It seems reasonable to say that the real reason that Desmond Ballentyne, a.k.a Ninja Man, was not arrested at the Sting concert is that he is a “money maker” for the promoters.  It seems reasonable to say, also, that this mighty syndicate is more powerful than any one man, even a man as deadly as the Renato Adams, for, as the saying goes, "man bad, man badder." The story, however, is not fully told with these observations.  It is far more intricate, a far more interesting tale, as we shall soon see.

As folks make history collectively, individuals distinguish themselves – often against their will.  The criminal Ivanhoe Martin (Rhygin) is a folk legend and universal hero-figure. (Doesn’t that just blow you mind?) This is the paradoxical role which the self-avowed “bad man” inhabits.  This needs to be comprehended. The key to understanding this is to separate the performer from the bad man.

Let us see if we can use The Harder They Come as a launch pad to throw some light on this little matter of Bro’ Desmond’s sensational performance at Sting 2002.

Flashback:

“A low, approving, anticipatory, visceral growl rose from the audience, becoming a joyous, hysterical, full-throated howl of release, of vindication and righteous satisfaction as Django, grim-faced and alone, the very embodiment of retribution and just vengeance, raked the masked killers, hot, bloody destruction spitting from the Gatling gun on his hip.  Men were torn apart, picked up and flung to earth in grotesque spinning contortions.  The giant bearded face, tight jawed, crazy eyed, each line and furrow magnified 100 times, glared out at the audience, a powerful and primal force, an avenger in a sombrero”  (Michael Thelwell, The Harder They Come, Grove Press, Inc., 1980, p. 149).

The Wild West is revisited over and over in the drama of life in Kingston’s ghettos.  It has formed the blueprint for self definition by generations of ghetto youth. 

“Many rudies superimposed the drama of the Wild West onto their familiar ghetto landscape, modelling themselves after the cowboys on the movie screen.  They emulated the gunslinger mentality and romanticized the figure of the outlaw. . . .

“Even today this fascination with western motifs is a large part of the dancehall rude boys’ expressive repertoire, as is evidenced by the names that entertainers adopt, such as 'Josey Wales' and the 'Outlaw Terry Ganzie'.  Norman Stolzoff, Wake The Town And Tell The People (Duke University Press, 2000, p.82).

Yet it is not quite as simple as that.  Stolzoff continues.

“[E]ven while the rude boys were attracted to American popular cultural forms, they, like the Rastas, were attempting to carve out a cultural style that rejected the society’s dominant cultural mold.” 

It is this rejection of the prevailing social and cultural norms which is at the core of the oracular appearance of Ninja Man on the stage at the Sting concert held at JamWorld (December 26, 2002).  Brother Desmond was a medium of the ancestors – a bringer of signs to the people.

The oracle took the form of a scene from an old Wild West movie.  It was an unimaginative restaging of the shoot ‘em flick.  To wit, Bro’ Desmond "decked in leather cowboy outfit amidst the strains of a western song, . . . unapologetically instigated a series of taunting lyrics about the police, while declaring himself a 'real bad man'.  After engaging the frenzied crowd in friendly banter, he boldly and persistently challenged the feared Adams to come on stage. . . ."  (Jamaica Observer, December 28, 2002.)

The suspense builds.  "When the latter [SSP Renato Adams], with trademark dark glasses, made a measured entry to deafening silence, the tumultuous applause from the record [breaking crowd of] thousands quickly followed."  We were set up for a moment of high drama – the showdown. Alas!  What we got was an anticlimax, for the outlaw simply surrendered his gun. 

But did he?  Simply? Let’s break to The Harder They Come.

"One man? No man nutten can’ go so. That one man could escape, apparently unhurt, from what the press called a fusillade of police bullets?

"After killing three and wounding two (policemen). . . . It rang with too many cultural metaphors and had too much of the quality of a movie, a definite star-bwai movie, too"  (p. 390).

A psychological "muderation" took place at Sting 2002.  And it was as unbelievable, in every sense, as was the Rhygin escapade.  For the question is still: How could one man get away with doing so much damage?

