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Book by John Maxwell
How to Make Our Own News: A Primer for Environmentalist and Journalists
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A fi
we! A no fi dem!
1959 Launch of Jamaican
Broadcasting Corporation
By
John Maxwell
Fifty years ago
last Monday, an event occurred which transformed
Jamaica. The launch of the Jamaica Broadcasting
Corporation [JBC] transformed the Jamaican culture,
theatre, music, politics, journalism and the Jamaican
language.
In its periods of
independent existence the JBC transformed the Jamaican
idea of Jamaica, of Jamaican personality.
I am one of the few
survivors of that day. Most of that small band is dead
and most of those who aren't are scattered to the four
winds. The JBC was Jamaica's real entry into the modern
world and it excited enthusiasm and animosity in equal
degree, provoking a struggle which persists to this day
between those who know themselves to be Jamaican and
those who charitably patronise things Jamaican and other
pastiches of a Jamaica which never existed outside of
travelers' tales.
On June 14, the day
before the official launch, the new broadcasters of the
JBC presented an ambitious showcase of their talents,
programmes ranging from a major radio drama, a concert
by the JBC Orchestra playing Jamaican music, Jamaica
comedy and high-class soap opera, Jamaican news and a
Jamaican newsreel bringing Jamaicans for the first time
face to face with themselves and their work, the
commonplace and the sublime.
Two of the items
for which I was responsible on that day were an
interview with Hollywood star Errol Flynn and an
interview recorded on a mule-drawn dray carrying
supplies for fishermen on the road to Portland Cottage.
We stunned Jamaica.
The papers and the
verandahs for weeks afterwards could talk of little else
but the Jamaican accents which had never before been
heard on radio. Until then two kinds of diction were
permissible on Jamaican radio: the clipped BBC accents
of Dennis Gick and his ilk with their J.B.Priestley
plays, or the real (and occasionally fake) American
accents of the announcers on Radio Jamaica. Jamaicans
heard instead, for the first time, at last, the voices
of Miss Lou (Louise Bennett) Mass Ran (Ranny Williams)
Charles Hyatt, "Pro Rata Powell" (Ken Maxwell,
Jack Neesberry (Carrol Reckord).
But what amazed
everyone was the fact that the news—world news and
Jamaican news— were written and edited in a Jamaican
newsroom, and read by Jamaicans like Reggie Carter, Joy
Gordon and Richard Harty. And, for the first time at
last, it wasn't really necessary to listen to the
BBC—which we continued to broadcast once a day to calm
the nerves of those who could not believe that Jamaican
journalists could possibly compete with English
journalists. When I went to work for the BBC News eight
years later I realised that we had been working twice
as hard for half the pay and delivering a product at
least as good as our august competitors and often
better.
A decade and a half
later, in 1975, I was congratulated for my handling of
Britain's deputy Prime Minister, James Callaghan, one of
the rudest and stupidest politicians I have ever met.
The man who congratulated me was Sir Robin Day, then the
doyen of British TV journalism. With a group of English
journalists, Day came up to me in the Sheraton hotel
where all of them had been watching my nightly
interviews with people like Archbishop Makarios and
Indira Gandhi at the Commonwealth Heads of Government
Conference
"Great work." said
Robin Day, "I hear you are called the Robin Day of
Jamaica!"
"Oh!" I said, you
must be the guy they call the John Maxwell of British
television!" and after some more good natured banter
we all repaired to the bar to talk about politicians.
Norman Manley,
whose idea the JBC was, was never in any doubt that
Jamaica and its people were as good or better than any
nation anywhere and when the JBC began to prove it by
exposing Jamaican musicians, like Carlos Malcolm, Foggy
Mullings, and Ernie Ranglin, Don Drummond, Toots Hibbert,
Count Ossie and Bob Marley, Jamaicans were astonished at
the depth and breadth of Jamaican musical genius and the
idea that world class could mean Jamaican.
It was the JBC
whose attention to the mento, jankunnu, kumina and
rastafari cultures brought them to the notice of their
own people and the world. It was the JBC that created
the market for Jamaican musicians and producers where
none had existed before.
In the three years
before independence the JBC was identified as a threat
by those whose idea of Jamaica had concretised in 1944,
when people spoke of democracy-in-embryo and the need
for tutelage in governance. When the JBC presented
public affairs programmes that began to expose the
realities of the society many were alarmed. C.L.R. James
was astonished by a documentary I did in 1960 about the
people who lived on and off the Dungle, who were allowed
to tell their stories as if they were important. James
thought that this was revolutionary stuff and prophesied
that the powers that be would not long allow that sort
of exposure.
