Women and Musicians Urged to Remain Positive Influences

Youth and Culture Minister, Hon. Lisa Hanna, is urging the nation’s two most influential stakeholders, women and musicians, to remain steadfast as positive influences both locally and globally, while dismissing issues detracting from this course.

“Our mission, that must be accomplished, must transcend personal agendas for the upliftment of all our people. We must ridicule personal vengefulness and, at all times, we must ensure that we are our sisters’ and our brothers’ keepers,” the Minister asserts.

She was addressing over 400 participants from some 30 nations at the closing ceremony for the International Women’s Forum World Cornerstone Conference, at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in Rose Hall, St. James, on May 31.

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Noting the impact of Jamaica’s music globally, Ms. Hanna said the country’s musicians and its women must accept and understand that they are the “revolution and the transformation” and that, as a nation “we have the same empathy of purpose that gives us the same shared experiences’.

“Our journey as a people has been blessed through a strength of purpose, that we are the founders of our own destiny. The music helped to create a momentum that drove political leaders to focus on the realities of people’s lives,” she pointed out.

The Minister informed that through music, Jamaica advanced a wave of radicalism that confronted global powers in a manner that still befuddles many.

“We were the first to boldly enter the halls of the United Nations and lobby against the Apartheid regime in South Africa. Emboldened by the music, we promoted democracy in Zimbabwe, and supported Fidel Castro in his revolution in Cuba and the Cuban involvement in the war in Angola,” she outlined.

Ms. Hanna pointed out that as the world currently seeks to transition from a confrontational setting to more harmonious co-existence, “we in Jamaica are at a crossroads.”

“Today, the reality is that we can transform the world in minutes … with vision. Our music is expected to be the platform on which the world will build its future generation of power. Today when you hear the music of Jamaica … you are not just listening to scintillating rhythmic combinations and melodies; our music is about mobilizing and in most instances, a call to action,” Ms. Hanna said.

Contact: Glenis A. Rose