Heartbreak: Rasta Errol’s Tale

“Hearts can break. Yes, hearts can break. Sometimes I think it would be better if we died when they did, but we don't.”
~Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis

“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart!”
~Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

My heart breaks often at least 3 times a year… that’s the way it is in Jamaica. Friends die. Yes they do, and die tragically too. Last year at this time I lost a sistren, Anieta Robinson. Her struggle was a short fight with cancer. By the time I heard and bought turmeric and noni to go look for her, she was gone. So she has been in my meditation as of late, especially since from time to time I review my role in my communities, be it the Rastafari community, my geographical space, my family or the artist community. So while these thoughts are floating about in my mind that at 4am while waiting for the Knutsford Express to go to a seminar on Monitoring and Evaluation, in Kingston on behalf of The Rastafari Coral Garden Benevolent Society, that a breddrin and member who is going to Kingston as well says, Yannick, yuh hear wah happen to Rasta Errol? Oh how I have grown to hate that question… the answer when I say no, is never him win Lotto! Nope; the answer 9 time out of ten is “him dead”. This occasion was scarcely different. When I said “no” the answer was, “Them stab him up a Arcade”. And as I feel the old familiar jolt of shock, all I can think is AGAIN!

So now as I am supposed to be having the time of my life watching Putin’s World Cup, my mind is a constant kaleidoscope of emotion, racing back and forth from planning the future, to grief to, happy as Ronaldo and Mbappi blazes the score sheets, celebrating Senegal, weeping for Germany, remembering Errol, Anieta, Likkle Dread, Chrissy, the army of fallen soldiers, writing proposals, chasing paper, being there for my daughter, considering the future of the nation, the future of the race, the future of my family, am I hovering close to St. James Infirmary, is there a pension for me, will I escape poverty, what is the future for me when I become an elder??? As all this is churning in my mind, my heartbreaks for myself, it breaks for Errol, it breaks when I consider the existential plight of Rastafari. Yet from this I reaffirm, why it is I am a community activist, why I am a member of the Rastafari Coral Gardens Benevolent Society!

The purpose of the organization is to alleviate the distress of the vulnerable Rastafari community. We provide relief and care to those who to varying degree have been excluded from society, disenfranchised or have been rendered voiceless – the elderly, neglected and victims of the 1963 atrocity. As a result of the actions of a few persons in Coral Gardens in 1963, the entire Rastafari community was officially targeted by the State of newly-independent Jamaica. This led to extreme brutality, imprisonment and death of many Rastafari sons and daughters across Jamaica by the police, army and other citizens of Jamaica. The Rastafari Coral Gardens Benevolent Society was registered under the Friendly Societies Act to keep alive the memory of the Coral Gardens atrocities and the denial of the fundamental human rights and freedoms of members of the Rastafari community.

Rasta Errol at 60 years old was a member of the RCGBS. At his age he was more than qualified to be a beneficiary. The last two times I saw Errol was at UWI out by the airport, we had been at a seminar for Capacity Building by Mona Social Services (MSS). The last time would be Sunday June 10, 2018 at The People’s Arcade at an RCGBS meeting. There he handed me some herb and a bottle of Spurlina. He showed me his MSS certificate which he had gotten framed. I was thankful as someone who ought to be getting was still giving… I didn't know it would be the last time I would see him.

As I perused the INTERNET to possibly understand what the media may know I found this meager report of a mighty man. “Reports from the Barrett Town Police are that, about 9am [on Tuesday, June 12], Cooke was walking in the People’s Arcade when he was pounced on by a group of men armed with knives, who attacked him and inflicted several wounds to his upper body.” The JCF stated that Cooke was taken to hospital where he died while undergoing treatment. Investigations are continuing. Sometimes people wonder within the Rastafari community and outside it… if our collective efforts are necessary or valid… it is lives like Errol’s, life lived exceptionally is why we must organize and central. It is to prevent the ending of lives in such tragedies and tragic manner is why we must organize to secure the future of Jamaica's pan African heart. SELAH.