John Rapley: Jamaica is a Neo-Medieval State
[John Rapley is President of the Caribbean Policy Research Institute, an independent think tank affiliated with the University of the West Indies.]
On June 22, Jamaican police stopped a car they had been tracking down a rain-sodden highway. Inside was a man rather poorly disguised to look rather like a woman on her way to a church convention. In fact, the man was Christopher "Dudus" Coke, the notorious gang leader whom police had been chasing for over a month. Two days later, Jamaica extradited him to the United States.
It has been a long journey from prince to pauper for the diminutive, media-shy Dudus. Since the early 1990s, after his father's mysterious death, he has been the powerful don of Tivoli Gardens -- Jamaica's most notorious garrison community. Now he faces gunrunning and drug-smuggling charges that could land him in prison for life. The story of Dudus, the Coke family, and Tivoli Gardens reveals Jamaica's creeping neo-medievalism, and how one man could plunge a country into civil war.
Jamaica obtained its political independence from the United Kingdom during the great wave of decolonization that followed World War II. As for many of the nations that emerged at this time, Jamaica's success was not preordained.
Initially, however, Jamaica seemed to manage the transition well. Riding a postwar economic boom, its economy showed healthy growth in its first decade after independence. New elites, drawn from the country's growing business and middle classes, occupied the shell of the old British regime. They consolidated their hold both by providing the trappings of a modern state -- public services, monumental architecture, and state patronage systems. To showcase its success, the proud new nation even staged international blowouts, such as the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games and George Foreman's 1973 showdown against Joe Frazier....
By the early 1970s, just as the gangs cemented their hold over great swaths of Jamaica's cities, the failure of the country's economic model to produce growth led to a political crisis. In 1972, the opposition party won power and soon turned to socialism as a means to address the growing problem. Although social gains followed, the price was high: poor economic management led to a collapse that was only worsened by the decade's oil shocks. The country's economy never really recovered. In fact, over the last three decades, years of growth were offset by years of contraction, and Jamaican GDP more or less stagnated....
Read entire article at Foreign Affairs
On June 22, Jamaican police stopped a car they had been tracking down a rain-sodden highway. Inside was a man rather poorly disguised to look rather like a woman on her way to a church convention. In fact, the man was Christopher "Dudus" Coke, the notorious gang leader whom police had been chasing for over a month. Two days later, Jamaica extradited him to the United States.
It has been a long journey from prince to pauper for the diminutive, media-shy Dudus. Since the early 1990s, after his father's mysterious death, he has been the powerful don of Tivoli Gardens -- Jamaica's most notorious garrison community. Now he faces gunrunning and drug-smuggling charges that could land him in prison for life. The story of Dudus, the Coke family, and Tivoli Gardens reveals Jamaica's creeping neo-medievalism, and how one man could plunge a country into civil war.
Jamaica obtained its political independence from the United Kingdom during the great wave of decolonization that followed World War II. As for many of the nations that emerged at this time, Jamaica's success was not preordained.
Initially, however, Jamaica seemed to manage the transition well. Riding a postwar economic boom, its economy showed healthy growth in its first decade after independence. New elites, drawn from the country's growing business and middle classes, occupied the shell of the old British regime. They consolidated their hold both by providing the trappings of a modern state -- public services, monumental architecture, and state patronage systems. To showcase its success, the proud new nation even staged international blowouts, such as the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games and George Foreman's 1973 showdown against Joe Frazier....
By the early 1970s, just as the gangs cemented their hold over great swaths of Jamaica's cities, the failure of the country's economic model to produce growth led to a political crisis. In 1972, the opposition party won power and soon turned to socialism as a means to address the growing problem. Although social gains followed, the price was high: poor economic management led to a collapse that was only worsened by the decade's oil shocks. The country's economy never really recovered. In fact, over the last three decades, years of growth were offset by years of contraction, and Jamaican GDP more or less stagnated....