This conversation transpired between myself and a very good friend just now.
It’s weird enough that I had to sanitize and share it because … well … see for yourself:
(WARNING: extremely geek-oriented material ahead; typos are original to the IM conversation)
He: Your head is like a maze :D
its not the easiest place to navigate
Me: indeed
He: i tried that in 04-05
Me: i am still trying to chart the maps
it not easy
lot of compressed information up there – cluttering up otherwise roomy spaces
He: u sure there is space?
Me: like i said, everythign compressed – i ran out of space years ago – started compressing shit
now that’s done, it still cluttered
He: mv *shit /dev/null
Me: don’t know where my “null” is. not in dev. been trying that for years … all that happen is my /dev folder full up of shit now too
He: …
Like I said … weird.
It’s election time in Jamaica.
Everyone I spoke to just after the announcement was irritated that the politicians had chosen to announce elections at Christmastime – as was I. Elections in Jamaica are traditionally tense with activities such as avoiding wearing certain colours, being excessively careful not to mention any political affiliations (or lack of) and staying away from certain parts of the cities and towns.
I won’t go much into the why behind the tension and violence that has been known to surround Jamaican elections. Suffice it to say, the politicians themselves in the early days were the ones specifically responsible for introducing violence into the process. That it has perpetuated over the years is the result of ignorance, and a most unhealthy glee at besting political opponents.
Early on too, colors and symbols became very closely related to the political process – green for “Laborites” and red for the “Socialists”; the “bell” for the Jamaica Labour Party and the “head” for the People’s National Party.
Which brings me to the point of my post today. A friend stated on Twitter that he had put two of his favourite shirts away for the season earlier in the process. Another friend claimed, this morning, that she found herself signing along with one of the election jingles. I responded by saying I hoped no one in “red” had heard her. And it hit me: red and green! Those are traditional Christmas colours, aren’t they? And if they work together at Christmas to help add to the cheer of the season, then why couldn’t the work together in the political arena to help demonstrate harmony? You would have thought those two colours could do nothing for each other – and normally you wouldn’t be caught dead in an outfit that had both prominently featured. Yet at Christmas, everyone is adorned in one or the other and sometimes both!
I wonder how much influence that symbolism had on the decision to schedule elections at this time of year?
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