Dem hooligans
by Imran Khan on Friday, 2 December 2011 at 16:39
Since yesterday I’ve had many folks call me for updates on “wha happenin in town”.
“Why dem behavin so?”
“Is de same ting every time dem lose.”
“Dem always got to bruk up and mek trouble.”
“Dem nah like wuk.”
“Dem hooligans at it again nah?”
Let me state at the outset that I have had conversations with persons integrally involved in the process (not Dr. Steve Surujbally or Gocool Boodhoo) for whom I have the highest regard and they assure me that the results as announced by GECOM are not unfair. On that basis I accept the results. Let me also state that I do not endorse any form of physical assault, brutality or destruction of property.
But let me tell you a few things about ‘dem hooligans’.
Dem hooligans are sufferers. They have been made into sufferers not because ‘dem nah like wuk’ (as is the common coolie refrain) but because there is either no wuk fuh dem or only low paying demeaning wuk such as waitressing at fish shops, picking up garbage, shovelling refuse from clogged alleyways or cleaning toilets.
That is what your guvament has done to decent people. Dem hooligans are products of your guvament’s neglect of them.
Dem hooligans long for a decent life; to afford to put clothes on their backs (and not have to rely on hand me downs from farrin); food in their children’s mouths and a roof over their heads. What gives you the right to peace to cruise quickly dilapidating streets in your touch screen control panel Prados while the sufferers suffer?
The world will not suddenly cease on its axis if you are inconvenienced because you (or your driver) have to slip out of your air conditioned office to pick up your daughter at a prestigious private school because dem hooligans out on the street. No really, the world won’t end. Neither will it end if dem hooligans block High Street in Kingston and your daughter can’t get to Lifestyle’s to get her dress for her school’s Christmas party.
Here is a suggestion that you may find revolting: dem hooligans deserve a decent life too.
You live in your lavishly appointed concrete prisons and cast judgment on dem hooligans. You may pretend to be oblivious to it or you may be blissfully ignorant of it but such ignorance or pretence will not reconfigure reality.
Dem hooligans sufferin. And if you was one ah dem hooligans who been sufferin the worst of sufferation for 19 years, whether the result is fair or not, you would be on de streets de same way to let dem big ones know dat yuh sufferin real sufferation. I would.
You know you are beneficiaries of a sickening silent system of affirmative action while dem hooligans are being marginalized, discriminated against and criminalized.
When dem hooligans sit in dem shacks and dem and dem pickney aint got food to eat dem doan tink bout science – social or political. Dem does tink bout wha dem seein around dem.
Dem does tink bout de Range Rovers, Hummers, Lexuses, BMWs, Benzs, Prados and Fortuners. Dem does tink bout de fact dat dem fancy rides are being driven, 95% of de times by people who look a certain way. Dem does tink bout de mansions dat are owned mostly by people who don’t look like dem. Dem does be wonderin how it is dat tings so different fuh dem and so prosperous fuh some others.
Dem hooligans might not be able to prove it but dem know is de system. Dem know de system has been constituted to oppress dem and enrich the rich. Dem hooligans frustrated. Dem eatin tennis roll fuh dinner while you feedin yuh dog prime cut meats.
If we think that such barefaced disparity will continue indefinitely without dem hooligans reaching a breaking point we livin in fairyland. It might not happen now, dem might be able to hold strain for some time more but dem hooligans can’t live in sufferation forever. If we don’t start attending to the needs of dem hooligans de pressure cooker gon explode.
Dem hooligans aint want handouts, dem want a chance – a fair chance to live a decent life. Dem aint marching or begging fuh anything dat dem aint entitled to. Dem marching fuh dem rights. Dem feel cheated, not so much by de results, but by de system which says dat 51% is equal to 100%.
Dem hooligans is people too, dem entitled to equal rights and justice. We deny them at our own peril.
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