Remove all colonial-era icons

THE EDITOR, Madam:

THE GOVERNMENT of Jamaica should remove all public monuments of colonial-era icons. Such objects represent robbery, oppression, deprivation, physical torture, mental suffering, gross inhumanity, and blatant immorality and, as such, have no rightful place in Jamaica’s public spaces. That said, history, no matter how horrific, should be reserved for books and public museums, where, they can be properly contextualised and accurately depicted, within an enclosed space.

In relation to the late Cecil Rhodes, a racist, imperialist businessman, it’s time for Jamaica to withdraw from the Rhodes Scholarship programme. Yes, a select number of Jamaicans, over many decades, have been the proud recipients of that prestigious international scholarship and reaped academic rewards they may not have otherwise been able to access and/or afford. However, in essence, receiving a Rhodes Scholarship is no different from being the recipient of the David Duke Scholarship, that is if, God forbid, such a scholarship were to come into existence.

The time is long overdue for a paradigm shift of monumental proportions – where historical appropriateness, cultural significance, and racial celebration are concerned – to take place.