Orville W. Taylor"More violence and a political activist shot dead" - a sad headline indeed. Doubtless, we are a violent nation or rather, we are a nation that does a lot ofviolence. It might be in our nature, but being a sociologist, my explanation would be that it is cultural and social.
After all, at least 30 per cent of our black population was directly extricated from the Ashanti people. Add to that, another set of Akan people of whom the Ashanti are a sub-set, and you have the biggest set of warriors outside of Africa. The name Ashanti comes from two Twi words, 'Osa' and 'Nte,' which mean "brought together by war". The Ashanti people literally consolidated their society via a series of wars.
Despite being warned by a number of traders, the English did not desist from procuring Coromantee (same Ashanti) captives. As history would prove, we were impossible to tame, and these recalcitrant Africans were the 'abi seed' that the ram goat swallowed without checking the dimensions of his posterior.
Of the more than 13 major uprisings between 1742 and 1831, at least 10 were led by Ashanti. These include Tacky's Rebellion of 1760 and the two Maroon wars.
Kojo (that is the appropriate spelling) and Nanny were both Ashanti.
So widespread was the Ashanti war gene that there was no space for Dutty Boukman, the slave from Dahomey (Benin). As a result, we could afford to export him to Haiti, where he initiated the Haitian Revolution on August 1791.
In this Emancipation week, it is easy for closet racists to accept the African retention argument, because it points to the incorrigible nature of 'Negroes'. After all, the spirit of Ashanti still 'dey ya pon the gullyside!'
Sorry though, it is not that simple. Everyone, perhaps, except Bruce Golding and Portia who innocently slept all throughout the 1970s, know when and how inner-city garrisons were being formed under their noses. The seeds of political violence were sown long ago but were carefully nurtured during the roaring '70s and the crazy '80s.
Now, the seeds are being fertilised by the bovine excrement that is being spewed on the platforms as each set of spin doctors hypocritically tries to demonise the other party, while embellishing their leaders and colleagues into paragons of virtue.
None is without blame
The fact is, none is without blame and the steer and heifer are fathered by the same bull.
When the People's National Party (PNP) was inaugurated in September 1938, Norman Manley's suspected brother, but acknowledged cousin, Alexander Bustamante, was on the podium. Yes! PNP Busta was in his brother's party. Moreover, Norman was an executive in the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), founded the same year but formalised in 1939.
It is often ignored that Manley successfully ran the union, while Busta was in prison between 1940 and 1942 and secured the first collective labour agreement for sugar workers. Despite the protestations of those who twist historical facts to make angels out of heroes, Busta and Manley were both prone to acts of violence.
Again, the racists will say, "well they were half-castes and it is that infernal Ashanti blood. That is why those island people can't have a country free of political violence."
Last week, a naïve Jamaican-American asked on air, "Y kyeant we eliminade politikal vialence and corruption and be like the U.S.A.?"
Attacks on politicians overseas
Okay! But careful what you wish for! Tomorrow makes 141 years since white Democrats, supported by the police, attacked the bi-racial Republican Party's convention in New Orleans, killing 40 and wounding 150.
The Republicans were formed in 1854 as an opposition to slavery. For more than a century, the Ku Klux Klan was the violent terrorist arm of the Democrats.
Between 1865 and 1970, thousands of homes were burned in local American acts of terrorism. The Tulsa City disaster, where an entire town of 15,000 black people was razed in 1921, has yet no equal in Jamaica. In that attack, at least 300 persons were killed.
Between 1901 and 1980, more than 3,000 Americans were either lynched, killed in race riots or murdered during political/trade union activities.
True, in 1980 alone, more than 800 murders, mostly political, were committed in Jamaica, but only one politician, Roy McGann, the PNP's candidate for East Rural St. Andrew, was killed. Though deeply regrettable, the death of Sanjay Ebanks, a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) constituency manager, just over a week ago, is an anomaly here.
Back to the great 'farrin.' There have been more attacks on politicians in the United States than in any other nation with populations of more than 50 million. A Manley was allegedly boxed by Burry Bwoy in the 1970s, and 'the sheriff' recently saw more stars than were on his chest. However, that is unusual.
Nonetheless, between 1835 and 1981, nine American presidents were the targets of assassinations. These include Abraham Lincoln in 1865; James Garfield in 1881; William McKinley in 1901 and John F. Kennedy in 1963. Completing the list are the failed attempts against Andrew Jackson in 1835, Harry S. Truman in 1950, Richard Nixon in 1974, two tries at Gerald Ford in 1975, and Ronald Reagan in 1981.
As President-elect in 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a close shave. Presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy did not survive his 1968 attack. However, Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 and George Wallace in 1972 did.
Add to the list, eight governors, seven senators, nine congressmen, 11 mayors, 17 state legislators, and 11 judges. And we haven't even touched Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers and Malcolm X yet.
Our motto is almost identical to the U.S's: 'E Pluribus Unum' - "Out of many one." We added people to ours.
Dr. Orville Taylor is senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work at the University of the West Indies, Mona.
