Nah Vote Again' - Representations of Governance in Jamaican Popular Culture

• Author: Carolyn Cooper
• Pages: 249-259

‘Nah Vote Again’ 249

the Graeco-Latin origins of the English word governance encode a nautical

metaphor: “gubernare to steer”.1 In its purest sense, governance is the art of

steering the ship of state into safe harbour. In our Caribbean small-island states,

the ship is really a canoe, constantly threatened by tempestuous waves of

economic deprivation, devalued human capital, mismanaged natural resources

and, of course, globalisation – that cunning euphemism for the old imperial

politics of appropriation and exploitation. The catchword, ‘globalisation’,

deliberately conceals the treacherous undercurrents that lie beneath its surface

meaning. In these dangerous waters, navigation/governance becomes an oceanic

enterprise worthy of those celebrated African seafarers who came to these shores

long before the predatory Columbus.

Foolhardy politicians who do not understand – or deliberately misrepresent –

the complexity of the challenges of governance in the Caribbean today discover

that the people whom they aspire to rule are not always willing to be steered in

certain directions. So they mutiny. This spirit of rebellion is, at times, manifested

in violent acts of aggression against state authority; or, much more therapeutically,

is articulated in forms of popular discourse that either cry down damnation or

tek bad tings mek joke. Political satire, like its more solemn, denunciatory variant,

becomes a powerful weapon of resistance against incompetent and downpressive

leadership, to use an apt Rastafari neologism. In this exploratory critique of the

representations of governance in Jamaican popular culture, I focus on a single

theme: disengagement from the rituals of partisan political electioneering.

In an impassioned opinion piece published in the Daily Observer of August

12, 2002, Reverend Clinton Chisholm, advocate of the New Jamaica Alliance,

exhorts recalcitrant non-voters to “arise!”:

We are targeting the uncommitted, especially, because you make up between

44 per cent and 52 per cent of eligible voters. We are targeting Christians,

more particularly, because you are the majority of the uncommitted.

‘nah vote aGaIn’ – repreSentatIonS

of GovernanCe In JamaICan

popular Culture

CAROLYN COOPER

CHAPTER FOURTEEN