He was right. When
the JLP won the pre-independence elections in 1962 the
JBC and myself in particular became immediate targets.
One dispute was about JBC's alleged disrespect to the
new government. The JLP said that JBC news was not
dignifying Ministers by terming them "Honorable" as
they said we had always styled the PNP Ministers.
Fortunately we were able to produce a memorandum written
by me two weeks after the JBC opened, in which we
decided that honorifics such as "the Honorable" would be
dispensed with except in cases of official announcements
and things like death notices. They still didn't
believe us.
We were always
suspect, because we were not intimidated by anyone. In
1960, during the so-called Reynold Henry 'uprising',
Wills Isaacs, acting as Premier while Manley was on a
few days leave, insisted that we publish a ministerial
statement by him calling upon Jamaicans to hunt down and
capture and hogtie all stray bearded men in the
interest of national security. We refused to broadcast
the speech. Wills called me up, as the person then in
charge of the newsroom and when I again refused he
called Mr Manley. I told Mr Manley, when he called, that
I had referred the speech to our legal adviser, Leacroft
Robinson and he had agreed with me that the broadcast
was an incitement to violence. When I told Manley this
he agreed that we were right and told Wills to cool it.
A very similar row
broke out in late 1961 or early 1962 when the JLP
wanted us to put out a news release calling on "JLP
Freedom Fighters" to give Mr Manley "a hot reception" on
his return from pre-independence talks in London. I was
again the person responsible for refusing the broadcast,
on the same grounds I'd given Isaacs in 1960. Seaga and
Lightbourne were at Bustamante's house and got the old
man to phone me to persuade me to allow the broadcast.
I refused and then
Busta put on the Commissioner of Police, Noel Crosswell
who said he saw nothing wrong with the release. Again I
had Leacroft Robinson's advice and again I refused.
When Manley arrived
at Victoria Pier by motor-launch from the airport all
hell broke loose, with Seaga's "Freedom Fighters" locked
in battle with Isaacs' Group 69. During the fracas
Isaacs' licenced firearm fell to the ground and
fortunately was picked up by a responsible adult. No one
was seriously injured but I have always wondered what
would have happened if Seaga's call to arms had been
broadcast.
When the 1962
elections finally came I was not among the JLP's
favourite people. Within weeks I was again in trouble.
In my weekly news review I had been scathing about the
departing British. After 300 years, I said, they had
made the munificent bequest of one million pounds,
sufficient to run the basic administration of the
country for eleven days. They had also generously
donated Up Park Camp, which I said was simply because
they could not take it away.
On the following
Monday Mr Seaga with Sir Alexander Bustamante in tow,
both dressed in funereal black, arrived at the JBC to
see, by appointment, the chairman, the jeweller, L.A.
Henriques. They got him to agree that I should be
sacked, over the objections of Hector Bernard who was
then the Acting General Manager.
When the rest of
the JBC Board heard what had happened they immediately
convened a meeting to inform Henriques that he had no
authority to sack anyone. He was forced to resign.
I was reinstated.
A few weeks later the entire board, with the exception
of Henry Fowler, was sacked. A few months later I was
again fired, on a trumped up charge and by way of a
post-dated letter signed by the General Manager, A.L. Micky
Hendricks, who at the time was in London on JBC
business.
The new government
of independent Jamaica did not understand the necessity
for the autonomy of a public service corporation such as
the JBC. They saw malice in any decision that went
against them and were totally unable to accept any
criticism. The PNP, demoralised in defeat, was unable to
defend the principles on which we had always operated.
Eventually in 1964 the newsroom rebelled against the
attempt by Seaga and the new JBC Chairman Ivan Levy's
to be news editors.
Despite the first
largely middleclass strike and the longest in Jamaican
history until then, the gallant workforce of the JBC was
defeated and most forced into exiles.
The JBC was
transformed into a partisan mouthpiece—an
image which it never shook—because
the JLP were determined to destroy everything we stood
for.
I had another
innings at the JBC in the 1970s when I was personally
painted as the implacable enemy of the JLP and of Edward
Seaga, because I had run against him in the 1972
elections when the PNP could find no one willing to run
in the brand new garrison of West Kingston. Although my
candidacy was solely to prevent Seaga running unopposed
and being elected on nomination day, it was taken as an
impertinence and an insult to Seaga.
