Connecting Jamaica-China
From Cyberlaw
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An audio proposal to meet a problem (five minutes, with music!)
MAIN IDEA: a good will exchange between Jamaica and China
to promote understanding of the Students Expressing Truth (SET) inmate reform program
and strengthen trust and co-operation between Jamaica and China.
What's in it for the Berkman Center
1. project peace and respect as fundamental to growth in cyberspace
- Keep it simple
- Keep it open
- Not democracy
- Technical meritocracy
- Assume people are reasonable
- Assume people are nice
- Fool me once
- Fool me twice
- Run by rough consensus of the whole
2. demonstrate a university assisting in creating new knowledge, understanding and connection;
3. model how small people and institutions can stand hand in hand with giants .
invitation: a series of matches, concerts and Socratic reasonings
STUDENTS EXPRESSING TRUTH invites AFRIKA UNITED football team to participate in a goodwill football match, musical performance and roundtable discussion to celebrate the power of self-development among inmates which is transforming Jamaican prisons.
SET is an inmate rehabilitation program which builds upon the concepts of peace, and respect for all - teaching inmates to create radio and television, theater, internet, self, nation, and the world.
AFRIKA UNITED is an amateur football team comprised of African men who have come for work to live in Beijing and found connection through playing football.
BLOGGERS will follow the AFRIKA UNITED football team on its journey from Beijing to Kingston, exploring the country and people, similarities and differences, telling stories of the journey, and creating media in a variety of media forms for a global Chinese, Jamaican/Carribean, UK and US audience.
Football will be mixed with blazing musical performance in coordinated events, under the [Sports and Culture Director of SET] at GP. The significance of the events will be articulated in a high-level moderated roundtable discussion, led by Professor Nesson, recorded and edited for net and television broadcast.
The overall event will span prison walls, cross oceans, bridge cultural divides, and showcase the SET mission to world.
This event will promote interaction among developing countries of different cultures, to the benefit of diplomacy, business and culture.
This event will help grow Jamaica’s story and the story of all who support and play a part in its narrative essay.
“OUT OF MANY ONE PEOPLE”
Letter Seeking Official Support
Dear Prime Ministers, Portia Simpson Miller, Wen Jiabao
Dear Ambassadors, Mr. Wayne McCook, Mr. Zhao Zhenyu
Dear Ministers of Security, Peter Phillips
Dear Minister of Technology, Phillip Paulwell
Dear Commissioners of Correction, Richard Reese
Dear Senior Staff of Jamaica DCS
Dear Junior Staff of Jamaica DCS
Dear Teammates, men and women of SET
Dear Families Friends and Students and Staff Expressing Truth
We write on behalf of the S=SET CyberSchool program of Restorative Justice in Jamaica. S=SET CyberSchool is constituted by a Memorandum of Understanding executed March 23, 2006 between the Govt Jamaica by and through the Department of Corrections, and SET Ltd., working with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.
We invite and ask your support in helping us organize a good will exchange between Jamaica and China.
We invite a group of visitors from China to Jamaica consisting of:
(1) two six-man teams of football players, one team drawn from Afrika United, the other from the same amateur football league in Beijing in which Afrika United plays,
(2) a hot young Chinese band;
(3) journalists, amateur and professional to blog the story back to China;
all being people who are friendly, athletic, musical and interesting to talk with.
We will organize a series of matches, concerts and Socratic reasonings including a match, concert and reasoning in the General Penitentiary, with S=SET CyberSchool teams, students and staff, and a match concert and reasoning at Boys Town Club, Collie Smith Drive. More dates and venues are possible.
Our friendly invitation responds affirmatively to the tensions and opportunities in the impending deepening of connection between Jamaican and Chinese cultures.
It may seem odd and even wrong that an invitation such as this should emanate from a prison program. The words of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter explain:
- "A person in prison finds him or herself at the bottom of human existence. What he has to say is, “Okay, whatever I’ve done in life has led me to where I am today. Therefore, if I want to get out of prison and stay out, I’ve got to turn around and go back up.” He’s got to use this time to learn how to read if he doesn't know how, to learn to write, to learn a skill if he never had a skill. Use this time to better himself. Maybe on the outside he didn’t have time for any of these things. Now he’s got time. This time has been imposed on him. Use it to look at himself. Use it to make himself indispensable. Use it to begin to awaken."
These words express the spirit law moving away from the punitive justice philosophy of colonial imperialism toward a restorative justice approach suited to an independent developing nation. This seed of spirit now firmly planted in Jamaica DCS and SET from which Jamaica can develop its own identity, switching from an imposed identity to one which is developed by the people for the people founded on principles of hard work and seated on a bed of trust.
Peace and Respect
Kevin Wallen
S=SET CyberSchool, Director
Charles Nesson
Berkman Center, Harvard
John Prescod
Former Commissioner of Corrections
Siccaturie Alcock
SET Director for Sports and Culture
biographies
football teams:
- African United
- The Chinese Ambassadors
key contributors:
- Kevin Wallen
- Jah Cure
- Charlie Nesson
- others...
television and film:
- Rick Widmer
- Jeremy Goldkorn
digital:
- Eric Priest
facts to attract people and clear minds
China is the abbreviation of The People's Republic of China, established in October 1st, 1949. There are twenty-three provinces, five autonomous regions and four municipalities. The founding father is Mao Zedong, and current President, Chairman of Communist Party and the head of the Central Military Committee is Hu Jintao.
Jamaica, with the population of 2.7 million, was independent in 1962. Governor General Sir Howard Felix Cooke is the head of the executive branch, working in Kingston, capital of Jamaica. Its official language is English, global language in the current world.
One of the positive impacts of the event would further encourage more Jamaicans and Chinese to get to know each other more about the country, the people, and the similarity and the difference. Everyone is curious about the other side of the world and would very much "probe" what would be like in the other country. The event of art exhibition would just open a window to those curious people of each country so as to allow a slice of light shining through. The next step from my analysis would be the business groups visiting the other country in order to increase the bilateral trade partnership.
Learning each other to create a win-win situation by interaction between the countries, Jamaica would perhaps find a more realistic and practical way of booming its economy and China would expand its economic scope deep to the Caribbean countries. By exploring of the Internet, I learn more about cultural indifference, which is from culture to economy, from people to environment. It was really fun to see how the two countries would build their relationship in the way which bring the Chinese soccer team to play in Jamaica or vice versa, or bring the Jamaican musical artist to China or otherwise, as Professor Nesson said in his talk. It has started this century, and with hope lasts forever in terms of interaction between two countries.
Interaction between two developing countries with different cultures to improve correlations in the field of diplomacy, business, and culture. Jamaica is China’s largest trading partner in the English-speaking Caribbean with trade reaching the level of US$400M in 2004. Jamaica has recognized China’s full market economy status, which has paved the way for further development of bilateral trade.
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multi media
useful links
Embassy of Jamaica, Beijing
Visit Jamaica - in Chinese
Destination Jamaica
