Hegemony in Post-Independence Jamaica

• Published in: Caribbean quarterly Vol. 57; no. 2; pp. 1 - 23
• Main Author: Dunkley, D. A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kingston Routledge 01.06.2011; University of the West Indies; University of the West Indies, Cultural Studies Initiative; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: America; Autobiographies; Bibliographical notes; Business; Charisma; Colonialism; Communities; Cultural factors; Cultural hegemony; Cultural identity; Cultural policy; Democracy; Democratic socialism; Ethnology; General studies; Hegemony; Ideology; Intellectuals; Levi, Michael; Nationalism; Political leadership; Political parties; Politics; Reggae; Rhetoric; Sex and sexuality; Social relations. Intercultural and interethnic relations. Collective identity; Social structure and social relations; Socialism; Society; Socioeconomics; Time; Postcolonial period; Jamaica; Central America; English-speaking West Indies; Greece; New York; United States > US; Charisma; Politician; Hegemony; Ideology; Politics; Power; Political party
• ISSN: 0008-6495; 2470-6302
• DOI: 10.1080/00086495.2011.11672400

Hegemony is of course quite a difficult concept to apply in a country with a democratic tradition and especially during a time when democracy was at the centre of the political ideology chosen by the leader alleged to be hegemonic. [...]the concept has not been used to shape analysis of the seventies, a significant period in the post-independence history of Jamaica.3 On the other hand, hegemony by definition relies on garnering wide approval from the population, and so reliance on the rhetoric of democracy is necessary in a context where hegemony is being applied. Unemployment was 22.8 percent in 1972 despite the growth of the economy by 5.81 percent in what was known as the "golden" period: the late 1960s.24 The Industrial Development Corporation generated £5.6 million investment capital, but less than ? percent of this money had been used for job creation.25 According to Colin Palmer, in the sixties "[f]ew could maintain with confidence that black Jamaicans who constituted a majority of the population wielded economic power".26 The Jamaican film The Harder They Come, released in 1970, depicted some of the poverty and desperation of the black majority.27 In 1972, political scientist Carl Stone gave this description highlighting that the socioeconomic condition of the poor had deteriorated even further: "The lumpen culture espouses unbridled sexuality and violence, mastery of the gun, hostility to all symbols and figures of authority, class and racial militancy . . . unrestrained individualism, egocentric behaviour, and a disdain for work, particularly manual work. In this regard, nations have been described as products of the imagination, which require the manufacturing of a "spiritual principle" that also establishes the "soul" or identity of those nations.42 Other observations describe the production of a "sense of belonging" as the foundation on which nations are built.43 In postcolonial societies such as Jamaica, "new and powerful identities" can be created and also recreated fairly easily if these can convincingly offer to "challenge" existing and past linkages to "colonialism not only at a political or intellectual level, but also on an emotional basis".44 The ability to shift around the idea of the nation is due to what Homi K. Bhabha calls its "cultural temporality". Eric Hobsbawm delivers this list of factors, among others, which he shows can help in the shaping of nations and nationalism. [...]leaders who decide not to address these issues will soon become aware of their inability to lead with any success.4^ From before 1972, Manley had been speaking about addressing more directly the people's "hopes, needs, longings and interest".