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JLP, PNP owe us reparations
Published: Friday | August 9, 2013 5 Comments
This week, we closed the yearlong celebration of our 51st anniversary of political Independence, and except for our two political tribes and their sycophants (a significant and powerful minority), the national consensus is that the last half-century has been a litany of wasted opportunities.
This year, both the PNP and the JLP celebrate milestones - 75 and 70 years, respectively, since their founding, and we must determine whether they have served us well. If we allow them to evaluate themselves, we will get nothing but undeserved self-praise.
Formed at a time when our colonial masters were distracted and weak fighting an extensive war in Europe and Asia, they 'won' for us first self-government and then independence. Britain was shedding colonies in the 1960s, and was happy to be rid of the financial burden of Jamaica, and didn't mind if Jamaican politicians wanted to claim a 'victory'.
The real battle was on the labour front, not so much between the colonial power and the colonists, but between workers and capitalists. The creation of trade unions in the 1930s, and the struggles for higher wages and better working conditions in Jamaica, paralleled similar struggles in Britain 50 years before. Both the PNP and the JLP rode on the backs of the effectiveness of their trade unions (and not the other way around).
Anti-colonial and nationalistic rhetoric was eventually adopted by both parties. The thrust was to foster a Jamaican identity among Jamaicans, so Jamaican nationalists explored Jamaican history, archaeology and culture to celebrate our separateness from things British. This was the period that saw the emergence of Jamaican art, sculpture, music and dance.
The movement to 'Build a New Jamaica' saw JLP branches and PNP groups forming right across Jamaica, along with branches of the JAS and the JTA. Not to join in the movement was to support colonialism and backwardness. And so almost everyone registered to vote, and turned out on election day.
Founded for the sole purpose to 'fight' for political Independence, after August 6, 1962, neither party had a clear agenda for the way forward. Impressed with our struggle for Independence, Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore came to learn, but left disillusioned; there was no Jamaican model of independent nationhood to emulate! After getting rid of the colonial Englishman who was milking the country dry, our Jamaican politicians - little more than mimic men - having no other role models they admired, stepped into the shoes of the Englishmen and continued to do the same thing.
Fifty years later, we still blame Jamaica's present ills on slavery and our colonial past, and demand reparations. Personally, I believe reparations are due. It is a scandal of epic proportions that the perpetrators of slavery in Jamaica received £6,161,927.5s.10d compensation for the loss of their property (309,331 slaves) - rather more than £19 per head - while the victims, the former slaves, received no compensation whatsoever for the loss of their freedom, their homeland and their heritage.
Inequality and 'downpression'
It is a fact that much of what today causes Afro-Jamaicans to be underdeveloped and in misery has its origin in the inequality and 'downpression' of slavery; and, therefore, compensation - reparations - are due. I have been writing about this for the last 20 years in this column. But the failure to provide education for all Jamaicans, the failure to redress the imbalance of land and social status, the creation of garrisons and armed political gangs, the widespread corruption and extortion, are not to blamed on the system of slavery operated by the British. The PNP and JLP right here in Jamaica are directly to blame.
The British should be called on to pay reparations; but so should the JLP and the PNP for how they have wasted the last 50 years, and made us much less than we could be.
I think that the PNP and JLP politicians calling for reparations from the British look forward to receiving some huge sum of money to do with what they will. God forbid! The British must pay reparations; but not a farthing must be paid to the JLP or PNP, or come under their control. In fact, the PNP and the JLP - and their backers - must pay compensation to us Jamaicans for the decades of mental slavery and underdevelopment they have forced us to endure.
Independence has come, and both the PNP and the JLP claim credit for the British handing it to us on a platter. They have been poor managers of independent Jamaica, and most of us have abandoned them both. Don't you agree that with their present mindset, they have outlived their usefulness?
Peter Espeut is a rural development sociologist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.
