At­til­lah Sp­inger

Them bel­ly full but we hun­gry

A hun­gry man is a an­gry man

Rain ah fall but de dirt it tough

Pot a cook but de food nuh nuff

Dem Bel­ly Full, Bob Mar­ley

Do you know hunger? Have you ever met the burn­ing in the pit of your bel­ly, the waves of dis­con­tent rum­bling up from in­side of you and not known how to ease it? Have you ever had days when you don't know where your next meal is com­ing from or if it will come at all? Hunger is a phys­i­cal pain that is eas­i­ly healed if you have the means.

Hunger is a tem­po­rary state of be­ing for most of us. Any hunger I've ever felt in life has been self-im­posed. The un­der­stand­ing be­ing, when you choose to fast, to have the clar­i­ty of mind and the un­der­stand­ing that food, the life-sus­tain­ing force, is a bless­ing that we should nev­er un­der­es­ti­mate.

So the oth­er night, at min­utes to 11, I was in a shop in Ocho Rios on the way to Run­away Bay on Ja­maica's north coast. I'd eat­en some fries and as I was walk­ing back to the car to con­tin­ue the on­ward jour­ney when I heard foot­steps be­hind me. A man in a white shirt and walk­ing stick put his hand out to me and asked if I had any­thing eat.

And be­cause I have the lux­u­ry of too much food at my dis­pos­al that I can choose to be ve­g­an and the van­i­ty of West­ern stan­dards of body beau­ty, I glad­ly hand over my veg­gie burg­er and soft drink and turn away be­fore I get too cu­ri­ous and de­cide to ask him why he's out here and hun­gry and limp­ing. I don't know how hun­gry this man is. I don't know how long the hunger burned in his bel­ly be­fore he limped up to me and asked me for some­thing to eat.

My ad­ven­tures with fast­ing have taught me that we eat way too much. We use food like punc­tu­a­tion and our de­sires far ex­ceed our needs. So it's no ac­ci­dent that in a coun­try where so many cul­tur­al prac­tices are fo­cused on food, the lo­cal eu­phemism for self-in­ter­est is eat-ah-food. In the land of rum and roti and ex­cess, the de­ci­sion to not eat is about as rad­i­cal as you can get.

So re­gard­less of whether you agree with or not, you have to give jack his jack­et. You have to look at your own self and won­der what you would sac­ri­fice in de­fense of your be­liefs. It's a fun­ny thing about ac­tivists. Like artists, we ex­ist to make a dif­fer­ence.

It is ei­ther fool­ish or ar­ro­gant to be­lieve that you can make a change in the world around you. It is ei­ther mad­ness or a slight­ly ag­gres­sive lev­el of self-be­lief that creeps in­to your head and con­vinces you that you have the pow­er to change the minds of those who think they have the pow­er.

And be­cause ac­tivists don't usu­al­ly have some­one bankrolling their cam­paigns, they have noth­ing to lose. They have no one to an­swer to but their com­mu­ni­ties, or the voic­es in their heads. We are a na­tion of eaters. Food is all around all the time. We gorge our­selves on the fruits of our labours or most­ly oth­er peo­ple's labours and have all the lifestyle dis­eases to show for it. We, most of us, do not know the bit­ter taste of star­va­tion at the back of our throats.

I over­heard some Ja­maicans talk­ing at the air­port on my way in on a flight de­layed in Pi­ar­co be­cause of pow­er cuts caused by T&TEC's load-shed­ding. The Ja­maicans won­dered aloud how a coun­try so rich could have an air­port with­out in­de­pen­dent pow­er gen­er­a­tion fa­cil­i­ties. Dem wor­ship mon­ey a Trinidad, he con­cludes.

I hand over my burg­er with the ex­ces­sive haste of some­one bur­dened with the guilt of abun­dance. In the night too dark now to see the out­line of deep­est blue Caribbean Sea I think about mon­ey wor­ship­ping. I think about how Ja­maicans are so un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly them­selves. Proud and de­fi­ant, and some of them are ob­scene­ly poor and some of them are hor­ri­bly rich.

I think of Wayne Kublals­ingh and the rum­bling of hunger in his bel­ly. I think of all the com­ments I see on­line that range from ad­mi­ra­tion to con­tempt to ridicule. All these sit­ters on fences who have nev­er had the ar­ro­gance or the mad­ness or the con­vic­tion to stand up for any­thing.

And while we eat­ing ah food, the na­tion is starv­ing for lead­er­ship. And fo­cus. And com­mit­ment. While we eat­ing ah food, the na­tion's bel­ly is emp­ty of se­ri­ous­ness. We are wor­ship­ping at the gild­ed feet of a false god­dess, a moth­er who sti­fles her chil­dren in her breasts rather than feed­ing them. We are wor­ship­ping fol­ly and feast­ing on the car­cass of our po­ten­tial.

We chew­ing up our pat­ri­mo­ny fine like Sun­day stew chick­en bones. I won­der when we will re­alise that we are hun­gry for some­thing oth­er than food.