Melville Cooke About two weeks ago, I caught part of a radio pro-gramme where the Jamaican brand was up for discussion, based on its strong rating as being instantly recognisable.
The land of the Shamrock, leprechauns and William Butler Yates, one of the very few countries ahead of the black, gold and green.
It is an extraordinary phenomenon, the reach and impact of this little but tallawah island, 146 miles from tip to tip and 51 miles across its belly, bulging happily courtesy of the mountain range down its middle and with its little over 5.6 million population evenly split between residents and 'gone weh'.
Those 'ordinary Jamaicans'
It is extraordinary not because of any great political or business initiative, but because of these people, who tend to make a mark (for better or worse) wherever they go. Which is why I am not amused by the expression 'ordinary Jamaicans', which tends to pop up when those in the business of mouthing off speak. And what the hell, I ask, is an 'ordinary Jamaican'?
Almost invariably when the term is used (and it is bandied about fairly frequently), it is in circumstances where the section of the population it refers to is poor and black. You know, access to some sort of quality housing, health care, electricity, roads, education.
A few days ago, THE STAR carried the story of a family that lives (exists may be a better term) on $1,000 a week. A week. In the various 'speechifying' that takes place, the members of that family would be termed 'ordinary Jamaicans'; in my books they are damned extraordinary.
So we know about music (How far does it go?) About three years ago, I was listening to BBC Radio and there was a hook-up with some tourists on a train going through a remote part of Russia.
The reporter on the trip said all was well, they were drinking tea and vodka and listening to Burning Spear) and sports. But much of what we take for granted and dismissively label ordinary is not.
Take the phenomenon of the higglers (or informal commercial importers, as the persons who often have to be on the run from the blue suits in downtown Kingston are deemed).
These are persons who would be classified as 'ordinary' who trade across international borders, creating their own employment and often dealing in foreign currency trading in the process.
Then, there is how we express ourselves (and make no mistake about it, the Jamaican curse fabric, as anti-woman as it is, has a terrific punch when pronounced just right), that dexterity in language not being reserved for the supposedly educated.
Not simply ordinary
The people whose labour in large part built the Panama Canal and who created Rastafarianism, who build huge dwellings on 'capture lan' and make a palace out of a Portmore quad and who, despite huge differences between obvious wealth and poverty and a legal system that is loaded against them, continue to 'hol strain', cannot be simply labelled ordinary.
We may be extraordinarily good. We may be extraordinarily bad. But simply ordinary? Nah. It simply does not apply.
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.
