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And nuhbaddy nuh hear a word, np pikcha poas, no video.
A wah dis media blk-out ar wah
A wah dis media blk-out ar wah
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Emp - the only place I heard about it was on the "Justice" show yesterday with Malahoo Forte. -
Well I guess that answers my question the other night about whether or not the media would cover it. The Gleaner announced it.
Noon March For Tivoli, Coral Gardens Raid Today
Today, a march and motorcade from downtown Kingston to Half-Way Tree will literally connect the two events in a protest. However, poet and broadcaster Mutabaruka emphasised the connection in the treatment of Jamaican citizens by the state, although the two happened 47 years apart.All are invited to participate.
"The people reach the stage where the state a do what dem used to do to Rastafari to dem. Dem used to say it a happen to Rasta, it nah happen to me," Mutabaruka said. He pointed out that 50 years ago, in the brutality stemming from Coral Gardens, "the state influence the people to fight against Rasta, so is not only the state, but the people".
Now, he said, "it is not just the Rasta in problem", for there is not only the Tivoli incursion but also the high level of police killings in day-to-day activities.
The march starts at Ward Theatre, downtown Kingston, at noon, with the marchers going around Parade once before going up to the corner of Duke and Sutton streets for a half-hour silent protest. From there, they go to National Heroes Park and then there will be a motorcade along Marescaux Road, Half-Way Tree Road, on to Balmoral Avenue, Eastwood Park Road and then South Odeon Ave to Mandela Park.
At the park, there will be various speakers on the issues, Mutabaruka broadcasting live on IRIE FM with his Stepping Razor programme. IRIE FM, the Rastafari Millennium Council and the Coral Gardens Committee head are major forces in organising the protest, with ROOTS FM and NewsTalk slated to participate.
"We trying to make it a unification of radio stations, so the media do something to raise the consciousness of the people," Mutabaruka said.
Mutabaruka pointed to the high rate of police killings and said, "Is something that is a problem to Jamaica right now, the excessive killing by the police, to know Rastafari went through it, from Pinnacle to Coral Gardens to other atrocities. We coming to that understanding through experience. Everybody have to learn. It reach the stage where Rasts say we did tell you."
There will not be a concert element at Mandela Park. "You no have no music whe talk 'gainst police and Babylon like reggae. Is just after the music, what is there? Sometimes the artiste not even turn up," Mutabaruka said. "We make it clear is not a reggae concert. It is about sharing knowledge. It is about enlightening the people to what is happening right in front of them face," he said.
And today's protest is intended to be the genesis of a process. "This is just the start of something. In numbers there is strength. The more people get together, the more highlight it will get, it will go international. People will realise is a serious thing happening in Jamaica and force the authorities to do something," Mutabaruka said.
Part of those concrete results is redress for those victmised in the Coral Gardens incident. "They have to acknowledge especially the atrocity to Rastafari 50 years ago and pay some form of compensation to the victims," he said.
The annual Coral Gardens commemoration will take place in MontegoBay this weekend, Mutabaruka pointing to the potential impact of the extension that is today's protest. "We feel say the visibility of it in Kingston is more powerful than in MoBay. With the radio station behind it it is strong out there," Mutabaruka said.
Really weird that The Gleanah put this in the entertainment section.
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My girl covered it for Smile Jamaica TV. Love her accent. She interviewed protest organizer Gerry Small, Organiser, Silent Protest.
Kia should make this thread sticky too. It is an extremely important issue.Last edited by Tropicana; 03-29-2013, 01:22 PM.Comment
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Worth re-posting this here:
Bad Friday: Rastafari After Coral Gardens
For many around the world, Jamaica conjures up images of pristine beach vacations with a pulsating reggae soundtrack. The country, however, has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the world, and the population is actively grappling with legacies of Western imperialism, racial slavery, and political nationalism -- the historical foundations of contemporary violence in Jamaica and throughout the Americas. BAD FRIDAY focuses on a community of Rastafarians in western Jamaica who annually commemorate the 1963 Coral Gardens "incident," a moment just after independence when the Jamaican government rounded up, jailed and tortured hundreds of Rastafarians. It chronicles the history of violence in Jamaica through the eyes of its most iconic community, and shows how people use their recollections of past traumas to imagine new possibilities for a collective future.Comment
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Eedyat interview dat, look how dem disrespect de man by cutting him off de way she did.Originally posted by Tropicana View PostMy girl covered it for Smile Jamaica TV. Love her accent. She interviewed protest organizer Gerry Small, Organiser, Silent Protest.
Kia should make this thread sticky too. It is an extremely important issue.
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I agree dahjah. Unfortunately, other than muta, that and the Gleaner article is all the media coverage I can find....speaks volumes doesn't it.
Looks like they didn't want him to get into anything controversial so she did get de signal to cut it.
I wonder when they are going to screen the full documentary in Toronto. I would go see it.Last edited by Tropicana; 03-29-2013, 01:54 PM.Comment
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Some footage is appearing on Youtube:
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tanx Tropicana, what a way de media in Jamaica nuh waan ppl si ar kno bout dis ee
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That's the reason I asked RichD and Kia to feature your thread and mine.
At university we studied:
Mirror, Mirror: Identity, Race, and Protest in Jamaica. Author, Rex M.Nettleford. Publisher, W. Collins and Sangster (Jamaica), 1970.
as part of a political science course on Black Political movements. We looked at Garvey too. I did know that there were serious concens that lead to Rex Nettleford's ground breaking study and ultimately the visit of Haile Selassie to Jamaica but I did not know specifically about Coral Gardens but then at the time specific Jamaican communities would not have been familiar to me.
What happened to my copy of Mirror, Mirror? Just went to see if it mentions Coral Gardens. I figure my ex has about 4 of my books.
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Second Rastafari conference in Coral Gardens 50th year
Published: Sunday | March 31, 2013 0 Comments
Mutabaruka (left) and Andrea Williams Green on top of IRIE FM's Shockwave truck.
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Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer
This weekend, the Rastafari Movement marks 50 years of what is referred to in officialdom - the few times it is - as the Coral Gardens Incident. Among the activities were last Thursday's protest march from Parade to Heroes Circle in downtown Kingston (the Tivoli Incursion of 2010 part of the protest's focus), then a motorcade to Mandela Park in Half-Way Tree for a well-attended rally.
In Montego Bay, where the anniversary of the 'Bad Friday', 1963, incident have been held consistently, a symposium was slated for the Pitfour Nyahbinghi Centre on Friday. Queen Ifrica, Chronixx, Jah9, Warrior King, Tarrus Riley, Tony Rebel, Junior Kelly and Bushman were among the long roster of performers advertised for a concert at Jarrett Park on Saturday evening. And today, Andrea Williams Green's IRIE FM Running African programme is scheduled to be aired live from Jarrett Park between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m.
However, there is no softening of what was done to Rastafari in 1963 in the overview of the second Rastafari Studies Conference & General Assembly, slated for August 14-17 at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, and various Rastafari Centres. It begins: "As Jamaica proudly celebrates her 50th jubilee of political independence, the Rastafari Movement also marks the 50th anniversary of the Coral Gardens Massacre, an event that still haunts the wider society through the perennial, but unanswered, Rastafari calls for justice."
And it does not confine what happened to Coral Gardens: "On Holy Thursday, April 11, 1963, six bearded men, assumed to be Rastafarians, attacked a gas station in Coral Gardens. They were reportedly armed with guns and machetes. This resulted in a skirmish and the death of two policemen, and six civilians including three of the assailants."
"In response, the then Prime Minister Sir Alexander Bustamante instructed the army and police to bring in all the Rastafari not only in St James, but also in Hanover and Trelawny. If the prisons could not accommodate them, they were to be 'disposed' of - killed and taken to Bogue Hill - above a major cemetery in Montego Bay. The events of Holy Thursday 1963 thus resulted in a collective crucifixion of many innocent adherents of the Rastafari faith and crackdown on the movement islandwide."
The conference's theme is 'Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Coral Gardens Massacre'.
motorcade marshalls
The IRIE FM Shockwave truck with two of the station's broadcasters, Mutabaruka and Andrea Williams Green, sitting high above the cab, marshalled the motorcade section of Thursday's protest. Mutabaruka's 'Stepping Razor' programme was broadcast live from Mandela Park with various speakers. As it closed off, Mutabaruka said "where we go from here is a big question".
In an interview before Thursday's march, he had also looked to the future.
"This is just the start of something. In numbers, there is strength. The more people get together, the more highlight it will get, it will go international. People will realise is a serious thing happening in Jamaica and force the authorities to do something," Mutabaruka said part of those concrete results is redress for those victmised in the Coral Gardens incident. "They have to acknowledge especially the atrocity to Rastafari 50 years ago and pay some form of compensation to the victims," he said.
The possibility of payment for the victims is also in the overview for the Rastafari Conference, as the overview states: "Fifty years later, there are still living victims of the incident, some of whom continue to suffer the effects of that experience and could easily make justified claims for reparation, and more critically, there has never been any attempt to officially provide restitution for these people."
With the Coral Gardens commemorations being extended into Kingston for the half-century mark, in closing of the programme on Thursday, Mutabaruka said, "the moment in time was great. The moment is one we cherish. It is the Art of War, and when people hear the Art of War them must understand we no come with no ordinary programme."
"We no get sponsored by no rum company or no skin-out jerk company to come out here. IRIE FM say the voice of Stepping Razor is a very important voice," he said. The sign-off song was Peter Tosh's 'Get Up, Stand Up'.
reparations
The Shockwave truck, a part of a large Rastafari presence, listened to the speakers inside the park, where one speaker was focused on reparations. "We say oonu do de crime, oonu haffi go pay the fine or do the time," he said. He questioned how Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller did not ask Britain's Prince Harry about reparations for slavery when he visited Jamaica and, as the evening closed off, as scheduled, at 6 p.m., a chant was raised about Coral Gardens.
It goes in part:
We shall never forget the Coral Gardens incident
The crimes committed by the State
Oh, what a crime
A brutal crime crime
The crime committed by the State
The orders from the State when the jail coulden hold
To put them in the cemetery a Bogue
Fifty years gone by
And many still a cry ...
Fifty years gone by and the powers that be
Don't pay for the atrocity
Bad Friday 63
A time in our history
That we must ensure
Don't come knocking at our door.
Although the 2013 Rastafari Studies Conference's theme is about the Coral Gardens Massacre, the call for papers shows a broader scope. Among the areas of focus are Rastafari and Africa; Rastafari Resistance and Social Justice (which includes testimonies, perspectives and recommendations on Coral Gardens, as well as 'Pinnacle: The Past and Future'); Expressions of Indigeneity: Exploring an Emergent Rastafari Conception, Rastafari Organisation and Centralization: From Leonard Howell to a Millennium Council; and Rastafari Livity: Humanity's Hope. Abstracts not exceeding 300 words and including the title of the proposed paper, a summary of its arguments and list of keywords should be submitted by May 1, 2013, to Dr Jahlani Niaah at the email address r[email protected]. More information is available online at ocs.mona.uwi.edu/index.php/rsc/2013, www.facebook.com/rastafaristudiesconference and twitter.com/RastaConference.Comment
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