Africa our body, Europe our mind — a winning history!
An ancient Chinese vase no taller than my hand sold for the equivalent of $1b last week by auction house Bainbridges. I also saw the Book of the Dead, a 70-metre long manuscript from Egypt of 5000 years ago – awesome! Kofi’s stool was used by chiefs of his village for centuries and as the new chief, he is deciding if he can combine life as a London solicitor with his new role as chief. I say, “Stay with the law.” He says that, I, a “slave baby with no history”, can’t advise him; I call him “Chief by Skype” as that’s how he keeps in touch with his village. Kofi is right. As a Jamaican I have no weight of history to compete with my career. I don’t rush home when an elder in my district dies. He does! When my old JP in Halls Delight died I was a diligent successor; but I see no event that would make me jump on a plane like Kofi. Jamaicans are of the West. Our body is of Africa but our spirit is not. Ours is not a “new” history, it is ours, our only history. We have no other!
History is the handmaiden of all disciplines; crucial to most, essential to all. By history we trace the rise of man, our world, nation, village, family. By regressions in space and time we unravel the history of our universe, find galaxies our zeros can’t even count and see the “big bang”. Was it a bang if no one heard it? An extrusion? Not a blast? Man is neither the start nor the end. History teaches us the seasons of life, templates; real and imagined things that awed our ancestors and affect us. We deconstruct nature to innovate, hence an aircraft is modelled on a bird. Our body’s history is also written in mitochrondria DNA and may tell us: your unborn child may be bipolar; expect prostate or breast cancer, hypertension, diabetes – the living Word of God – we are just discovering how to read it. Even our “sickler” trait says we stayed in malarial Africa too long after others left for Asia and Europe. Earth’s history allows us to predict the next ice age because its layers tell us the timing of the last one.
Some people think history is boring, but we are nothing without history. Despite a common origin, we come in different colours and develop differently by our history. Jamaicans are of Europe; of Sargon, Hammurabi, the polyglot people lost among the empires of Mesopotamia and some who wrote the Torah over centuries. The Book traversed the Dardanelles, Danube, the Channel; crossed to the Americas and West Indies and informs our law, democracy and all our lives. Apocalyptic preachers say Revelation’s endgame is the Middle East. They are correct! The Book contains the myth and reality of that small world between the Levant and the Indus – Egypt and Mesopotamia, not London or New York; the Euphrates and Tigris, not the Thames or Mississippi! The world of the Torah was small but its ideas are potent and from West Asia it trickled into Europe. Ancient China, India,the Americas and sub-Saharan Africa were not in its footprint and all were more advanced than the West.
Jamaican ethos, logic, memory, mindset, lifestyle and goals are of Europe. We don’t aspire to be African chiefs – but a Gates or Gaga. Our island was prized by the English owners and back then its maritime and industrial technologies were cutting-edge. Then they gave us the island, we consumed, neglected the engines of growth, reverted to subsistence and voilà, we are here. We still look to others to save us and to take our surplus citizens when we can’t support them. We take no responsibility. Soon, our “Out of many one people” will fade just as by miscegenation in England the red hair of the Celts, the swarthy faces of Normans are now rare. Africa is our bodies, Europe our minds; we are envied, yet with this winning combination we still fail as a nation.
Europe has lots of history. Of the last 500 years of Jamaica’s history little is ours and our part is uninspiring. I love the people who shaped our world; those between the Nile and Huang-Ho who laid the foundations. The West learnt via the Aegean and their growth and technology wizardry is dazzling. Now the East rises again! Other bits of history are fascinating. Africa is all origins; my body and black skin. But Europe my mind; wrote of the Zulu wars, made films of Shaka and I am grateful as I will not live to read Africa’s version. Bible history is also important. The millions of Jews, 2 billion Christians and 1.5 billion Muslims who revere the Torah is a massive union! Don’t mess with a book that moves 4 billion people! Its retail psychology is potent! Specialist histories are also fun. I want to write a history of saltfish – exported by Egypt over 4000 years ago to nations which store food for winter or military use. Imagine, we have fresh food all year round but ruin our health with salt foods while our visionless Cabinet bewails the cost of health care and wastes millions to treat hypertension and associated ailments. But will they take preventative measures? Big-up fresh local food? Guweh!
In the sweep of history, Bruce, Portia, you, me, we are cyphers. We will live only in the memory of those who love us. Our island emerged millennia ago by tectonic plate action and was peopled from the East. Our region’s written history began 650 years ago with the Chinese. We and our European handlers are newcomers. Our English history was successful for that era – victory in battle, natives subdued, sugar as king, full employment. Our own leaders added joblessness, insecurity and murder as their contribution. The modern history of our nation is a failure by standards in any era.
History is a bond of trust between one generation and the next; a standard, a legacy. British people celebrate Emancipation as their history – their 30-year mission – and their children learn to be valiant and generous – builds character. We celebrate Emancipation as our history – a gift, a free curry goat – and our kids learn to expect gifts – no character is built here! But history does not determine our future and we need leaders who are fair, wise and honest to forge a good history. Who will go? It’s your call, my friend!
BREAD OF DEATH? I got an unbranded loaf of Jamaican hardo bread and was shocked at the high sugar content. Which agency regulates our prepared foods? The sugar, salt, fat, E numbers (dyes, preservatives, flavourants, odorants, etc) they contain? Are we eating ourselves into a cancerous, diabetic grave? Speak out!
Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston Consultants currently on assignment in the UK. franklinjohnston@hotmail.com