that the whole thing presented did jus deh a watch who a watch dem. And believe me the annual IWD celebrations and the trotting out of accomplishments between one year and the next was something to watch Maternity Leave Law, Bastardy Act, Voluntary Price Inspectors, vigilance and victories against artificial shortages, strengthened school feeding programme, endless achievements, endless.
FESTIVITIES
The festivities seemed to grow bigger and more memorable each year. Jamaican women received delegations from and exchanged greetings with their sisters in diverse places Guyana, Russia, Cuba to name a few. Truth is, I cannot remember if we ever exchanged such courtesies with our sisters from Haiti. Perhaps we had not fully awakened to the meaning of our blackness. Maybe we could not comprehend poverty and independence with dignity in a package that did not sport a trendy political label. It might be that as we focused, rightly so, on defending Cuba, we lost the central significance of defending and protecting Haiti. The truth might be, that by ignoring Haiti we deserted her. And sorry kean buy solja lorry.
Maybe you really can judge the quality of a civilization by the way it treats its women. This year while many are celebrating IWD, some watching from the safe distance of the fence-line, Haitian women are sure to be observed on the frontline running for their lives, listening to the cries of their hungry children, mourning for their men, chastising their rebel men or not daring to criticise them, making excuses for the ones whose hands are dipped in the blood of innocent men, women and children in the power play that drive people to schizophrenia, drive them from their beds raid-on-Entebbe fashion and render the Caribbean a zone of pieces. Piece belong to Hingland, France want back fe dem piece an' Uncle Sam demand de lion share. Only Cuba stands alone like the cheese, and none of their neighbours can build rat-trap. And sorry kean buy nutten!
BLACK REPUBLIC
All this in the year when Haiti observes the devil of a party planned around her in desecration of her 200th year as the first black republic in this hemisphere. Out of order! There is something about this backlash which is not unlike the treatment of women.
Observe the response to the Property Rights Act. Men who have responded violently against it say that they are tired of women wanting too much. Women say that it is going to cause further strife between the sexes. Tackle something else, like rape but don't say we want property for the men are going to leave us, become violent in defence of that which they have worked for. In the estimation of many, Haiti, like women who do not work and have made no contribution to the acquisition of property can have no access to rights.
So what contribution did Haiti make to our becoming? How does Haiti factor into the reality of our being able to enjoy something so lovingly dubbed IWD in this part of the world? Judge from France's statement about its fear that this former colony would provide a bad example to Martinique and Guadeloupe not in 1804, in 2004. That's how it is with loud-mouthed women. They provide the worst examples for women who must be kept in their place; for women who have yet to learn that when their rights are violated dem mus bawl out, call dung crowd pan de perpetrator and stop gwaan like, oh this is such an embarrassment to women who take their blows quietly, cry themselves to sleep and then sport the latest sunglasses to hide the double evidence.
Trouble is, many of us refused to hear Haiti screaming.
Enter Tracey Chapman:
Last night I heard a screaming,
loud voices behind the wall
Another sleepless night for me,
wont do no good to call
The police always come late if they come at all
And when they arrive they say they can't interfere in domestic affairs Between a man and his wife And as they walked out the door the tears welled up in her eyes.
So who is seeing Haiti's tears now? De big bad police dun come and gane, after which the Gleaner of Monday March 1, 2004 reported an unnamed Government spokesman as saying that Jamaica was ready and willing to provide troops but no deployment had been decided on. Dem was waiting on some level of political understanding before JDF soldiers would be deployed there.
Well Uncle Sam come to him own unilateral level of understanding. Because that's how we treat women. No need to consult them on what they want. Grumble about how long they take to make up their minds. Grow impatient and make a decision on their behalf. Level it all to the ground. And did anyone see the frightened old woman on the front page of the Observer of Tuesday March 2, 2004? Barefooted. Terrified. Cornered by three strapping plainclothes policemen. She, covered in the flour the caption said she was caught stealing from a warehouse.
A woman de worl have strent fah. They are perceived to be weak and the weaker and more frightened they behave, the more they are the target of the worst kinds of verbal, emotional and physical abuse. The greater the abuse is the more people say is de woman fault. Many are the volunteers who compete for the job to help her down by wishing they could put it all on video and send it to the television stations for the whole world to see what a virago she has become in her self defense.
So what yu tink happen to Haiti?
Ask Roberta Flack:
She takes just like a woman, yes she does
And she aches just like a woman
And she breaks up like a little girl.
Well, see it dere now, she falling apart from every seam with the whole world watching. And anybody asking where de big man who beat up the woman get the weapons from? By the way, you realise that if the Anti-Terrorist Bill is allowed to pass in Jamaica you could go to jail for asking a question like that? Ask the men in the House if after everything that just happen in Haiti and happening around the region right now if dem really want to pass that into law. Or catch you next International Women's Day a peep thru bars and sing like Marcia Griffiths, Tribulation wooi, what have I done? Tribulation Tribulation wooi, what have I done? Tribulation, wooi, wooi, wooi
And surely, Haiti cannot be allowed to cause any further tribulation for unsuspecting black
people lured by the false promise
of independence and self-determination.
Its false, unless and until you have the gumption like Cuba to make it real, to stand, alone, even when surrounded and defend your own cheese.
They say in Haiti, neg di san fe, people talk but don't act! Change that for International Women's Day 2004 and beyond.