JLP, PNP owe us reparations
Published: Friday | August 9, 2013 5 Comments
This week, we closed the yearlong celebration of our 51st anniversary of political Independence, and except for our two political tribes and their sycophants (a significant and powerful minority), the national consensus is that the last half-century has been a litany of wasted opportunities.
This year, both the PNP and the JLP celebrate milestones - 75 and 70 years, respectively, since their founding, and we must determine whether they have served us well. If we allow them to evaluate themselves, we will get nothing but undeserved self-praise.
Formed at a time when our colonial masters were distracted and weak fighting an extensive war in Europe and Asia, they 'won' for us first self-government and then independence. Britain was shedding colonies in the 1960s, and was happy to be rid of the financial burden of Jamaica, and didn't mind if Jamaican politicians wanted to claim a 'victory'.
The real battle was on the labour front, not so much between the colonial power and the colonists, but between workers and capitalists. The creation of trade unions in the 1930s, and the struggles for higher wages and better working conditions in Jamaica, paralleled similar struggles in Britain 50 years before. Both the PNP and the JLP rode on the backs of the effectiveness of their trade unions (and not the other way around).
Anti-colonial and nationalistic rhetoric was eventually adopted by both parties. The thrust was to foster a Jamaican identity among Jamaicans, so Jamaican nationalists explored Jamaican history, archaeology and culture to celebrate our separateness from things British. This was the period that saw the emergence of Jamaican art, sculpture, music and dance.
The movement to 'Build a New Jamaica' saw JLP branches and PNP groups forming right across Jamaica, along with branches of the JAS and the JTA. Not to join in the movement was to support colonialism and backwardness. And so almost everyone registered to vote, and turned out on election day.
Founded for the sole purpose to 'fight' for political Independence, after August 6, 1962, neither party had a clear agenda for the way forward. Impressed with our struggle for Independence, Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore came to learn, but left disillusioned; there was no Jamaican model of independent nationhood to emulate! After getting rid of the colonial Englishman who was milking the country dry, our Jamaican politicians - little more than mimic men - having no other role models they admired, stepped into the shoes of the Englishmen and continued to do the same thing.
Fifty years later, we still blame Jamaica's present ills on slavery and our colonial past, and demand reparations. Personally, I believe reparations are due. It is a scandal of epic proportions that the perpetrators of slavery in Jamaica received £6,161,927.5s.10d compensation for the loss of their property (309,331 slaves) - rather more than £19 per head - while the victims, the former slaves, received no compensation whatsoever for the loss of their freedom, their homeland and their heritage.
Inequality and 'downpression'
It is a fact that much of what today causes Afro-Jamaicans to be underdeveloped and in misery has its origin in the inequality and 'downpression' of slavery; and, therefore, compensation - reparations - are due. I have been writing about this for the last 20 years in this column. But the failure to provide education for all Jamaicans, the failure to redress the imbalance of land and social status, the creation of garrisons and armed political gangs, the widespread corruption and extortion, are not to blamed on the system of slavery operated by the British. The PNP and JLP right here in Jamaica are directly to blame.
The British should be called on to pay reparations; but so should the JLP and the PNP for how they have wasted the last 50 years, and made us much less than we could be.
I think that the PNP and JLP politicians calling for reparations from the British look forward to receiving some huge sum of money to do with what they will. God forbid! The British must pay reparations; but not a farthing must be paid to the JLP or PNP, or come under their control. In fact, the PNP and the JLP - and their backers - must pay compensation to us Jamaicans for the decades of mental slavery and underdevelopment they have forced us to endure.
Independence has come, and both the PNP and the JLP claim credit for the British handing it to us on a platter. They have been poor managers of independent Jamaica, and most of us have abandoned them both. Don't you agree that with their present mindset, they have outlived their usefulness?
Peter Espeut is a rural development sociologist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, pictured in 2011, said he was shocked by the comments about Doreen Lawrence. Photograph: Ben Pruchnie/Getty Images
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