What’s Christopher Tufton’s state of mind?
IN WHAT has been described as an honest, unflinching look at Jamaican politics, Chris Tufton’s account of his first-hand experience in competitive party politics and democratic governance is intended to offer a view of Jamaican politics that is rarely seen.
From his political formation in high school to his joining Young Jamaica at The University of the West Indies, Mona, Tufton shares a detailed account of his involvement with the National Democratic Movement, his return to the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), and his subsequent successful run for a seat in Parliament in 2007. The account of his time in office as a Cabinet minister, alongside his role as a deputy leader of the JLP, gives an insider perspective on the challenges of leadership.
The devastating loss of his seat by 13 votes in the 2011 elections, and the ensuing volatility of his political career, including being exiled from the JLP up until his unlikely comeback in 2016, are recounted for readers. In situating his own journey in the broader context of Jamaican political culture, Tufton wants State of Mind to offer a realistic view of the weaknesses in Jamaica’s democracy, and the factors that keep Jamaica from moving forward as it ought to. Throughout his telling of the details and dynamics of the nitty-gritty of Jamaican politics, he shares aspects of his own life as he grapples with the role of the Church, race and colour, gender, and other controversial issues.
... On childhood
I was raised by the village. There was a sense of responsibility among ourselves; we were each other’s brother’s keeper, as it were. Children moved from one yard to another, and could always be sure they would receive a meal wherever they went. I remember my grandmother forgoing her own dinner in order for a visiting child to eat.
It was a working-class community. My mother was the eighth of eleven children. My grandparents, both originally from Hanbury District and Bonitto Crescent in Mandeville, were from humble backgrounds. My grandfather was a mason and backyard farmer and sometimes a truck driver. My grandmother was a housewife in the first few decades of their marriage, but later worked as a household helper to supplement the family’s income. My aunts and uncles were employed as plumbers, office helpers, secretaries, and office administrators; there was a minister of religion and a lab technician.
I may not have had a father or an ideal two-parent home, but I had everything I needed to succeed. I attended pre-school and then primary school. Perhaps one of the factors auguring for my eventual success was that my Aunt Annette worked at the Manchester Parish Library and always ensured I had books to read, and that I read them. And I had a lot of love.
... On political awakening in high school
HIGH SCHOOL was when I began to form my views on politics, and when I became aware of different ideological perspectives and the different ways of understanding how economics, politics, and societies were shaped by policies and political actions. Vice Principal Curlew Williams, who had been so important in my personal turnaround, was also my A Level economics teacher, and he was instrumental in my political awakening.
Williams enjoyed being challenged on his positions, and I was extremely stimulated by the discussion and by the opportunity to take on my teacher in debate. Williams always pointed to the intersections of politics and economics, and ensured that we understood that they were intertwined and how – lessons that I have never forgotten and that always informed my political positions.
At first I just listened to the arguments. I would go to the library and do my own research. I began reading the newspapers with a more informed understanding of how things worked. Then as I grew surer of my opinions, I began to engage, contesting him whenever and wherever I could. At first I took Williams on just to play devil’s advocate, but over time my views evolved and deepened, and I informed myself more in order to make my arguments stronger. Ironically, Williams leaned to the left, and perhaps it was in my zeal to counter his arguments that my own views developed to be more centrist and even right-of-centre.
These debates were key to my political education and the path that I eventually followed. It was
an ironic outcome that Williams’s greatest influence on me would be to hone my politics to be virtually opposite to his own.
... On sexuality and human rights
I set off for Atlanta to do my master’s degree in marketing in 1993, a recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Scholarship. It was everything I had wanted and expected. It was a tremendous learning experience, and not only because of what was transmitted in the classroom.
I met other people from many different countries, ethnic backgrounds, religious persuasions, and what were to me, at the time, alternative lifestyles. Though most of Georgia is still very conservative and typical of the US South, Atlanta is a cosmopolitan, global city.
This was the first time I saw Muslim women dressed head to toe in black, with only their eyes visible. I saw first-hand how beautiful and regal Ethiopian and Eritrean women were. And it was also the first time I was made to confront people living openly and comfortably as homosexuals.
I had left Jamaica a fairly typical homophobic young man. Growing up in Jamaica, as I did, in a conservative Christian family in a small town, and then living on Chancellor Hall for my university studies, meant that I imbibed and accepted the mainstream messages and thinking on sexuality. I was never violently homophobic, nor did I have particularly strong feelings about the issue, in part, because I was never forced to articulate any definitive position on the matter.
But I felt, as I am sure many in Jamaica coming from a similar background did, that homosexuality was wrong and somehow unnatural.
Living in Atlanta was the first step towards dismantling my closed-mindedness. In neighbourhoods like Buckhead, I witnessed same sex couples, men dressed as women, women dressed as men, and many other variations on what I had been taught was ‘standard’ or ‘normal’ in terms of gendered behaviour.
Not only was I witness to people openly and comfortably living in these ‘alternative’ (to me) ways, I was also cognizant of the fact that they were left alone.
They went about their business, went to work or school, went home to their families, socialised, shopped, and dined in restaurants just as I did. And no one bothered them, just as no one bothered me.
‘At first I just listened to the arguments. I would go to the library and do my own research. I began reading the newspapers with a more informed understanding of how things worked. Then as I grew surer of my opinions, I began to engage, contesting him whenever and wherever I could.’