Timely ‘Emancipendence’ broadside from Patterson
...but that’s not the full picture regarding chattel slavery
AS I finalise my plan to act within my constitutional right to petition the British Queen for reparation based on the debated and unanimously voted on motion in Parliament that authorised any Government of Jamaica to pursue the stated objective, I note the timely position that was recently expressed by noted former Jamaican Prime Minister P J Patterson on the darkest side of the country’s history — chattel slavery.
And, out of a process that has produced an affidavit and petition from similarly noted legal luminary Frank Phipps, QC, on a formal claim for reparation from Great Britain for the historically distressing phenomenon of chattel slavery, I welcome the relevance of connectivity with Patterson’s general position in his recent statement.
Longevity of purpose and circumstances have exposed me to much that has happened in the world and in Jamaica over time, and is happening even today, and I have had to face scenarios like the verandah politics of the ‘we and they’ mentality, just as I have passed through the ‘favoured Rasta’ concept that The University of the West Indies (UWI) sought then and is still seeking to make into an intellectual model of the new society.
As seen through others’ eyes, I often wonder, does anyone recall those battles, including the ghetto and ‘bhutto’ references?
I really thought that when given the opportunity, my peers, coming through these issues (for example, black power and being young, gifted and black), in seeking to justify our standing, we would not just follow the examples and influences of the past, but unlock our own minds and, by extension, our people’s minds.
My past, for instance, included when senior Cambridge was the supposed degree, and there was a junior Cambridge, both of which I later learnt in life was not even accepted by British companies when I worked in Britain. Our essays and work were judged by alien examiners in the halls of faraway environments in which receiving the title of ‘Sir’ was eminently sought after.
So, I, as someone of similar lifespan as former Prime Minister Patterson, and having been through some of the socalled revolutions over time, and through my own fights for things like independent trade unions, I say this all to effectively say that Patterson seems to be looking at things with his British Oxonian-trained mind, while I am looking at it through another pair of eyes.
For certainly, as his statement intimated, in this time of
Black Lives Matter, COVID-19, and the wider recognition of
the sheer brutality of chattel slavery, I quote Patterson: “[Chattel] slavery is the most heinous crime against humanity. It was not Queen Victoria who set us free. It was the rebellion of our fore parents.”
For me, it was not only the martyrdom of our immediate forebears, now called national heroes, but firstly, the resolve of the Maroons to defeat the British in Jamaica, and the Rastafarians in maintaining our ancestry, and the thrust for repatriation, and, indeed, our Afrocentricity, that have kept us mentally free in the midst of our historical British torment and shackled influence.
My eyes tell me that during our fight for freedom as a people we have historically failed to act effectively at our leadership level, for which there is a clear opportunity to correct this propensity in the contemporary scenario.
This is while I await the Government’s response to an invitation to support my affidavit and petition for reparation — a motion for which has already been passed in Parliament and approved by the National Reparation Commission.
Historically, when given the opportunity to act, this failure to act at the top leadership level was what misled our youth, and led to us being without a decision and conclusive position based on our Afrocentric issues, and has so biased our minds that we now have come full circle with some key issues looming large in our face as a nation and calling out for decisions.
I note the following:
1) The continued focus on the failure to declare Jamaica a republic.
2) The need to remove The Queen as our head of State.
3) Moving our trade unions from being politically driven organisations tied to each of the mainstream parties, and making them independent of political parties and skills-based and, by extension, teaching that it’s not always by the sweat of your brow that you eat bread, but also by the creativity of your minds and your ability to honourably outsmart most others, not aping all others.
Instead, we ended up failing to be a republic and having us as Jamaicans slavishly following a contrived and deliberate and unwritten social, religious, political, and economic Westminster model based on the ‘cousin syndrome’ to perpetuate a closed mind among our population.
Further, in relation to Patterson’s article, and knowing and respecting him personally, I merely want to now ask one question of him: Are you for or against reparations?
And I have today decided to send to him, copies of my petition and affidavit as have been sent to the Government of Jamaica. In the correspondence I have sought comment and the provision of any constitutional support that I may need in serving the petition and affidavit to The Queen, including possibly the Government being part of the process.
Similarly, I am corresponding with Minister Olivia Grange and the attorney general on this matter, which has long passed the debate stage, and cannot help noting the focus on celebrating Emancipation and Independence days together. This is seemingly on the basis of having a long holiday period of fun which, like Patterson has stated, would essentially be denigrating the true historical significances of both days, and also the position of the National Reparation Commission in respect of the nation’s long struggle for British accountability.
While Patterson said that, “We must reject and denounce the institutional exclusion of people,” I say we must correct the sins of the past and settle our debts on equal standing with our former colonial rulers.
Pay us what you owe us and open up the doors of opportunity in full recognition of the grave injustices of the past, and the exclusion of our creative capacity as a people for centuries.
Should we not, for instance, be leveraging that debt to assist in the nation’s economic recovery from the costly novel coronaviris pandemic, including now accessing the necessary vaccines for our people, and not perpetually resorting to measures like the annual foray into the resources of the National Housing Trust (NHT)?
Simply put, and summarily stated, until we free our minds by teaching the reality of our past, not just in relation to Jamaica, but equally our African ancestry, and have our people understand and accept that the way our minds presently reason, generally, was planned and left with us, as our language was not our own, our sense of ownership of ourselves was not widely accepted by us, so we are not truly independent, certainly not independent-minded as a people.
What we celebrate must be rooted in a demand for equality in real and virtual terms, and as long as there remains a huge debt to be settled in our favour I hope never to hear again that we, as a country and people, do not have the money or resources otherwise to do something that is critical to our well-being.