Welcome to heaven! Sadly, it is much like where we were last week. I was so hoping to rapture my mortgage – rats! Well, back to the grindstone! What do we do when our culture is not in sync with our values and drive to succeed? Female circumcision in Africa and butchery of Asian girls by fathers when they refuse to marry dad’s old friend is negative culture in the extreme. Anancy is negative culture too and undermines our values and society. Anancy’s subliminal signifiers contradict the overt ones. We strive for honesty and justice, Anancy teaches ginnalship. Anancy is not our friend! His stories are a paean of outré values and attitudes. We migrated the survival tactics of slavery into freedom and now we fiddle while the 21 families (now 9) are alive and reaping! Granny brainwashed us as infants with these tales. Now we act out the lessons and mothers bawl on TV, “We neva teach de yout fi bad.” It’s Anancy’s fault! We must re-engineer our tales to fit our aspirations. Jews’ ex-slaves redacted their Bible tales and built success and respect!

Our culture was born in the crucible of Africa and plantation slavery and like Jews, much is reactive. Jews eat unleavened bread and we sing negro spirituals because of slavery. Free people do not choose to eat tough bread or sing dirges. Slavery is a crutch we hobble on; to them it is a ladder to climb. The Bible says, do not oppress slaves. Why? It was written by these ex-slaves. Don’t “covet a neighbour’s wife” was written by men who could give “long-hands” Arnie or Strauss-Kahn a hard run. We have not discovered how to weave the dark fabric of our past into a glorious garment of success. Black is the new bright! Myths are a nation’s soul and we too must expurgate our retentions, redact our myths and spin them into a success paradigm. Check this: “Once upon a time Anancy was jobless so im seh man affi eat an im buy a $1 corn grain, plant it and it bear 10 ear wid 100 grains apiece. A tousen grain! Dis good to rahtid! Him tek alf fi eat an plant alf; mi dear, wen it bear im sell, den plant and sell suh tel im bank book full. Corn mek Anancy pickney go to usivernity; him gie weh some, show odda smaddy how fi plant an im pay taxes fi get di water an road an di village luv im..a im a di don!” Jews’ three steps to unity in the Bible are: First, believe you are special, chosen. Second, don’t invite others to join, but if they come, OK. Third, if you disagree, still worship in the same temple as what unites is greater than what divides. We missed the last two lessons!

Anancy is our enemy! But to the “Church of Anancy” this is heresy. He gets his way by subterfuge, fibs, scams! From infancy this is embedded in our psyche and though dulled by education is not destroyed and so we have rich and poor Anancy, and in all shades. Do you know one tale where Anancy succeeds by hard work and sacrifice? One where he helps the weak? One where he is prudent, modest and does not scam friends? None! Jewish slave stories laud sacrifice – widow’s mite, valour: David vs Goliath; wisdom: Solomon. We also see failure, murder, incest; a king falls, a poor man rises – these were redacted too! But they left in a few puzzling tales. When the men of Sodom went to rape the angels, Lot offered his daughters instead. Why? Did the redactors miss this or is there a lesson for us? Live well with gays? Angels are “wusses” and can’t fight? Lot did not love his daughters? Bible tales make moral sense most times, but Anancy tales are unrelentingly selfish. He is a ginnal; not a team player, wins “by a trick”; a rogue; a predatory anti-hero. He does not share with Brer Tucuma or Brer Tiger; he is for self. Anancy lives through us! We must eliminate or rehabilitate this icon! Our griots and folklorists must re-engineer our myths to take us where we want to go. Come 2012 our people must be ready for the next half-century. Minister Holness and Minister Grange, you have work to do!

Nuclear energy

My emails tell me some powerful corns get mash! We must use this LNG hiatus to crank up our nuclear option. With nuclear, if no ship docks we have energy; we can stop the daily Dow oil and gas price watch. Now that your nuclear appetites are whetted, fear not, Cabinet does not run JPS and will not run nuclear power. Command states as North Korea and Iran own and operate nuclear plants, but not the West. Near us, FPL has gas, oil, nuclear, solar and coal power assets in Florida – 5 million served and across the US. They employ Jamaicans and rescued us after Gilbert. Check their May 16 application to Congress for two new nuclear plants at Turkey Point and St Lucie (Jamaicans live and work nearby), to come on stream in 2022. Read their price projections for gas to 2045 and weep! Think we’re suffering? Wait until the LNG monkey is on our back! FPL is one of dozens of energy firms in the US so the rot Cabinet gets from one bidder who runs no consumer LNG plant can’t match regular data on 100 energy firms sent to Congress. Nations have nuclear weapons programmes, but specialist firms Build, Own, Operate, (BOO) nuclear plants under IAEA rules. Like LNG a nuclear plant is built with private money; the difference is LNG’s prices will soar with every shipload, just like oil, while nuclear’s is fixed. No option is perfect, but oil is chicken back – so is LNG; nuclear is breast and thigh – with fries and a soda; let’s give ourselves a treat; it’s not taxpayers’ money anyhow!

Brown bread

On Saturday the census taker came just as I was rushing to give an old lady in Mona a lift. This lady can no longer eat her own mangoes. She gave up bun and may give up bread as both contain too much sugar. Last year I asked bakers for a lo-cal bun for my Easter – whassup? On behalf of all who ate their way to diabetes, or are on that path, I appeal for a range of lo-cal baked goods. If not I will go to my kitchen, bake bread, bun and toto and put all a yuh outa business! Who has an oven to lend me? A small lifestyle change can switch the epidemiology of our nation and bakers must help us, or we may eat ourselves to death! The census lady was tired but capable and wonderfully polite. We sat in the yard and she put her noughts and crosses on tons of paper – a real bag lady! Please get her a laptop with WiFi so the data hits the server in real time. Lady, I apologise for not offering you a glass of water – old age! We are doing some things right. Stay conscious!

Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston Consultants currently on assignment in the UK.

franklinjohnston@hotmail.com