MANY of Jamaica’s urban poor continue to excuse politicians’ bad behaviour — even ‘forgiving’ their party for the deaths of innocent women and children because they cannot separate themselves from their political party.

This is according to data from the Complete Snapshot study, undertaken weekly by anthropologist of social violence Dr Herbert Gayle and his team.

The study, titled “Snapshot: Dudus/Manatt Enquiry” sampled 200 Jamaicans from the Kingston Metropolitan Region — 101 of them Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) supporters.

Quizzed as to which enquiry they considered the most important — Finsac, Manatt/Dudus or the one proposed for the Tivoli incursion — 56 or 28 per cent responded in favour of Finsac. Significantly, 39 or 70 per cent of that 56 were JLP supporters, who revealed that they had made that choice on the basis of party interests.

“Tivoli incident was bad, (but) right now we have fi protect wi party as dat is all we have,” the study quoted one respondent as saying.

“They do the Tivoli people bad, but we need the Finsac thing now as the PNP (People’s National Party) dem going on too bad at the Manatt thing like dem is angel,” another respondent was quoted as saying.

It is a reality, Gayle said, that is reflected in the work of such researchers as Barry Chevannes, Amanda Sives and Carl Stone, who all found that in Jamaica, both followers of the JLP and the PNP “will allow their party to kill innocent women and children and ‘forgive’ them in order to preserve the party”.

“All of these scholars explained that the working class or urban poor use the political parties as their frame of identity. Without it, many urban poor have no other social sphere. Their party is everything. Some have no church, no civil group, absolutely nothing but their political party. This makes them vulnerable,” says the study, which is conducted to inform Gayle’s talk show The Complete Picture, aired between noon and 3:00 pm, Mondays to Thursdays, on News Talk 93 FM.

“It means that the poor will not tolerate the JLP (entering) a PNP garrison, such as Clans(man) turfs, and killing dozens. However, the JLP can kill people of Tivoli, and the PNP can invade and kill children in Clans turfs or any other PNP turf without major repercussion or backlash from the poor. If these scholars are correct, nothing will come of the deaths of the women and children of Tivoli — at least not from poor JLP supporters themselves,” it adds.

Political commentator Richard ‘Dickie’ Crawford said it is not surprising that the political party would prove so dear to the urban poor, given the absence of alternatives.

“There has to be some safety net and the party is the safety net for the urban poor. They don’t have much success in joining other social organisations and being able to acquire finance from the traditional institutions so, therefore, job and income possibilities are limited for the urban poor. The party is a vehicle for all of this,” he told the Sunday Observer.

“That also may… explain some of the other tendencies that come along with this, which is tribalism and violence, because it is a matter that if my party does not succeed, I do not succeed. So definitely, when you look at the response to the Finsac enquiry, you would understand why 70 per cent of the JLP would see that as important, because the Finsac enquiry, as it is at this time, points to a weakness in the management of the PNP Government of the day and, therefore, a plus for the JLP.

“Since the (Dudus/Manatt) enquiry and the request for an enquiry into (the incursion into) Tivoli Gardens were not supported by a majority of JLP persons questioned, you would understand why, because that could, more than likely, put their party to embarrassment,” Crawford added.

Researcher Horace Levy — although he questioned the fairness of the question posed to respondents, given that the Tivoli enquiry was not yet underway — said it nonetheless provided some insight into the plight of the urban poor.

“It does show you the prevalence of the political party, which is warping people’s judgement. They are prepared to put politics over their own welfare… It is like the case of (Member of Parliament Everald) Warmington… Putting Warmington up there to be re-elected. It is terrible that the people wanted him to be re-elected, but it is worse to (put him up for re-election). It shows the horror of the leaders misleading people,” he said.

“It is a worse fault to have leaders leading people down the wrong path than to have people misleading themselves… It is criminal. It is terrible leadership. It shows you what bad leadership to can do, if they can persuade 5,000 people to go and vote for this man,” Levy added.

Warmington was earlier this year forced to quit Parliament after his dual citizenship status came to light. Prime Minister and head of the JLP Bruce Golding subsequently admitted that his Government had been aware of Warmington’s ineligibility to hold the office, but said their slim majority in the House left them unable to afford an earlier resignation.

“So… the (political party) as the central frame of reference for the urban poor covers the sins of individual politicians as Jesus’s blood covers us all,” Gayle told the Sunday Observer. “We are hooked on our party. The individual activity of politicians is secondary to the emotional attachment the urban poor has to his or her political party and, therefore, they can do anything and get away with it.”

The situation is such, the three men said, that it requires immediate intervention.

Gayle proposes social nurturing.

“There are a lot of communities that need to be socially invaded… People need to just flood communities with social nurture. Things like Scouts, Brownies, youth clubs… all of these things, when they exist, allow young people to identify with something other than politics and crime…” he said.

“Kids we have given alternatives through the CARE programme and Children First, I cannot recall one who has gone back to crime. In other words, we are almost guaranteed success if we try and provide young people with alternatives, if we expand their frames of reference and frames of identity,” he added.

Crawford said the parties themselves have a critical role to play, even as better social and economic opportunities are made available to people.

“I think the onus lies with the existing party leadership. They have the ability to either prolong this kind of division or to bring it to a halt. That is number one. Secondly, it is a problem for civil society who are not aligned to either of these parties to reach out and to provide another support mechanism for the urban poor…” he said.

“I think, though, that certainly the sustainable approach to solving this problem has got to be addressing the imbalance in the economic situation in the country and to give people we now classify as the urban poor or the rural poor a real opportunity for personal and family development in Jamaica. If we don’t address the economic imbalance and inequity, then people will naturally have to continue to gravitate to the party, which is where we started,” he added.

Levy, for his part, argued in favour of increased participation in governance for people at the grassroots level.

“It is civil society that needs to reform them, not only in terms of the coalition that has been brought into existence, but also a reformed local government where people are able to vote and parish development committees (PDCs) can bring pressure to bear on government,” he said.

“Until people have a say in PDCs and local government authorities, then the people at central government will continue with their nonsense.

“If the PDCs were reformed so that they not only look backward to the communities for ideas and suggestions, but also faced forward to influence the national parliament… we would begin to get a parliament that did not just preoccupy itself with the two parties snapping at each other like mongrels…” Levy said further.