Seeking the long-time badjohn

Culture Matters

Dara E Healy

Monday morning, I waking early

I alone goin' collapse the city!

With my razor tie on to mih poui

I like a badjohn in the 18th century

Mastife, Mastife, (poui!) meet me down by the Croisee

And Cutouter, Cutouter, meet me down by Green Corner

– Small Island Pride, Carnival Celebration

BADJOHNISM. I use this word to conjure the worldview and attitude of a badjohn. For instance, I would say, “Badjohnism is the only ting they understand,” after dealing decisively with a service provider or terrible customer service.

I embrace the badjohn culture of TT. Not of bullies like Begorrat, the cruel owner of enslaved people from Diego Martin who unleashed a reign of terror against all who defied him.

No, my inner badjohn reaches for the jamettes, stickfighters, mas-makers, calypsonians and pan pioneers who resisted attempts to silence their culture. But lately, I have started to question our badjohn tendencies. Is our ever-readiness for a fight a charming feature of our nation, or are we slowing replacing resistance with violence? Have we lost the original spirit of the badjohn?

The term badjohn comes from John Archer, a notorious criminal. Records show that he was a soldier, originally from Barbados. After arriving in Trinidad in 1887, what followed was several arrests, attacks (on men and women) and frequent imprisonment. There is even an account of him jumping into the ocean to save some property that had fallen off a ship. Dr Kim Johnson recalls that the Mirror newspaper gave Archer the nickname in 1902 – “John Archer, a notorious Police Court character, better known as Bad John.”

The role of a badjohn became as complex as John Archer himself. Patrick Roberts, who grew up in Laventille, describes Jayfus, a cousin on his mother’s side.

“Like all the badjohns of that time, he was a quiet man who only spoke when he had to.”

Back then, badjohns were protectors of the community, supporting families or standing guard in the panyards to ensure no rivals disturbed the practice or creation of the pan.

According to Roberts, they dressed like what I guess would be called "saga boys," in stingy-brim hats and tight pants stopping above the ankles, “revealing pristine white socks.” Badjohns would always have one hand in their pants pocket fingering a weapon, the “dreaded white-handled barber’s razor.”

The notion of badness permeates our language, from bad-eye to bad-tongue and badess, a modern version of the jamette who defied authority with her body and her mouth. In much of our culture, bad is good. Soca artists declare that “getting on bad is the rule” and encourage us to get on bad in the party.

In Bad Johns, Mighty Sparrow proclaims his badjohnism in midnight-robber style, challenging men like Boysie Singh, Zigilee, Magga Toe and Mastife. Desperadoes won the 2016 Panorama title with their interpretation of 5Star Akil’s Nobody Badder than Me, an assertion of their intimate connection to and understanding of the power of badjohnism.

To be clear, I have not romanticised badjohn culture by denying it was violent. However, it is important to recognise that early forms of resistance were usually triggered by protecting cultural turf, injustice or inequity. As Mighty Sparrow reminds, “Is a dog eat dog we living in/And I know dat.”

Similarly, historians like Dr Hollis Liverpool point out that early Carnival-related violence represented cultural resistance against the oppression and inequity of colonial rule. He maintains that without the actions of the jamettes and stickfighters, “Carnival would have ended in 1881.”

Today, researchers draw links between violent, gang-related crime and the flooding of guns and drugs into our country. This week, a man was filmed pulling a woman’s hair and tearing her clothes while shouting that she liked "bad man ting."

Normalisation of violence has infiltrated our language and culture and recently, our politics. Worse, the new badjohns, gang leaders, offer income and satisfy yearning for family, but their interest is in exploiting rather than serving the community.

From badjohn to bad man to zesser. Our cultural rituals of protest are under siege from local and global forces that care little about the badjohn from the hills and streets of a former era. The midnight robber spins, conjuring names like Bitter Man and Ozzie, Hard Head and Willie. Let us remember them and what they represented, as the new version of badjohnism is already creating problems for us all.

Dara E Healy is a performance artist and founder of the Indigenous Creative Arts Network – ICAN