Recently, I was watching a cartoon about how some villains were trying to take over the world.  They were trying to accomplish their conquest of earth by feeding humanity with music that had some secret brainwashing lyrics.  After listening to the song, the people would all follow the new leader – blindly doing what he says.  While I was watching the cartoon, I could not help but be reminded of Jamaica’s “music”.  Do we still produce music in Jamaica or is it now some kind of mental re-programming?

For some time now, Jamaica’s music scene has undergone some sort of revolution.  Gone are the days when music was something that all (or at least most) could listen to without having to worry.  These days – Jamaica’s music is an incitement to violence, hatred and ignorance.  Of particular concern, is the very disturbing trend of many of our musicians urging us to take our brains out of our heads and put all of our hopes in dead gods such as Jehovah, Jesus and especially the skeletal remains of Ethiopia’s last emperor – the late Selassie.

Most of these musicians are really ignorant thugs – incapable of much thinking.  This in itself would not be too bad – except for the fact that many of our young people now see them as perfect role models.  What they do is no longer “sing”, but incite.

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Time was, a boy who was fatherless due to the premature death of his dad was taken under the wing of a variety of upstanding men and built into a strong, confident and godly man. Those members of the brotherhood deserve our appreciation.

Fast forward a few decades. A boy now has additional reasons for being fatherless. He may be the result of a weekend fling, a deliberate act of pregnancy, or a few clicks on the Internet to have a child without the ring, rice, and preacher. Oh yes, don’t expect the single mother to be all that anxious to turn him over to the REAL men of the community for training.

As current society is rooted in sexual fantasy rather than marital reality, we now have a cottage industry dedicated to the fatherless; a host of grants and social programs designed to replace the need for the Bible, marriage, the church, and upright men. School houses have become one stop shopping centers. Forget the 3 Rs; now we have health care, welfare, and legal aid in the school house. Also, community centers and churches have after hours programs to replace family mealtime. Social workers replace family discussions. Jail, Juvie and waiver hearings replace parental discipline.

What of the single mother? Well, she can continue to ‘get her itch scratched’ by whatever male who might be breathing (age is optional). She does not worry about the need for marriage. Neither does she have to ‘go public’ with her OOW bundle of joy for manhood training of any type. Various family members, social commentators, and church members have allowed her a ‘pass’ to have full rights as a member of the community.

In an arrant display of rank political opportunism, Venezuela’s faltering middle-class opposition parties have announced that they would boycott the December 4 legislative elections. Far from a principled and high minded move, this tawdry tactic represents a cynical decision on the part of the opposition to spare itself the inconvenience of once again having to face the humiliating defeat that they surely would have experienced at the polls. The opposition’s tactic is more in line with a Tom Delay or Karl Rove ruse than something of Jeffersonian stature.

While trumpeting claims about Venezuela’s ebbing democracy, the opposition has proven itself to be far more guilty of eroding the country’s democratic structures than any grab for power by the chavistas. In essence, the opposition is prepared to sacrifice the nation’s democratic system to serve its immediate objective of ousting the government by any means, on the false grounds that the authorities cannot guarantee free and fair elections. Every election that has been held in Venezuela since Chávez came to power has been extensively monitored, and even the U.S. State Department has been forced to grudgingly validate the authenticity of past results, as their legitimacy was unimpeachable.

By choosing this truly undignified and undemocratic tactic, the Venezuelan opposition has only weakened its position in the eyes of the world. Had it participated in the election, and succeeding in documenting fraud (an unlikely scenario), it would have been able to make legitimate claims. But by refusing even symbolic participation, the opposition has chosen to court Washington alone, rather than convince the international community of its democratic bonafides. In fact, the opposition has taken this drastic move because it lacks any hope that it could prevent itself from going down before a chavista landslide victory.

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The tendency of consumers to punish corporate predators, whether perceived or real, was recently suspected in Jamaica, after the monopoly on the telecommunications market was lifted by the Jamaican government (Robinson, 2001). According to a report in the Sunday Herald (2002)[i], consumers, including a large portion of inner city residents, gravitated to the new mobile provider, the Irish company Digicel, in droves. It was a widely accepted view in Jamaica that the mass purchases of mobile packages was likely to be a customer protest, after experiencing several years of unfair, unethical and predatory pricing practices and poor customer services by the monopoly telecommunication provider.

According to the Digicel Jamaica website (http://www.digiceljamaica.com/about/)[ii],  “…when Digicel launched their GSM mobile service in Jamaica, the company anticipated reaching the 100,000 customer plateau by the end of its first year in operation.  They hit the mark a mere 100 days after launch. Never before in the history of mobile telecommunications had such tremendous growth been seen in a network”  (http://www.jamaica-leaner.com/gleaner/20020326/business/business1.html) [iii] Digicel overtook the competitor as the mobile provider with the largest customer base in the island.