Rhygin is the epitome of ghetto manhood.  "Single handedly and unaided, he had killed . . . armed men, themselves intent on his life." (It is the ultimate act of survival and this is the essence of life in the ghetto – survival).  In the mind of the ghetto youth this is a hero of legendary stature.  If the old rude boys had to invent or adopt (and adapt) heroic figures for their roles in the ghetto drama the new rude boys are able to find these in the folkloric tradition of the ghetto.  The drama now unfolds as ghetto theatre on the dancehall stage. 

Ninja Man is not Billy the Kid. He does not inhabit the Hollywood tale.  He is not walking in the blight of John Wayne’s shadow.  He is a dramatist, with a contemporary Jamaican voice, cast in the role of Rhygin.

Even as Rhygin was standing at the gates of eternity he was not afraid.  In fact "[h]e had to fight the laughter that rose up in him. . . . He realized with great astonishment that Babylon, with all their long guns, were afraid of him."

Ninja Man boasted of his arsenal of “long guns”. The implication is astounding.

The Gorgon of classical mythology is a horrid beast having snakes as hair, wings, brazen claws, and eyes that turned anyone looking into them into stone.  As in Greek Mythology so it was on the stage at JamWorld.  The Don Gorgon declared, “Mi a gi yuh mi gun … because mi want yuh fi declare amnesty fi all guns.”  

Adams turned to stone “seemingly rooted to the spot” (Jamaica Observer). It is the scene from The Harder They Come playing over and over again.  “The police raised their heads – but were frozen by fear or disbelief at this apparition.”  It is, indeed, an apparition – a very frightening spectre.

Rhygin was a master of propaganda. Ninja Man is a mass agitator.  Rhygin sent a photograph to the Editor from his leer. Ninja Man posed for reporters in public.  Rhygin had silent, obscure, ghetto sympathizers. Ninja Man holds sway over a nation.  (30,000 cheered for him on stage.)  If Rhygin was the wind, Ninja Man is the reaping of the whirlwind!  Listen to the echo: “Me a real bad man.”  It is a line from The Harder They Come, almost verbatim.  Not a step has been missed, it seems, since Rhygin’s one-man propaganda campaign.  Things only became more unbelievable.

Theatre is said to be a mirror held up to society.  One presumes that the image in the mirror is a reflection. (In this case it seemed like reality.)  However realistic the presentation, the personalities are only actors.  Both Ninja Man and Renato Adams are cast in theatrical roles.  It is all the more powerful because they inhabit these roles inadvertently.  We, who are observers, the audience, have the task of uncovering the meaning conveyed in and through their stage play.

We were treated to the spectacle of a historic struggle of mythic proportions.  Two bad men faced each other on the stage at Sting 2002.  They represented two very antagonistic forces in Jamaican society.  One represented the suffering/striving masses, the other represented the repressive hand of the overlord (a corrupt governmental superstructure).  They stood face-to-face, good against evil. 

The stage was set for mortal combat between archetypal foes.  Ninja Man seized the initiative and gained the high ground. He stripped Adams of his armour, the image that he hides behind, his lawman persona.  "He told Adams: 'We don’t like you and you don’t like we.  Mi a di original gold teeth, front teeth gunman DJ and you a di original gunman police. I giving you this gun because gunman fi stop shoot people and you fe stop shoot ghetto boy.  All de youth whey a carry gun you fe tek dem and train dem an’ tun dem ina police'" (Jamaica Observer).  

Ninja Man nailed it straight on.  The only difference between himself and Adams is that he is a DJ and Adams is a police. They are both equally destructive to the youth and the people.  It is an uncompromising truth.

Ninja Man goes a step further.  He indicates the solution to the problem.  Both types of gunmen, the police and "bad man," should stop shooting people.  He surrenders his weapon in a gesture symbolizing his resolve to this purpose.  Adams did not make a similar gesture, not even in the context of this "comic farce." In this it can be seen that the state bureaucracy has no intention of being part of the solution.  They have nothing to contribute, not even the symbolic surrender of the gun.

