Coral Gardens agreement should open wider discussion
IT IS an important development that after 56 years, the Government has formalised a J$12.7million trust fund to compensate/support Rastafarian victims of the Coral Gardens affair, in which the early independent Jamaican state abused its monopoly power for the use of violence against a minority group of citizens with whom the society was uncomfortable.
But while what happened is important, it doesn’t represent a full healing, either with the Rastafarian community or other marginalised Jamaicans. Indeed, last week’s action is an opportunity for the advancement of a deeper conversation on affording all Jamaicans their rightful place in the society, including the obligation to fully respect constitutional rights and freedoms.
In 1963, the year after Jamaica’s independence, Rastafarians, a religious group that emerged in the 1930s who claimed Ethiopia’s then emperor, Haile Selassie, as divine, clearly operated on the periphery of society. Made up mostly of urban poor who wore locked hair and preached an admixture of Old Testament and Ethiopian Orthodox Church religion and Afro-centric philosophy-promoted self-reliance, they aroused disdain and suspicion.
Coral Gardens was a major, though not the first, eruption of these tensions. Three years earlier, at a Rastafarian compound in St Catherine, two members were killed and two soldiers injured during an attempt to dislodge the group from their settlement. The Coral Gardens, Montego Bay incident apparently began as a dispute between a land owner and a group of Rastafarians, which developed into a mini riot that escalated with forceful intervention by the authorities. Over three days of rioting, eight Rastafarians and two policemen were killed and more than 150 arrested. Their locks and beards, symbols of their religion, were forcefully shaved.
Two years ago, Prime Minister Andrew Holness apologised “without equivocation … for what occurred at Coral Gardens”.
“We express regret and sorrow for this chapter in our national life that was characterised by brutality, injustice and repression. [It] was wrong and should never be repeated,” the prime minister stressed at the time. He also announced the planned establishment of a trust fund for the survivors of the action.
RASTAFARI CULTURE BEING MAINSTREAM
In the decades since Coral Gardens, Rastafari, if not the religion, the style and fashion and other elements of the group’s culture, has largely been mainstreamed, although tensions remain. Ratafari’s best-known face, the late singer/musician Bob Marley, is a global icon. The law recognises marijuana smoking as a sacrament for the religion, and wearing locks and stylised braids is common but still struggles for official imprimatur.
For instance, even as the minister for culture, Olivia Grange, was last Thursday signing the trust fund agreement with members of the Coral Gardens Benevolent Society, a case remained in the courts over a parent’s challenge of a school’s refusal to enrol her child because she wore Ratafari-style locks.
Issues of the type arise sporadically without, it appears, a clear overarching policy from the Government. Indeed, this is a right that not only affects freedom of expression, it also impinges on a right to education in a circumstance where the State, especially at the primary and second stages, enjoys a near monopoly on its delivery.
The expansion of, and/or adherence to, people’s fundamental rights and freedoms can’t be sustained for one set of citizens if they are constrained to others. In this regard, these renewed conversations must engage all Jamaicans, including gays and lesbians and other members of the LBGTQ community, who should be free to love who they wish and express that love, including by way of marriage, however they will.
These debates will make some people uncomfortable, as the presence of Rastafarians once did. But discussion and debate brings enlightenment.