According to the Digicel Jamaica website (at http://www.digiceljamaica.com/about/), it took its major competitor approximately 10 years to reach the 400,000 customers mark. In comparison, it took Digicel about 13 months to reach the same figure. Digicel's customer base now stands at over 1 million customers and the company currently commands approximately 65% of the mobile market share in Jamaica. All this achievement took place in only four years of operation.

Digicel’s customer profile also showed a significant proportion of poor consumers who were predominantly first time mobile users who previously could not afford to access mobile service from the monopolistic mobile provider. The former monopoly has never recovered from the massive exodus of its customers and simultaneous mass migration to its competitors, who offered these customers value for money while Digicel Jamaica continue reap the profits.

In answering the fundamental sociological question (as to the origin or existence of society), Marx employed a materialism approach.  He began by analyzing human activity, and argued that consciousness is a product of that (economic) activity (Key Sociological Thinkers, 1998).  Thus, in the Preface to (A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 1859), he argued that “it is not the consciousness of man that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness”. 

In his (Marx) views, society is the relationship acted out by individuals in coming to terms with the material conditions of their subsistence (Haralambos and Holborn, 2002).  For him, there needed to be a material makeover of society, rather than a change in consciousness, for the achievement of human freedom.  In using the economic world or ‘historical materialism’ to analyze this transformation and development, Marx purported the very social institutions originated from or exists in economic behaviour (Classical Sociological Theory, 1997).  This may explain why Marx is credited with the position of ‘historical materialism’ or ‘economic determinism’.

In the Communist Manifesto, it is argued that ‘the history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle’.  Thus, concurrent with his ‘historical determinism’ or historical materialism’ dialectics approach, Marx went on to look at class conflict as being the driving force of social change from one historical epoch to the next.

In distinguishing the five (5) different historical epochs or stage of societies to which every society exist or existed belong:  Primitive communism, ancient slavery, feudal society, capitalism and ultimately communism societies.  Marx forwarded a position that class society began when the structure and-or superstructure was no longer communally owned, and thereby moved to privatization of resources (Classical Sociological Theory).  As such, class emerges and along with it, class conflict (due to the separation of wealth in the mode of production), there also emerged a dialectical struggle that characterized the relationship between the rulers and the ruled, the oppressor and the oppressed (Master of Sociological Thought, 1971, pp.).

Every day, all around the world, natural and cultural wonders are being threatened by pollution, overdevelopment, and other seemingly inevitable by-products of modern life. But look a little closer and you'll find organization such as Falmouth Heritage Renewal making a difference. 

Falmouth Heritage Renewal is the recipient of Travel + Leisure Magazine’s 2005 Global Vision Award for preserving the Historic District of Falmouth and bolstering the community surrounding it.  Travel + Leisure Magazine introduced the Global Vision Awards in order to recognize the most innovative projects and organizations that are defending the historical, cultural, and ecological integrity of the traveler's world. To learn more about this Award, visit www.travelandleisure.com.

A leading outpost for the British Empire in the 19th century, Falmouth, Jamaica, was a busy port town full of elegant townhouses, merchant stores, and residences. With some of the richest examples of Georgian architecture in the Caribbean, Falmouth remains a city of immense cultural importance. Having been passed over by the island's thriving tourism industry, however, the town is facing alarmingly high unemployment rates, and its historic buildings are in a state of severe disrepair.

Falmouth Heritage Renewal, a four-year-old US-based grassroots non-profit organization, is tackling the city's problems by training locals in restoration and putting them to work to save the historic architecture. Falmouth Heritage Renewal hopes to eventually draw thousands of tourists to the historic district, thereby revitalizing the area's economy. The organization has already trained 34 young Jamaicans in carpentry and in the manufacture and use of mortar for preservation work. The group has restored nearly two dozen edifices, ranging from modest single-room houses to colonnaded commercial buildings—structures that provide vivid insight into the lives of both the slave owners and the emancipated slaves who constructed the city in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. To learn more, visit www.falmouthjamaica.org.

“Our efforts in Falmouth are a growing success because of the collaborative work that we do with Custos Barrett of the Parish of Trelawny, Mayor Bartley of the Trelawny Parish Council, Falmouth Restoration Company, Falmouth Tourist Board, HEART Trust/NTA Falmouth VTC, and the William Knibb Trust,” comments Dr. James Parrent, Executive Director of Falmouth Heritage Renewal.  “I want to recognize these groups for all their hard work and passion in preserving the historic integrity of Falmouth.  The Travel + Leisure Award acknowledges not only the great work of Falmouth Heritage Renewal, but that of the entire community.”

The mission statement of Falmouth Heritage Renewal (FHR) is to preserve and restore the historic buildings of Falmouth, Jamaica while making the lives of the people who live there better.  Founded in 2001, FHR is a United States registered 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization. FHR works in partnership with the Falmouth Restoration Company, a Jamaican non-profit charity with a mission to preserve the historic integrity of Falmouth.