Adams searched for a voice and, coming up with the voice of "authority," he spoke of a "mandate." But this false mandate propels him into a debacle.  “Adams responded: 'Ninja, I thank you for this opportunity and I appeal to all those out there who have guns to bring them in. . . . You will not be charged. . . .  I say again, you will not be charged'" (Jamaica Observer). Needles to say, no one from the crowd responded.  He was unaware that Ninja Man had struck a mortal blow.  Adams stepped into a public relations fiasco singing to the tune of his undoing, “It’ll soon be done.”  Indeed, it had been done – irreparable damage to the façade of a courageous JCF. 

Thus "[n]either  Police Commissioner Francis Forbes nor other members of the police high command were available for comment yesterday (December 28 2002) on Adams media statement on the issue which fuelled an assumption that a gun amnesty was in place" (Jamaica Observer).  This kind of behaviour is tantamount to a tactical retreat under fire.  Ninja Man put the entire high command on the defensive.

Minister Phillips confirms that it is a retreat when he tells us that "there [is] no formal immunity from prosecution for persons who hand in guns."  On second thought it is far from a tactical retreat – it is a route.  Says the minister, "[p]eople from time to time turn in guns which they have in their possession where the officers on the ground make a judgement (on whether to forego charges)."  In other words, every constable is a  Magistrate and jury all wrapped up in him/herself.  There is no more precise a definition of anarchy than this.  So the chaos in Jamaica is exposed even more graphically in light of this theatrical incident. Ninja Man gives up his gun and the underbelly of this corrupt society is ever so shamefully exposed.  This is clearly no surrender!

Ninja Man helps us to see that there is no other law in Jamaica but that of the gun.  Every gunman – police, DJ, or plain bad man – is the law in and of himself.  It is a rogues paradise, little different from the days of Henry Morgan in Port Royal. It would be crazy to give up one’s weapon in this context.  Ninja Man kept his Berretta pistol!

Where the lawman failed to find a credible voice, the bad man DJ  found his civic voice.  He echoed the aspirations of the people and articulated their genuine needs. "[A]  way must be found to get rid of the guns and find jobs fi de yute dem inna de ghetto jobs and food fi dem pickney dem” (Jamaica Gleaner).  Jobs for the people and food for the children.  It is a humanitarian imperative!  And this is coming from a ghetto gunman DJ while the elected government is besieging the communities, subjecting the people to the horrors of martial law and the threat of the gun.  The irony is profound.

“Power here [in the Caribbean] is more naked than in any other part of the world,”  wrote C.L.R. James (The Black Jacobins, Vintage, 1963).  Power is not experienced as the “collective will of the people” but as the whimsical acts of brutal and unprincipled individuals.  

In the Jamaican context power is objectified.  It is the gun.  This aberration finds expression in every facet of the life of the people.  Jamaicans have developed fetishism.  They sing songs and dance in celebration of the gun.  It is now their god, the provider, the peacemaker, the protector, the all-powerful cosmic force.  

Ghetto people have learned through the most brutal experiences that the gun is the most compelling force in the society.  It is certainly the only thing which stands between them and the corrupt bastards that rob them of their humanity.  Ninja Man has shown them (the people) not to fear the gun, or the hand that wields it.  He has shown them that it is imperative that all the people take hold of this totem and divest it of their collective power, restoring it to themselves.

Bro’ Desmond standing in front of 30,000 of his admirers vilifying the enforcer is a demonstration of disgust and contempt for the dishonourable Caesars who have set themselves against us.  Ninja Man symbolizes the spirit of heroism which is characteristic of the Jamaican people. This spirit of heroism is simmering just beneath the surface waiting to burst forth to reclaim dignity and generations of lost hope.  Nothing can deny this force.

In the words of the poet Linton Kwesi Johnson: 

Violence is di show.  These are the signs of the times.  The ‘bad man’ is in the leading role because he posses the antidote for the oppressor’s venom.  This is the meaning of the oracle which manifested on stage at the Sting concert.

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updated 13 October 2007