Never too late for unfinished business of independence

THE EDITOR, Madam:

THE CUT-AND-PASTE copy of the British unwritten constitution for Jamaica to accept is a paradise for the uninformed and a mockingbird for head of state.

The Confounding Island: Jamaica and the Postcolonial Predicament by distinguished historian and sociologist Orlando Patterson (not Confounded Island as published December 4) is where details of the hardship and suffering of women who carried the audacity of hope from one generation to another is recorded. These are the mothers of the nation, still not recognised for their extraordinary contribution to the unfinished business of an independent nation.

The grant of independence created a new nation of people comprising the majority from Africa as the working class largely in poverty, a hangover of wealthy Jews (two of whom founded The Gleaner newspaper the same year of the abolition of slavery in 1834), a small remnant of white Europeans, a sprinkling from India and China and a recent flow from the Middle East. All living with a government where the ghost of colonialism haunts the political parties that have no place in the Constitution.

Jamaicans must wake up to reality and get rid of the political mockingbird nestling in the Constitution as a dodo.

There are two recent occurrences that shed new light on Jamaica’s development that may turn off voters. First is the report that the Church of England has set aside US$1 billion for slavery while the law officers of government are dilly-dallying with the petition for reparation.

The second is the results from the local-government elections that show economic boon and extraordinary infrastructure that do not result in good governance unless the people benefit from them to satisfy immediate needs for roads, water, and affordable transportation.

The third obstacle to good governance is the humbug that excludes the coroner and the people of the parish where homicide took place, they have no say in the outcome of investigations. Instead, there is an invasion by armed strangers who frighten if not terrorise the citizens to cooperate with them seeking the offenders

Ultimately, honouring our national heroes for taking Jamaica thus far into independence without recognising the women who did so much for all to be finally free, and without whom there would be no heroes, leaving them out would be a travesty of history. There cannot be fathers of the nation without mothers. This would be a strange twist for registration of birth in Jamaica.

It is not too late to build a shrine honouring the memory of the many unknown women who contributed gloriously to the founding of the independent nation.

FRANK PHIPPS