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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>Pointers from the 'Ragashanti' kidnap experience</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Geof Brown
Friday, October 27, 2006
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>The recent kidnap and harrowing experience of University of the West Indies lecturer and popular talk-show host Dr Kingsley Stewart (Ragashanti) provides some interesting pointers to the status quo of Jamaican society at this time.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=80 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Geof Brown </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>For the benefit of those foreign-based readers who might not be updated, Dr Stewart was forced at gunpoint to enter his late-model vehicle parked on the University campus and then to surrender the vehicle to two gunmen who had posed as students.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The gunmen then drove his vehicle to a lonely road at night (Dr Stewart had just completed his evening lecture) and forced him into the trunk of a smaller waiting car. They contacted someone to advise that they had secured the stolen vehicle and discussed the option of killing Dr Stewart. On learning the identity of their victim, the gunmen relented and freed him, still bound and blindfolded.<P class=StoryText align=justify>They relieved him of his licensed firearm and his cash, but generously returned their victim enough to hire a cab to get home.
An interesting feature of the kidnap is that the gunmen decided to spare Ragashanti's life because as they said, "You are one a we". For those who don't know, the popular part-time talk-show host who is heard daily five times per week, traces his rise from upbringing in the inner city as an outstanding success story. He makes deliberate and strong use of the native parlance (patois), even though his audience appears to be widely spread across class lines.<P class=StoryText align=justify>He does mix the local language with doses of erudition; this may explain his wide appeal. The point of significance in this is that inner-city toughs who would not hesitate to snuff out the life of an uptown upper-class victim in circumstances of the Ragashanti kidnap, were nonetheless not only sparing but respectful and considerate for their victim. One of the gunmen actually upbraided the other for offering only enough for a bus fare to Ragashanti and instead upped the returned amount to a cab fare level.<P class=StoryText align=justify>This "generosity" to Ragashanti will not surprise those who work with inner-city people or who take the trouble to identify with inner-city youth in particular. A pervasive cry from the inner city is the call for "respect" and the constant cry for "justice". What we have been practising in Jamaican society as the memories of colonialism fade, is the "we" versus "them" separation which isolates the privileged in metal-grilled upper St Andrew houses.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=120 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>STOCKHAUSEN... would have got same privilege </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>The poor and less privileged of the inner city are thus made to feel their inferiority and not being fools, they are well aware of the snubs practised by those who differ from them, not by hue anywhere as much as by education and/or wealth. In colonial times, it was clear that the whites and near-whites held superiority to all others by virtue of their grant of wealth, education and social circumst
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Geof Brown
Friday, October 27, 2006
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>The recent kidnap and harrowing experience of University of the West Indies lecturer and popular talk-show host Dr Kingsley Stewart (Ragashanti) provides some interesting pointers to the status quo of Jamaican society at this time.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=80 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Geof Brown </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>For the benefit of those foreign-based readers who might not be updated, Dr Stewart was forced at gunpoint to enter his late-model vehicle parked on the University campus and then to surrender the vehicle to two gunmen who had posed as students.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The gunmen then drove his vehicle to a lonely road at night (Dr Stewart had just completed his evening lecture) and forced him into the trunk of a smaller waiting car. They contacted someone to advise that they had secured the stolen vehicle and discussed the option of killing Dr Stewart. On learning the identity of their victim, the gunmen relented and freed him, still bound and blindfolded.<P class=StoryText align=justify>They relieved him of his licensed firearm and his cash, but generously returned their victim enough to hire a cab to get home.An interesting feature of the kidnap is that the gunmen decided to spare Ragashanti's life because as they said, "You are one a we". For those who don't know, the popular part-time talk-show host who is heard daily five times per week, traces his rise from upbringing in the inner city as an outstanding success story. He makes deliberate and strong use of the native parlance (patois), even though his audience appears to be widely spread across class lines.<P class=StoryText align=justify>He does mix the local language with doses of erudition; this may explain his wide appeal. The point of significance in this is that inner-city toughs who would not hesitate to snuff out the life of an uptown upper-class victim in circumstances of the Ragashanti kidnap, were nonetheless not only sparing but respectful and considerate for their victim. One of the gunmen actually upbraided the other for offering only enough for a bus fare to Ragashanti and instead upped the returned amount to a cab fare level.<P class=StoryText align=justify>This "generosity" to Ragashanti will not surprise those who work with inner-city people or who take the trouble to identify with inner-city youth in particular. A pervasive cry from the inner city is the call for "respect" and the constant cry for "justice". What we have been practising in Jamaican society as the memories of colonialism fade, is the "we" versus "them" separation which isolates the privileged in metal-grilled upper St Andrew houses.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=120 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>STOCKHAUSEN... would have got same privilege </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>The poor and less privileged of the inner city are thus made to feel their inferiority and not being fools, they are well aware of the snubs practised by those who differ from them, not by hue anywhere as much as by education and/or wealth. In colonial times, it was clear that the whites and near-whites held superiority to all others by virtue of their grant of wealth, education and social circumst