Overthrow 'gangsta' culture

Robert Buddan, Contributor 

PORTIA SIMPSON Miller likes to speak of the power of community. The power of community can be good or bad, depending on who controls power in the community. Of the 780 communities across the island, a small minority is terrorised by gangs and an even smaller amount is actually controlled by them.

Peter Phillips speaks of 15 or so paramilitary organisations with 50 to 60 members, who have the power to dominate communities and take on the security forces. I am not sure if all the leaders of these paramilitary-type organisations are so permanent and embedded in communities as to be 'dons'. Gang leaders are not the same as 'dons'.

In fact, gangs are not always the same as political parties and constituency is not interchangeable with 'garrison'. There is much work needed to give clarity to what we mean by criminal gangs and dons who control garrison constituencies. Failure will lead us to bring the wrong solutions to the problem.

Gangs and garrisons

The problem is three-part. We all agree that criminal gangs and dons should be eradicated and garrison communities disabled. In her campaign to be president of the People's National Party (PNP), Portia Simpson Miller addressed the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica in January 2006 and said: "I say to all would-be dons, your days will be numbered under any administration of mine. I am not afraid to say this for I don't need the help of any don in winning elections. Dons are the enemies of well-thinking Jamaicans. I say to the dons, Portia is a strong woman. She needs no dons."

Unfortunately, it didn't matter to her very influential audience. The big money in the private sector seems to have gone decisively in favour of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), the very party whose candidate for prime minister was the parliamentary representative of the prototypical paramilitary mother of all garrisons, and we now see the depraved depths of where that has taken us. The first part of the solution, therefore, is to make sure our conscience is consistent with our politics. Backers of the JLP should never have allowed its party leader to represent western Kingston.

The second part of the solution is to recapture garrisons and build communities all around, including non-garrisons where peace-loving Jamaicans live but which have been unserved or undeserved in so many ways. Portia Simpson Miller spoke on the same occasion, saying: "If we are united, energised, mission-oriented and visionary as a people, the criminals will have to be on the retreat. They can't hold down our communities in bondage and repression as they do today, cynically exploiting the poor and dispossessed while they live in their mansions on the hills and have their substantial holdings all over the country. These new oppressors and slave masters must be overthrown and power returned to ordinary people in their communities." How prophetic.

The narco-state

Marxism had taught that we should overthrow the State ruled by capitalist oppressors, Mrs Simpson Miller had said we should rather overthrow the 'states-within-states', the garrison states, because it is there that the new oppressors of the poor truly operate. She was saying something else. They might operate through garrisons but they reside alongside the rich and powerful in our verdant hills. This is why alleged drug and gun dealer Christopher Coke and his collaborators are being sought both downtown and uptown. The 'two Jamaicas' are not so separate after all.

As for the nation State, Simpson Miller wants the prime minister to resign and will act by legal means to achieve this. This is her form of 'overthrow'. Mind you, none of this had been conceived back in 2006. We never thought Jamaica would have come to this. People at home and abroad are referring to us as a narco-state. Do we have a right under the social contract to overthrow a narco-state? We do, hopefully non-violently, and we need to work out the forms this should take.

Our immediate task is not to overthrow the capitalist state. After all, our political parties have allies in the capitalist class. Our immediate task is to overthrow the narco-state and do so by democratic means. The narco-state is that state where garrison communities capture parties and, through party capture, accomplish state capture. If a criminal narcotics-trafficking organisation like the Shower Posse captures a party through a community like Tivoli Gardens and that party comes to power, criminal influence extends to the state and a narco-state emerges.

The fight against crime must not only be a fight against criminals in the communities. It must be a fight against crime and criminal affiliates in the state. In fact, the latter will be a farce if it is not accompanied by the former. This is why many organisations have called for the truth and the whole truth about crime and the state and for Bruce Golding to resign as head of a government that is so badly compromised that it is being referred to in parts of the international press as a narco-state.

Narco-capitalism

There is a third part of the solution to our problem. We must democratise the state and society. This is where the agenda for political reform, a new morality and better values and attitudes comes in. It is through these that we can 'overthrow' the narco-state and, indeed, transform the narco-society. The Opposition's parliamentary motion of no confidence was very important. It went, according to Portia Simpson Miller, to the heart of democratic governance. It was about being truthful and forthright in carrying out responsible and accountable government.

We must break the nexus, not just between state and criminals, whether they are geographically or non-geographically based, but between business and criminals as well; and between business, criminals and the state. There is something called narco-capitalism. It is where businesses like construction, real estate, law, banking, auto sales, and many others are interwoven with or front criminal enterprises. This is why we have money-laundering laws and institutions like the Financial Services Commission. It is why we have a movement for corporate governance. But, just as the state and politics need fixing, corporate institutions and practices also need fixing.

We must separate the legitimate businesses and business persons downtown and uptown from those who are criminals. Otherwise, our communities, downtown, uptown and mid-town, will be tainted. Our uptown children will go to the same schools and we will sit in the same churches with criminals. We must also attack the culture of materialism, 'bling', aggression and the 'gangsta' culture in business, media and entertainment. This glorifies dons and dons' life.

It is tempting to take the simplistic solution. For a long time there has been a view that the solution to crime is to wipe out those criminals downtown. But what do we do about those uptown? We think we just need to get politicians to reject garrison politics. But how do we get businessmen to reject narco-capitalism? We think we just need to get politicians to support good morals. What do we do about the media and business culture which glorify violence? Change is hard but we have to make it. Let's overthrow the narco-state, narco-capitalism and the 'gangsta' culture.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. Email: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm