Jamaica and the media should reject daggering and the tribalisation of dancehall into ‘Gaza’ and ‘Gully’ camps says L’Antoinette Stines founder of L’acadco dancers.

Supporters of the explicit daggering dance are “idiots” and media reports on the feud (such as this one) only reinforce the stereotype that Jamaicans are violent, she argued.

“My point is that the more we talk about it the more we promote it,” she told students and dancers at the University of Technology in Kingston on Thursday in a lecture. “Gully and Gaza. I honestly do not have to discuss it because there is too much negative publicity and this Gully and Gaza thing makes us look like all we do is fight and make war.”

The musical rivalry of these two deejays has snowballed beyond music, beyond the graffitied walls of the garrisons, beyond entertainment magazines and now headlines national newspapers. In the process, the debate has transcended the dancehall and the garrisons and currently it is being studied by academia, the police force and parliament.

At the heart of the debate are two artistes, Adidja Palmer, known as Vybz Kartel, and David Brooks, otherwise called Mavado. Gaza, which is associated with Kartel, was initially a musical term but has now been linked to a physical space, namely Waterford in St Catherine, the community where he resides. Gully, however, was initially a physical space, the birthplace of Mavado in Cassava Piece.

“I find a lot of the people within the dancehall are not trying to elevate. Some are trying…but the negative things get publicity more than the positive things,” Stines added.

Stines lectured on dance forms from folk up to dancehall. She argued that most movement within the dancehall is rooted in the folk traditions of Jamaica and Africa. She, however, berated daggering, a popular dance that mimics a sexual act.

“When we make daggering dominate the media and all that is happening with Gully and whatever the international effect is, we are negatively publicising Jamaican culture,” asserted Stines, whose doctoral thesis is on dance. For Stines, the pelvic movements involved in daggering are too explicit.

“Daggering is nasty,” she stated. “The person who has to ask why it is nasty, is an idiot. Because if you can see somebody jump off of a roof onto a woman and we allow ourselves to do that, then we have a problem…especially if you are of an intellectual mind…Society mash up.”

Stines, who has documented, preserved and protected Jamaican folk traditions had previously expressed her disappointment with the lack of attention “ancestral memory” (oral tradition) is given in Jamaica.

Parliament’s Human Resource and Social Development Committee which met on November 11, blasted the media, whom they accused of supporting the Gully versus Gaza feud, which has spilled over into the education system. The committee had invited press and music stakeholders at its next meeting slated to occur within a week. Among the agencies to be invited are the Press Association of Jamaica, Jamaica Federation of Musicians, Media Association of Jamaica, National Parent Teachers Association, Broadcasting Commission and Peace and Love in Schools (PALS), as well as the University of the West Indies. However, the PAJ, Broadcasting Commission and JFM will be the first to address the committee, it is hoped by the next fortnight.

At the November 11 meeting, committee member Natalie Neita Headley said she had been inadvertently exposed to the issue through her children. Displaying knowledge of some of the songs of disrepute, she said the education system was being ravaged.

Committee members reportedly could barely contain their disdain for individuals perpetrating and benefiting from the violence associated with the feud. Prime Minister Bruce Golding pointed an accusing finger at the media for its role in fuelling the musical gunfire. Another member, Michael Stern, said the issue was much wider than being played out, and has now been incorporated into what is being called the “G” culture – gangs, guns, Gully and Gaza.

Committee member Dr St Aubyn Bartlett also blamed media for the its spread.

“And I think our press in this country should take responsibility for giving so much prominence to this phenomenon to the point where it has reached a situation where it has overtaken all of the young people and it is causing mayhem in a lot of areas in the society. And the press must look at itself and determine whether or not the glorification that is being given…to this phenomenon is deserving of that kind of publicity,” he said at the time.