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South West St Andrew
published: Thursday | March 16, 2006
Martin Henry
APART FROM downtown Kingston, South West St. Andrew and surrounding areas were the first parts of the capital city that I got to know very well, as country come to town.
The first place I lived in Kingston was on St. James Avenue off middle Maxfield Avenue just below Lyndhurst Road. I moved into an older brother's one-room in the tradition of the older fore-runners accommodating the younger who followed to get a foot in the city.
But even before moving into Kingston, most of my immediate relatives in the city then lived in this general area. My family had links to Greenwich Town. So I got to know really well that patch of the city from Maxfield Avenue below Lyndhurst Road over to Hagley Park Road and through Greenwich Town down to Marcus Garvey Drive.
I roamed pretty freely over South West St Andrew day and night. Many a night, coming out of Greenwich Town, we would stand without any fear what-soever at the foot of Maxfield waiting for a Jolly Joseph bus to take us up the avenue; or on Spanish Town Road waiting for a bus for Waltham Park Road.
We are not talking about any halcyon days of long, long ago. I am not that old. I got to know South-West St. Andrew in the heady days of the 1970s when Michael Manley and socialism ruled and Portia Simpson was entering representational politics as a KSAC councillor.
'FREE EDUCATION' STUDENT
I made my contribution to the revolution, as a Level IV JAMAL teacher in Greenwich Town, while still a teenager and a 'free education' student myself. I taught a number of JSC subjects. Somehow, I got a number of people, all women who were enthusiastic and hard working, to pass their subjects. Some of my very first set of students went on to professional training on the strength of their JAMAL JSCs.
Like so much of the rest of the city, South West St. Andrew and surrounding areas subsequently took a turn for the worse, experiencing de-development rather than development. The 1997 "Report of the National Committee on Political Tribalism" named eight constituencies with garrison features, among them South-West St. Andrew.
Tony Myers, in his, December 4, 2005, Sunday Gleaner article, "Roll Call - Bogus voting and the leaders-to-be in Jamaica" noted that "in the general elections of 1976 and 1980 (before Portia's time as MP), the constituency of St. Andrew South West reigned supreme as the number one bogus voting constituency." Things have never been that bad since then with a steady decline in over-voting but the overwhelming majority of votes still go to one party.
On Tuesday Hartley Neita provided some data in his 'This Day in Our Past' feature which had the unintended effect of demonstrating the usual closeness of votes when constituencies are not heavily 'organised'. In neighbouring South St. Andrew Anthony Spaulding won the 1972 election, in a magisterial recount, by a mere 300 votes out of 7,416 votes cast. That was never again to happen!
EFFECTS OF 'GARRISONISATION'
The Kerr Report noted that, "Among the more visible physical effects of 'garrisonisation' are the abandonment of legally owned houses and business premises followed by the capture of some of these by illegal occupants and/or the destruction of others through vandalism and inappropriate usage. By this process, large areas of some garrison communities remain in a permanently derelict condition, which in turn fosters criminality and violence".
Areas of South West St. Andrew, like lower Maxfield Ave, have been systematically burned out. The constituency has joined the killing fields in the Police Division of South St. Andrew which has the highest number of homicides per capita in the country. Sitting in close proximity to the largest industrial belt in the country and one of the major trans-shipment ports in the entire Western Hemisphere, the area basks in dereliction.
The de-development changes in South West St. Andrew are metaphors of what has politically, economically and socially gone wrong with Jamaica.
For over 30 years I have watched the decline of this part of the city. The MP, South West St. Andrew, as Prime Minister of the nation has a major task to put her own house in order while leading development across the rest of the country.
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Martin Henry is a communication specialist.
South West St Andrew
published: Thursday | March 16, 2006
Martin Henry
APART FROM downtown Kingston, South West St. Andrew and surrounding areas were the first parts of the capital city that I got to know very well, as country come to town.
The first place I lived in Kingston was on St. James Avenue off middle Maxfield Avenue just below Lyndhurst Road. I moved into an older brother's one-room in the tradition of the older fore-runners accommodating the younger who followed to get a foot in the city.
But even before moving into Kingston, most of my immediate relatives in the city then lived in this general area. My family had links to Greenwich Town. So I got to know really well that patch of the city from Maxfield Avenue below Lyndhurst Road over to Hagley Park Road and through Greenwich Town down to Marcus Garvey Drive.
I roamed pretty freely over South West St Andrew day and night. Many a night, coming out of Greenwich Town, we would stand without any fear what-soever at the foot of Maxfield waiting for a Jolly Joseph bus to take us up the avenue; or on Spanish Town Road waiting for a bus for Waltham Park Road.
We are not talking about any halcyon days of long, long ago. I am not that old. I got to know South-West St. Andrew in the heady days of the 1970s when Michael Manley and socialism ruled and Portia Simpson was entering representational politics as a KSAC councillor.
'FREE EDUCATION' STUDENT
I made my contribution to the revolution, as a Level IV JAMAL teacher in Greenwich Town, while still a teenager and a 'free education' student myself. I taught a number of JSC subjects. Somehow, I got a number of people, all women who were enthusiastic and hard working, to pass their subjects. Some of my very first set of students went on to professional training on the strength of their JAMAL JSCs.
Like so much of the rest of the city, South West St. Andrew and surrounding areas subsequently took a turn for the worse, experiencing de-development rather than development. The 1997 "Report of the National Committee on Political Tribalism" named eight constituencies with garrison features, among them South-West St. Andrew.
Tony Myers, in his, December 4, 2005, Sunday Gleaner article, "Roll Call - Bogus voting and the leaders-to-be in Jamaica" noted that "in the general elections of 1976 and 1980 (before Portia's time as MP), the constituency of St. Andrew South West reigned supreme as the number one bogus voting constituency." Things have never been that bad since then with a steady decline in over-voting but the overwhelming majority of votes still go to one party.
On Tuesday Hartley Neita provided some data in his 'This Day in Our Past' feature which had the unintended effect of demonstrating the usual closeness of votes when constituencies are not heavily 'organised'. In neighbouring South St. Andrew Anthony Spaulding won the 1972 election, in a magisterial recount, by a mere 300 votes out of 7,416 votes cast. That was never again to happen!
EFFECTS OF 'GARRISONISATION'
The Kerr Report noted that, "Among the more visible physical effects of 'garrisonisation' are the abandonment of legally owned houses and business premises followed by the capture of some of these by illegal occupants and/or the destruction of others through vandalism and inappropriate usage. By this process, large areas of some garrison communities remain in a permanently derelict condition, which in turn fosters criminality and violence".
Areas of South West St. Andrew, like lower Maxfield Ave, have been systematically burned out. The constituency has joined the killing fields in the Police Division of South St. Andrew which has the highest number of homicides per capita in the country. Sitting in close proximity to the largest industrial belt in the country and one of the major trans-shipment ports in the entire Western Hemisphere, the area basks in dereliction.
The de-development changes in South West St. Andrew are metaphors of what has politically, economically and socially gone wrong with Jamaica.
For over 30 years I have watched the decline of this part of the city. The MP, South West St. Andrew, as Prime Minister of the nation has a major task to put her own house in order while leading development across the rest of the country.
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Martin Henry is a communication specialist.
South West St Andrew
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