Tiffany McLeggon | We are not a nation meant to cower

There are some lines you do not expect to hear in a Senate debate. Not because they are out of place but because they carry a kind of weight that forces you to pause. Last week, People’s National Party senator Donna Scott-Mottley reached for one of those lines: “If we must die, let it not be like hogs…”

It is a line that has lived many lives. Written in July 1919 by Claude McKay, in the aftermath of racial violence and unrest, it was never meant to be gentle. It was a declaration, a refusal. A demand for dignity in the face of forces determined to strip it away. More than a century later, it still lands with unsettling clarity.

Because the truth is, what McKay was confronting then is not entirely unfamiliar now. The context has changed, but the underlying tension has not. There is always a question, whether in 1919 or 2026, about how people respond when they are pressured, tested, or placed in unequal situations. Do they shrink to survive, or do they stand in a way that preserves their dignity?

That question applies not only to individuals but also to countries. This is what made the Senator’s intervention more than a literary moment. She was not simply reciting poetry. She was making a point about posture. About presence. About how a nation carries itself in spaces where power is uneven, and influence is not always on your side. It was a reminder that there is a difference between diplomacy and deference, between engagement and submission, between representing a people and simply appearing agreeable. And if we are honest, that line is one we do not always guard as carefully as we should.

EARN RESPECT

Agreeableness does not earn respect, clarity does. Clarity about who you are, what you stand for, and where the line is. History does not reward those who are easiest to manage. It remembers those who are consistent, those who hold their ground even when it is inconvenient.

What Senator Scott-Mottley named, perhaps more directly than we are used to hearing, is the psychology of power. When you signal that you will accept almost anything, you are given almost anything. Not necessarily because people are deliberately trying to diminish you, but because power naturally extends itself where it is not resisted. It presses where it does not meet friction. It takes as much space as it is allowed to take.

This is why posture matters, not in the performative sense or through loud declarations for their own sake, but in a steady, grounded clarity about where you stand and what you are prepared to defend. Because over time, what you consistently tolerate does not remain neutral; it becomes the standard by which you are treated.

And the real danger is not found in a single moment of silence or even in a carefully measured diplomatic choice. It emerges in the accumulation of small adjustments, in the gradual softening of positions, in the quiet instinct to prioritise comfort over conviction. Eventually, those shifts do not just pass; they settle, and in settling, they begin to redefine what is considered acceptable.

This pattern is not confined to how we operate internationally; it is reflected just as clearly in how we function at home. It shows up in our response to inefficiency, in our willingness to tolerate delays that stretch beyond reason, and in how easily we accept explanations that do not fully explain. It appears in the ways we learn to navigate around broken systems rather than insist that they be fixed, and in how we lower our expectations over time, not because we believe less is acceptable, but because we begin to question whether better is even possible.

And slowly, almost imperceptibly, it becomes culture. We grow used to navigating dysfunction instead of confronting it, lowering our expectations to fit what we have come to experience. We tell ourselves to be patient, to be reasonable, to not expect too much. What begins as realism can quietly turn into surrender. And the truth is, a people who expect less will receive less, and a nation that signals it will accept less will never be given more.

ENDURING WORDS

This is what makes McKay’s words so enduring. They were about a mindset. A refusal to be diminished, even when the circumstances made that refusal difficult. A commitment to dignity, not as an abstract idea, but as a lived practice. That lesson still matters.

It matters in how we speak. In how we negotiate. In how we respond when we are challenged. In how we define the line between cooperation and compromise. And perhaps most importantly, it matters what we are willing to accept as normal, because dignity is not granted to us by others. It is reinforced by our own actions, the standards we uphold and the expectations we refuse to lower.

This is not a call for aggression. It is a call for grounding, for clarity, for a quiet confidence that does not need to announce itself but cannot be diminished. It speaks to a Jamaica that understands its worth, that neither overreaches nor understates itself, that knows when to engage and when to stand firm. Strength lies in that balance, and respect is built in that consistency.

So when that line echoed through the Senate and was recorded in Hansard, it did more than recall a poem written over a century ago. It reintroduced a principle that remains just as relevant now as it was then.

We are not a people meant to be cornered into silence. We are not a nation meant to shrink itself for comfort. We are not a country meant to cower. The only question is whether we will continue to carry ourselves like we believe that.

Tiffany McLeggon is a youth leader and communications professional. Send feedback to mcleggontiffany@gmail.com