FOOTBALL in JAH Mek Ya : From EMANCIPATION To The REGGAE BOYZ

CONSCIOUS MOVEMENT   presents

A Sneak Preview / Excerpt from the soon-to-be-released book titled:  Liberation Football  in JAH Mek Ya : FROM EMANCIPATION To The REGGAE BOYZ

Consider an Island 11,424 square kilometers in size with a population just fewer than 3 million people...located 90 miles south of Cuba and 100 miles west of Haiti. Consider further an Island with-out a professional football(soccer)league system, whose secondary(high)school competitions generate more excitement / enthusiasm and attracts more media and spectator attention and support than the Island's club leagues or national team.
This serves as a backkground to the "culture team" of the 1998 World Cup Final- JAMAICA REGGAE BOYZ -the first English-speaking Caribbean Nation state to Qualify for the world's biggest sporting spectacle- the FIFA WORLD CUP.

The construction of JAMAICA as a Nation is steeped in a maelstrom of imperialistic power relations. From as early as 1517, Africans had been brought to the Caribbean as household slaves to tend to the personal needs of their Spanish masters. By the late 17th century, the English began importing large number of enslaved Africans for sale to the planters.For the next 150 years, JAMAICA was a Slave Plantation Society(SPS), specializing in the production of sugar cane for export to England. Slave society lasted until 1838, the year of formal but substantially in-complete emancipation.

At the turn of the 20th century, the emancipated slave societies of the United States of America and the Caribbean [colonial societies] could be aptly described as ‘dichotomized’ along the line of RACE, that is, as it relates to power/power-less-ness; domination/submission, oppressor/oppressed.

In essence, Emancipation meant that the white planters could no longer own African People as their slaves. Europeans however still owned the Land and therefore held the key to survival of the former slaves as free (thinkers) and independent producers. Access to education, housing, medical benefits, etc. remained the “preserve of the Ruling/Planter class” while the mass of the population experienced high levels of illiteracy, unemployment and homelessness, as a general features of their daily existence.

Despite the rigours and severity of slavery, despite the all-embracing nature of the exploitation by the European of the African, the latter nonetheless, was never completely subdued. In one form or another, the enslaved African expressed resentment to his lot, sometimes in covert, direct and relatively mild manner, at other times in direct revolt against the object of his oppression. The slave system offered few outlets for such feelings. One of the few exceptions was their 're-creation'. These recreations offered well-needed outlets for pent-up aggressions and hostilities. The aggression of the enslaved African population found expression in their Dancing, Drumming and Playing.

The Black community had been encouraged from the slavery period to use their ‘free-time’ in full indulgence in the sort of cultural activity that did not in any way appear to whites as informed by a spirit of resistance. Any cultural expression that whites feared or considered rebellious was outlawed. Notwithstanding the fact that the domain of politics, economics, education and technology remained in the hands of white educated elites, the “avenue” opened for Black/Afri-centric expression” found favor in the relatively ‘safe spheres/spaces’ of Religion Entertainment and Sport.

Historically, the entry of Black males into the social institution of sport was conditional with formal segregation, particularly in the US, often imposed. When Black African males did compete directly and publicly with Europeans, such competition was organized on the premise that the 'whiteman' would eventually win, thereby maintaining the racial order, and where this could not be guaranteed, the prohibition of Blacks was quickly instated.


(c) Dr. Don Davis 2009
Conscious Movement Publications