Gordon Robinson | Emancipate Jamaica from the British way

So, what else has been happening behind my back since I was missing in action presumed dead?

Muddled, linear, non-emancipated thinking was rampant. One of the best examples was a Gleaner endorsed call for Integrity Commission to fast track corruption investigations. In a July 14 Editorial ( Fast track IC cases):

“Corruption matters demand urgent attention lest they become a cancerous affliction on society. Moreover, when they remain unresolved and public trust is eroded, the State’s capacity to act is diminished….”

Sigh.

Corruption “matters” (a.k.a. allegations) do NOT demand urgent attention. They demand thorough, detailed investigation. They demand discretion. They demand respect for subjects’ privacy and presumption of innocence. If they remain unresolved it only means that NOTHING can be proven against the subjects. No cancer. No erosion. Just due process!

You CANNOT fast-track corruption investigations. The standard complaint by completed investigation reports’ subjects of reputational damage is the obvious caution against rushing the process. I realize media need space fillers but it’s time we stop creating problems for every solution.

The irony in the proposal in light of then upcoming “Emancipation Day” wasn’t lost on me. The fact that some of us prefer prompt publication over proper process suggests that we remain mentally enslaved to popular opinion (i.e. tribalism) and resistant to detached analysis. Why are we in such a hurry to have names called? What’s the benefit to society? If you were under investigation would you want the investigation fast-tracked?

The first step to emancipation from mental slavery is taken by a deeper understanding of the history and continued effects of slavery:

Old pirates, yes, they rob I;

sold I to the merchant ships.

Minutes after they took I

from the bottomless pit

Who were these “old pirates”? Were they the lazy British merchants who sat in their ships off Africa’s East Coast drinking rum or those manning onshore trading hubs along the Gold Coast?

No sirree Bob (no pun intended)!

They were mere retailers. Middlemen. As documented by reparations activists who are also current descendants of the DeWolf family, one of the largest slave traders, African slavery wasn’t as simple as we’re sometimes led to believe. DeWolfs’ descendants recorded ancestors’ activities in a documentary Traces of the Trade. On their website they wrote:

“Slavery existed in Africa prior to the transatlantic trade, and in fact the earlier, trans-Saharan slave trade sent more enslaved Africans east to the Muslim world, over many centuries, than would be transported west to the Americas. However, the large-scale organization of European slave trading and the development of industry and massive plantations dependent on slave labor gave rise to a trade in humans that was staggering in its scale. Approximately 10 million enslaved people were transported in the transatlantic slave trade, at rates of up to 100,000 persons per year.”

Ghana, from whence many Jamaican slaves originated, was divided into warring tribes whose regional conflicts often resulted in capture, torture and sale to the slave trade. Among the source of marketable slaves were vulnerable travelers ambushed by rival tribes and forced to walk long distances to trading hubs. While awaiting slave ships, many were imprisoned in brutish dungeons in coastal fortifications like Elmina and Cape Coastal Castles. Local Authorities used convicts as debt collateral or fodder for sale to the trade usually by way of exchange with European merchants for manufactured goods, including guns, cloth, and metal tools.

So, when looking for Bob’s “Old Pirates” also look in the mirror.

But then unimaginable savagery began. We’ve all been taught the depraved despicable demonic damage done to our ancestors’ bodies and minds during the voyage to the “new world”. We all know of the even worse soul-destroying treatment as chattel to be sold at public auction followed by further loathsome dehumanization by slave masters. Our ancestors were taught that they weren’t human. They were animals trained to obey or be savagely punished. Women were subject to even more degrading, dehumanizing exploitation of body and mind.

But my hand was made strong

by the hand of the Almighty.

We forward in this generation

triumphantly!

In Jamaica, our ancestors fought for freedom in little ways (e.g. creating their own language now called patwa) until they could fight in bigger ways. Queen Nanny of the Maroons, leader of the “Windward Maroons”, all West African escapee slaves, fought a guerrilla war against British colonial rulers so successfully that the British were forced into a Peace Treaty with the Maroons. Sam Sharpe, a slave but also a Preacher and Baptist Church leader, led the famous Christmas Rebellion against the British in 1831-32 that mobilized more than 60,000 slaves and, although eventually quelled after 10 days, undoubtedly influenced passage of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 and the emancipation of slaves in 1834.

Won’t you help to sing

these songs of freedom?

’cause all I ever have

Redemption songs

The fight for emancipation from colonial rule and mental slavery continued with the Morant Bay Rebellion led by Paul Bogle and the activism of George William Gordon. Both were hanged by the British for their efforts. But, because of them, we’ve a chance to emancipate ourselves

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery.

None but ourselves can free our minds.

Our bodies have been emancipated from slavery but our minds remain imprisoned. We’re brainwashed to believe that we must emulate everything British. We’re determined to treat anything indigenous as “bad”. So we can’t speak patwa in Parliament. Only English will do.

We don’t trust our indigenous or regional judiciary. Only white English law lords’ decisions on Jamaican law will satisfy us. This is the everlasting effect of the dehumanization to which our ancestors were subjected for 400 years. We were taught then, and have been unable to unshackle our minds from that learning, that only a British word is a good word. We’re less than capable. We’re less than we need to be. We’re less than human.

How long shall they kill our prophets

while we stand aside and look? Ooh!

Some say it’s just a part of it.

We’ve got to fulfill the book.

Robert Nesta Marley’s father was an Englishman but Bob never knew him. Somehow, perhaps due to his very strict and humble upbringing, Bob was able to become a modern day philosopher and see clearly what most of us either can’t or won’t see.

We are NOT English. We will NEVER be English. The English don’t mean us well insofar as equality and emancipation is concerned. The English want to be absentee parents who dictate to their children without accepting any fiscal responsibility for their welfare. THIS is why we were force fed the British system of governance and our arms bent to continue it into independence. We were taught the British way in pre-independence schools. We knew then that there was no other way. SIXTY-FOUR YEARS LATER, we’re still trapped in the British way.

It was to that end why, as more and more colonies became “independent”, England created the “Commonwealth”. THAT was to ensure wealth wasn’t common and we remained under the Empire’s influence. THIS is why we were encouraged to keep the Privy Council so that England would still have the final say in how our laws were interpreted and applied.

And, so far, we’ve gone along. We’ve failed to educate ourselves other than in the British way. We still learn by rote and sit exams because it’s the British way. We still govern Jamaica as the British did with an all-powerful, unchecked Prime Minister backed by a cabinet that dominates a parliament of only 63 MPs. Neither restraint nor revolt is mathematically possible.

Jamaica needs to emancipate itself from The British Way. Jamaica needs accountability in Government. Every good outcome depends on that. Thirty-one of forty-eight JLP MPs/Senators are Ministers/State Ministers and one “Parliamentary Secretary”. How do we expect this British-style Parliament to hold Government accountable? Parliament and Government are the same.

People, it’s time to emancipate YOURSELVES from mental slavery; time to stop being “die-hearted Comrades” or Labourites following a leader ’til you die; time to start being Jamaicans. Insist of change. Insist on true freedom.

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.