"I love Rastas, ganja and Vybz Kartel"

But just how liberal are Jamaicans?

This post is inspired by two, ostensibly unrelated things:

1.     I told my Jamaican mother I’m planning to get locs by the end of the year. She said she would cut them off in my sleep. (All in jest don’t worry)

2.     When discussing my dissertation, focused on Jamaica, with one of my university tutors she asked how much power Rastafarians had in Jamaican government… in the mid 19th century, bear in mind the Rastafarian movement emerged in the early 20th century.

These two moments prompt a discussion of just how liberal Jamaican social attitudes are; the masses tend to believe all Jamaicans possess radical and unconventional social beliefs.

Before broaching my views on the topic, there are a few caveats that need to be made. Firstly, I am a second generation British-Jamaican, I’ve lived in England my whole life, my parents were the ones who were born and grew up in Jamaica. So, my answer to this question is based primarily on my own experiences and literature I have engaged in regarding Jamaica.

In my opinion, the answer is that Jamaicans are more conservative as opposed to liberal. Growing up, I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness via my mum’s efforts. My dad shared her desire to shelter us from inappropriate and ‘worldly’ things. Consequently, Vybz Kartel and other dancehall artists who indulged in vibrant lyrics similar to his were banned in the house. When I was younger I found it annoying, it meant I was never up to speed with the newest songs and couldn’t pull the wool over my parents’ eyes as they understood the content more than me. To me, this was the norm and I thought everyone with Jamaican parents grew up like this. As I grew older, I realised this was not the case and there was a whole other side of the culture that I had not been exposed to but was perceived as the face of Jamaica globally.

Back to my earlier two points. My mum’s distaste for locs is not rare amongst Jamaicans. When I was telling her my plans for this post, she even mentioned how a student in Jamaica had been expelled from their school for refusing to cut off their locs. People are often shocked when I tell them this, because the popular perception of Jamaicans tends to be that we are all Rastafarian Vybz Kartel lovers who smoke weed incessantly. Whilst there is nothing inherently wrong with these features, it’s simply not true and is also a gross generalisation. Relying on tropes from singular parts of the culture produces incorrect assumptions such as my tutors’ belief that Rastafarians have been a central, powerful actor in Jamaican society.

In the eyes of conservative Jamaicans, Rastafarianism, vulgar dancehall and marijuana consumption fall under the umbrella of what I like to call unconventional. They are viewed as subversions of the norm, and what is acceptable. I myself have been guilty of trying to separate myself from that umbrella, emphasising that I am not one of those Jamaicans and leaning on my socially conservative upbringing. However, the lesson for myself has been to not view Jamaican culture as a monolith. Whilst generally, Jamaicans are socially conservative, there are multiple other facets of the culture that rival such a perspective. The issue lies in the belief that  these rival features, such as Rastafarianism, are the only features of the culture, when in reality some of them are actually marginalised back in Jamaica.

It must be acknowledged that the conservative social beliefs held by Jamaicans in the present day are a legacy of British colonialism. I was able to explore this dynamic in my dissertation and concluded that in the transition from slavery to emancipation, different agents of the British Empire - from missionaries to governors - endeavoured to make black and coloured Jamaicans more ‘respectable’ on the route to civilisation. This involved enforcing Victorian Christian ideas on morality and respectability. I think the ire directed toward Rastafarianism as an ideology and a lifestyle stems from this, it challenges antiquated Victorian notions of respectability, and by extension civilisation. The persecution of Rastafarians by Jamaican institutions in response is reminiscent of the conservative social attitudes held by British colonial authorities in Jamaica.