Despite this,
however, the JBC managed to recover some of its
self-respect. I personally remember with gratitude the
opportunity I was given to start the first real
talk-show in Jamaica, the Public Eye.
Public Eye
had a few signal achievements, presenting for the first
time public exposure of police brutality in the person
of Peter Tosh, whose account of his mistreatment brought
Jamaica up short. People knew that police brutality was
fairly common, but few realised how pervasive it was.
When I spoke to Peter Tosh he was still relatively
obscure but well enough known to make a big impression.
Public Eye
was also mainly responsible for the successful campaign
to reverse the unfair convictions and secure the release
of Michael Bernard and six other men on death row
because of perjured evidence.
Our greatest
achievement, however, was in raising the Jamaican
consciousness about the condition of working class
women. Shortly after the programme began in February
1974 I interviewed Rosamund Wiltshire and Gillian Monroe
who had just done an undergraduate thesis on the
treatment of domestic helpers, up to then called
servants and maids.
After the interview
I invited the domestic helpers of Jamaica to phone me
and tell Jamaica their stories. Soon, telephone locks
were being imported by the thousands, so that
householders could prevent the truth being told. I was
accused of scandalising the middle class and one day an
expensively dressed chatelaine in a stush Mercedes Benz
spat at me as I walked down South Odeon Avenue. After
more than a year of agitation Michael Manley, at the
instigation of his wife, Beverley, called me up to
Jamaica House one day.
"What are we going
to do about the helpers?"
I had an answer—suggested
by the helpers themselves. Since they couldn't form a
union and couldn't strike the society had to find the
means to protect them from exploitation. A National
Minimum Wage was the answer, but a National Minimum Wage
policed by a special office which would also be
responsible for defending all their rights.
Manley knew that
everybody had said a national minimum wage would never
work, that if implemented it would cause mass
unemployment; but he, Beverley and I thought we should
do it because it was right. Without consulting his
Cabinet except for David Coore, he simply announced in
Parliament that the government had decided to implement
a National Minimum Wage and an office to supervise it.
Pandemonium.
Jamaica knew the time had come for justice for the
largest section of the labour force. Respect was due.
The impact of the
Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation on Jamaica has never
been measured. It is my opinion that in its short
periods of independence, the JBC helped begin the
transformation of Jamaica from an ignorant colonial
backwater into a civilised society. We have a long way
to go, but the JBC proved that we have the brains and
the will to do it.
If our traditions
had been maintained I cannot imagine that 50 years later
a Jamaican Governor General would be flying to
Buckingham Palace to be knighted by the Queen as if he
were some middle-ranking British civil servant.
In our cosmology, honour flowed not
from England, but from the cane-cutters and domestic
helpers, from the small farmers and the higglers, from
the Rastas and all the people who constitute Jamaica, as
we know it
When they say "Respect is Due" we
know what they mean.
Copyright©2009
John Maxwell
jankunnu@gmail.com
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1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus
Created
By Charles C. Mann
I’m
a big fan of Charles Mann’s previous
book
1491:
New Revelations of the Americas Before
Columbus, in which he
provides a sweeping and provocative
examination of North and South America
prior to the arrival of Christopher
Columbus. It’s exhaustively researched
but so wonderfully written that it’s
anything but exhausting to read. With
his follow-up,
1493, Mann has taken it to a
new, truly global level. Building on the
groundbreaking work of Alfred Crosby
(author of
The Columbian Exchange and, I’m
proud to say, a fellow Nantucketer),
Mann has written nothing less than the
story of our world: how a planet of what
were once several autonomous continents
is quickly becoming a single,
“globalized” entity.
Mann not only talked to countless
scientists and researchers; he visited
the places he writes about, and as a
consequence, the book has a marvelously
wide-ranging yet personal feel as we
follow Mann from one far-flung corner of
the world to the next. And always, the
prose is masterful. In telling the
improbable story of how Spanish and
Chinese cultures collided in the
Philippines in the sixteenth century, he
takes us to the island of Mindoro whose
“southern coast consists of a number of
small bays, one next to another like
tooth marks in an apple.” We learn how
the spread of malaria, the potato,
tobacco, guano, rubber plants, and sugar
cane have disrupted and convulsed the
planet and will continue to do so until
we are finally living on one integrated
or at least close-to-integrated Earth.
Whether or not the human instigators of
all this remarkable change will survive
the process they helped to initiate more
than five hundred years ago remains,
Mann suggests in this monumental and
revelatory book, an open question. |
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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posted 21 June
2009
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