God, Justice and the Vybz Kartel Verdict

As if by clockwork, God himself, the alleged architect of the entire universe, has been implicated in a murder trial of a Jamaican Dancehall artiste. This shouldn't come as a surprise in the least, since there have been ample accusations that Kartel was in league with the crown prince of evil, none other than Lucifer himself, and these accusations would find eager acceptance by the scores of superstitious Jamaicans who believe the Dancehall cultural space is a hotbed of "demonic" activity. Despite Kartel's own invocation of "Jah Jah" blessings in a number of his songs, the writing was on the wall ever since his rise to fame as the head of the "Gaza" empire - Kartel's music represented an insidious form of evil which had to be divinely expunged before it lead to the destruction of the entire nation. The recent murder trial, hailed by some as a "triumph" of Jamaica's justice system (I'll come back to this in a minute) was of course also a victory for the kingdom of Heaven as one enthusiastic teacher put it:

And here again from a respondent to the Gleaner newspaper article announcing the guilty verdict, with the characteristic excessive use of caps lock expected from those drunk on religion:

No doubt, amidst the multitude of prayers going up to ensure that Kartel was locked away in the Jamaican penal system, a pitstop on the way to the final destination, Hell, there were obviously prayers flooding Heaven petitioning the opposite outcome. That was certainly the case during the Buju Banton trial - an overwhelming outpour of prayer's asking for freedom, as opposed to the more neutral request of justice. You see, what Banton had in his favour was that for many he represented the good old Jamaican defiance against bowing to homosexuality as embodied in his hit song "Boom Bye Bye" (notwithstanding the fact that his conversion to Rastafari also mellowed him somewhat and endeared new followers to his music). To make matters worse, his trial took place in the US, a country notorious for "persecuting" Dancehall artistes for their condemnation of gays. It was easier to rally around Banton and send up prayers on his behalf for this very reason. The prayers went up, and the verdict came down - guilty.

Kartel however demonstrated just how polarizing the class system can be in Jamaican society - Gaza supporters felt that his trial was yet again another attempt by "Babylon system" to end the career of another ghetto yute, while his detractors felt it was necessary to rescue Jamaica from further ghettoization and moral turmoil at the hands of this degenerate. Nevertheless, international rap artiste Busta Rhymes managed to invoke "peace and prosperity" in his comments on the trial:



 And a few other supporters are a bit more direct, calling specifically on Yahweh (spelt "Yahway") to intervene:

Well, as it turns out, the detractors would have their moment as God, in his divine wisdom, took time off from answering the prayers of the impoverished, and ensured that a guilty verdict was returned. Somewhere through the fog of circumstantial evidence, the 11 member jury was able to arrive at a near unanimous verdict in roughly four hours. The praise for the justice system might be a little premature however, since it was only a little under 4 years ago that 70 residents were gunned down by the security forces in an inner city community in an attempt to ferret out a drug lord. The year before that, in 2009, 7 girls died in a fire in a state run place of "safety" after a security guard discharged a tear gas canister inside their holding cell. Both incidents resulted in commissions of enquiry, recommending compensation to the families and survivors, the results of which could be summed up in one word - fuckall.

The Kartel trial hasn't arrived at it's final chapter yet. The sentence is yet to be decided on, the defence team has already registered its intent to appeal the verdict, one juror has been arrested for attempting to bribe the jury foreman, and the sister of the murder victim has gone into protective custody owing to threats issued to her. Prayer warriors on both sides are gearing up for the final spiritual showdown. Whether God gives a shit about this whole melodrama isn't even a question worth asking at this stage, it's a foregone conclusion. The prayer department in Heaven had better get ready for yet another stream of contradictory requests on Kartel's behalf over the next few months as this saga unfolds in the media, and the courts, and on bended knees.


Cool Dude.