Jamaican language anchoring cultural exports
DESPITE VIEWS To the contrary, one of our biggest exports has been our culture, in all its marketable manifestations. A big part of what has made our cultural artefact so marketable is our language, i.e., Jamaican Patois, or creole.
Jamaican Patois, our mother tongue, is expressed through our music; dramatic presentations, including films and plays; food; fashion; and distinctive personality. Despite the naysayers, our language has significant legitimacy in the global marketplace. Phrases like ‘yeah, mon’ are as synonymous as Bob Marley is with Jamaica.
Even our Caribbean neighbours are adopting Jamaican Patois, which is increasingly viewed as cool in cosmopolitan circles internationally. Increasingly, the Jamaican language has been adopted by the world and is used in songs, movies, fashion lines, food, and commercial and theatrical presentations in North America,
THE FOLLOWING op-ed comes in commemoration of World AIDS Day, which is observed every year on December 1.
HIV/AIDS has come a long way since the early ’80s when it first turned up on our doorsteps. Of the nearly 34,000 persons estimated to be living with HIV in Jamaica, 79 per cent know they are carrying the virus – the first step to getting treatment.
Much has changed from those early days when people living with the virus were described as “dying from AIDS” and deteriorated rapidly as new HIV infections outpaced the rate at which the response came. Since the introduction of public access to antiretroviral (ARV) drugs in 2004, Jamaica has seen a reduction of almost 60 per cent in the number of people dying from AIDS-related illnesses.
But 30 years on, and with much work behind us, HIV and AIDS are still with us and in unacceptable numbers. This tells us that we have work to do and that much more collaboration is needed in order to meet the 9090-90 global targets.
The 90-90-90 target aims to have, by 2020, 90 per cent of all people living with HIV know their status, 90 per cent of those diagnosed receiving sustained ARV therapy, and 90 per cent of those on ARVs virally suppressed.
As of September 2018, only 11,900 PLHIV were retained on therapy and another 6,741 virally, suppressed – meaning that more than 22,000 persons estimated to be living without the virus are without treatment.
Despite the advancements made, there is a looming crisis in the area of prevention, particularly among our youth. A total of 1,364 adolescents aged 10-19 and 2,632 youth aged 20-24 are living with HIV. According to the Ministry of Health’s 2017 Knowledge, Attitudes, Practices and Behaviour Survey (KAPB), transactional sex is reported among 24.5 per cent of adolescents aged 15-19 and 45.4 per cent among youths aged 20-24.
The study also shows that comprehensive knowledge of HIV (endorsement of effective prevention methods and rejection of popular myths) has decreased over the previous Europe, Japan, and Africa.
During a recent visit to Ghana, I went to a dancehall event on the beach in Accra and was pleased to hear the juggling from the sound crew – with Jamaican curse words and all. After enjoying the vibe for a while, the Jamaican selector who took me to the venue introduced me to the crew who were playing. Not one of the sounds system crew, which included a white female, was Jamaican. However, I could not tell the difference when they were on the microphone.
I had a similar experience while on a visit to St Vincent, where again at a popular nightspot, the entire scenario could have been in Kingston.
FASHIONABLE STYLE
Jamaican Patois is fast becoming a fashionable style among non-Jamaicans in many areas of culture and entertainment. Examples include the selectors of Japanese sound system Mighty Crown, all fluent in Jamaican and sound system vocabulary. They have been winning sound clashes and entertaining fans internationally.
Popular actor Sacha Baron Cohen is known for his hit movies Borat and Bruno, and shot to fame when his comic reporting period. More worrying is the fact that 58 per cent of adolescents reported having sex before the age of 14. Against this background, greater collaboration between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education, in partnership with parents and faith-based organisations, is needed to address the glaring gaps.
STIGMA STILL WITH US
Stigma and discrimination are still with us even after tireless advocacy by Jamaica AIDS Support for Life and other organisations. This has farreaching implications for any HIV & AIDS programme and must be addressed frontally.
The KAPB survey shows that accepting attitudes to PLHIV not only remain low, but declined significantly in 2017 when compared to 2012.
It is the responsibility of the State to protect all its citizens. To do so, reducing stigma and discrimination must become a matter of priority for any administration by removing unhelpful laws that criminalise HIV transmission, sex work, and sexual orientation or hinder access to services.
JASL calls on Jamaicans to familiarise themselves with these laws and join our lobbying efforts to have enacted appropriate and adequate anti-discrimination laws, Data Protection Act, Sexual Harassment Bill and Occupational Safety & Health Act.
Despite the work left to be done, international agencies such as Global Fund and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) have already signalled that they would be transitioning from the Caribbean. While the scope of that transition is unclear, already, Jamaica has seen reduced funding while other Caribbean countries have had their funding cut altogether. Despite the Government’s recent increase in domestic funding, further injection is necessary to fill the gaps left by donor organisations. HIV & AIDS must be viewed for the national crisis that it is and addressed with no less vigour by all.
HIV is not only a health issue, but a social one that spans areas such as employment, education, and youth development, and so our final appeal is for the private sector to provide muchneeded resources to assist in funding the HIV response.
Robyn Miller is project and communications coordinator at Jamaica AIDS For Life. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and rmiller@jasforlife.org.
Icharacter Ali G, a junglist, from West London, started appearing on the British television show The 11 O’Clock Show on Channel 4 in 1998. A year after the premiere of the show, GQ named him comedian of the year. He won Best Newcomer at the 1999 British Comedy Awards and was nominated for Best British Entertainment Performance at the British Academy Television Awards.
Da Ali G Show began in 2000 and won the British Academy Television Awards for Best Comedy the following year. Also in 2000, Baron Cohen, as Ali G, appeared as the limousine driver in Madonna’s 2000 video Music. In 2002, Ali G was the central character in the feature film Ali G Indahouse. His television show was exported to the United States in 2003 and was featured on HBO.
Then there is Kofi Kingston of World Wrestling Entertainment(WWE), that multimillion-dollar entertainment outfit that is popular globally with more fans than most major sports. This professional wrestler, who is actually from Ghana, is marketed as the only Jamaican wrestler in the WWE. Kingston speaks in a Jamaican accent the best he can and wears the Jamaican flag colour almost exclusively. These on-screen gimmicks were touted as “paying tribute to Jamaican culture”.
Boston College-educated Kingston was billed as coming from Jamaica because according to Leslie Goffe of the BBC, “people would be more likely to embrace a person from the land of Bob Marley and reggae music” than someone from Ghana.
These are but a few examples of cashing in on Jamaican creole by outsiders who have found merit and power in our culturally unique way of communicating. This intangible cultural heritage is a valuable asset.
However, because of our colonial past, we have neglected it to our detriment. If we continue to ignore our Jamaican language and be ashamed of it, we do so at our own peril. We need to give it the legitimacy it deserves by teaching it formally in school so that we can be more effective in speaking our imposed foreign tongue, English.
The Jamaican language, rather than being an obstacle, is really an asset and can be an important tool in marketing our cultural artefacts. It is, indeed, part of our competitive advantage. We can’t allow the rest of the world to profit from our culture and our language and not be a central part of these economic opportunities.
Dr Dennis Howard is a musicologist and general manager of radio services for the RJRGLEANER Group. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.
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