PART OF THE main headline in yesterday's STAR reads like a Capleton lyric, as the people in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court asked (as THE STAR did), if it was "obeah or what?"
This came out of a situation the previous week in which a policewoman fell ill after coming into contact with some 'powder' in the (of all places) male bathroom, which she was asked to investigate.
JUSTICE SYSTEM
Of course, this being Jamaica, one and one were put together to make 15, as a week earlier the woman constable had confiscated a vial of 'clearance oil' from a lady who was headed to court.
The incident serves to remind us of just how much those who face the justice system in Jamaica rely on their oils and potions to protect them from the long hand of the law. This is, of course, not a recent phenomenon and may just go back to the times when the justice system served to protect the interests of the colonial masters and those who faced them were from the poor black working class.
Of course, obeah has got a very bad name, but we should not forget that many of the practices are based on African forms of worship which survived the Middle Passage.
It is also indicative that the persons who face the courts feel that they need an edge, an advantage, as the dice is loaded against them. It is easy for those who are not standing before a judge and jury to ridicule those who take that extra piece of insurance into the courtroom with them. But for those in a sticky situation, every possible straw looks like a life raft.
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