Tony Deyal column…War and water

Jul 21, 2008 Features / Columnists, Tony Deyal column

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“Everywhere is war. Me say war. War in the east, war in the west, war up north, war in the south.”
Everywhere, that is, except the Caribbean, where “War” is a contraction of “What,” and when you hear “War happenin” there is no need to panic; or, if you’re from out of town, to demand a seat on the next flight back home. It is really a question, “What’s happening?”

 “War going on?” or “War dat?” can also be treated the same way, but “World” or “Gulf” preceding the word “war” are the genuine articles and should be avoided at all costs.  If the word “war” is preceded by “gang”, duck before the shooting starts. 

If we had a motto in the Caribbean, it would be one from the Sixties – “Make Love, Not War” – and we consider ourselves as good at the first, as we are hopeless at the second. 

But, in some parts of the Caribbean, the word “motto” will be followed by “car,” and we are as bad at repairing the first as we are at manipulating the second. 

As I heard a Trinidad parent telling his son, “If you car fix the car when the car have to get fix, then you car drive the car.”

 If you asked me “War happened this year, 2007 A.D.?” in the Caribbean, I might most likely shrug and say, “Ah car tell you” or “Ah car remember.” 

What I know is that it was far from the “car”-tastrophe that some people in the weather business thought it would be.

It was stormy in many other ways, but not when it came to the number of devastating hurricanes. We also pronounce “weather” and “whether” alike as “wedder” so whether (as the old Calypso goes) the “weather” man or the “whether” man lying, it is nothing to make heavy weather about.  Wedder he’s right, or wedder he’s wrong, it doesn’t matter when the bad wedder hits.  

We have already entered the 2008 hurricane period where the prediction is for a very “active” season.  Last year was a near miss, and this year Bertha seems to have been a near mistress. 

However, regardless of the occasional tempestuous episodes that temporarily disturb our easy-going, laid-back lifestyle, we continue to persist in the belief that each bit of sand, rock and reggae in the Caribbean island chain is God’s country. 

It was never more evident than when some Jamaicans refused to leave their homes even though a major hurricane was threatening. In retrospect, the hurricane proved less destructive than the looters would have been. 

The problem is: would they always be right?  Would Providence continue to protect us if we don’t seek to protect ourselves? 

As far as many West Indians are concerned (or unconcerned), Providence is a cricket ground in Guyana, and Time is a foreign magazine. 

Some people wonder whether this attitude of the Lord always providing is uniquely Jamaican. 
Whether you’re from the West Indies or from the cold, what you need to know is that when you enter the Caribbean through Jamaica you are into a Middle Kingdom, which is a land of contrarieties. 

“Third World” is not a depressed global grouping, but a famous Reggae band.  “Bunny” Wailer is a singer whose every performance is hare-raising, and while in the old days “bob” meant a British coin worth 24 cents, today, tomorrow and yesterday it stands for “Bob” Marley, the undisputed monarch of the middle kingdom. 

The only question harder to answer than “War happenin’?” is “War do you expect to happen?”  We are perennial optimists. 

The old vehicles that do duty as public transport on Old Hope Road are kept alive by Constant Springs of optimism even when any mechanic at maintenance time would advise, “Don’t change the oil, change the vehicle.”  If hope is a thing with feathers, it is our Bird of Paradise, our Phoenix that always rises from the ashes of disaster.

In that way, the Jamaican attitude both reflects and inspires the regional response to bad news.  We joke about disaster, since we recognise that we cannot fight the forces of nature. 

A Jamaican I met in Miami the day after Ivan passed through Jamaica, while deeply concerned about his country and his relatives there, asked me why they named hurricanes like Frances after women. I didn’t know, so he told me: “Because they arrive wet and wild, and when they leave they take your house and car.”
In Grenada, a taxi driver and his vehicle had mercifully survived the impact of Hurricane Ivan.  Bruised, battered, but still basically Caribbean, he had to make light of the worst disaster to have befallen his country.  “Boy,” he said to Wesley Gibbings of the Association of Caribbean Media Workers, “that Hurricane Ivan is a real dog, you know.” 

Wesley was dumbfounded both by the comparison and the comedy in the midst of a calamity.  “How you mean a ‘dog’, why a dog?” asked Wesley bemusedly.  “Well, when it pass through,” the taxi driver said, “all you hear is ‘roof, roof, roof’.” 

*Tony Deyal was last seen saying that only in the Caribbean would “20/20” refer to a shortened version of cricket instead of perfect eyesight, and “Gayle” is not a misspelling of the word for “storm-force winds,” but is the surname of a cricket batter known for his hurricane hitting.

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