4 months ago
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Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley told a large Jamaica Music Museum (JaMM) Grounation gathering at the Institute of Jamaica’s (IOJ) Lecture Hall last Sunday that her strong advocacy had been inspired by reggae icon Bob Marley.
Speaking at JaMM’s 13th annual cultural symposium, on the theme, ‘Bob Marley at Eighty: His Music, Legend and Legacy’, in a pre-recorded presentation, Mottley said she had been listening to Marley since childhood, so much so that she had become a “disciple of his vision”. She recalled feeling this was something “special” as a teenager listening to Bob sing, “ Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our mind”, long before she even knew the words were originally those of Marcus Garvey.
Invoking several of the reggae legend’s popular songs throughout her 15-minute-long presentation, Mottley lamented that there was “so much trouble in the world”, pointing to the “deep inequalities” atrocities such as the COVID-19 pandemic exposed and the fact that “the most vulnerable among us suffer first and suffer worse”.
“ Don’t let them fool you, or even try to school you,” she cautioned against the powers that seek to “divide and undermine democracies” – propaganda, rumours, fake news, social media algorithms, conspiracy theories, and the absence of common spaces that encourage shared values and shared facts. Many of these divisions she said were happening in our own backyard in the form of violence and the degradation of our music.
Reminding her audience of the revolutionary stance of Marley in his charge to “ get up, stand up, stand up for your right”, Mottley noted that fulfilling his philosophy meant that we had to become advocates for the many issues with which the Caribbean and vulnerable states like ours grapple.
Still, she said Marley had warned us, “Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war!’”
“If we do not act, we risk losing an entire generation … to a war of the mind, a war of the soul, a war of hopelessness,” the two-term prime minister said.
She said it was the responsibility of leadership to respond to the challenges, noting that leadership is about “action”, later pointing out that Marley used his art, influence and voice to act and that a similar approach was needed if the people of the Caribbean are to receive due justice.
“Justice is not given. It is demanded,” she said, noting that Marley was all too aware of this and fully grasped the issues that maintained divisiveness among us; issues, for which, she said, Caribbean governments must demand action from their more powerful counterparts.
“Are we demanding of the financial systems that small-island states should not have to beg for climate justice? Are we demanding that our education systems teach our children not just how to make a living, but how to make a difference?” she asked, telling them, “Our fate is in our hands.”
Professor Clinton Hutton, retired University of West Indies lecturer, and Dr Michael Barnett, senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology at UWI rounded out a two-man panel following Mottley’s presentation. The proceedings were moderated by attorney-at-law and journalist Dionne Jackson-Miller.
Held every Sunday in February at 2 p.m., Grounation brings together a community of culture and music enthusiasts for a ‘reasoning’ on various aspects of the country’s musical history juxtaposed against a contemporary society.
English (US) ·