Conference to Build the ASI - Report from Jamaica

Written by Pauline Edwards

Greetings, brothers and sisters. I am sorry that I cannot be here with you today, but by the time you will be reading and listening to these comments of mine, I’ll be in the motherland, Africa (Ghana).

This will be my first visit to the land of my ancestors. Words cannot describe how I am feeling. I will be visiting the Elmina Dungeon, one of the sites where our brothers and sisters were held captive to be sold into slavery. Many took their own lives in the dungeons rather than leave their beloved Africa. Recently, BET, an American based television company held a jazz concert in the Elmina dungeon. This is the ultimate disrespect to our ancestors’ memory and to all African people.

I feel honored to be asked to address this conference to give my views on the situation in Jamaica, the island where I was born.

The tiny island of Jamaica is recognized the world over and conjures up so many images -— vitality, reggae music, political corruption, freedom fighters (Paul Bogle, Sam Sharpe, Nanny of the Maroon and Marcus Garvey), Yardies, drugs and Rastafarians. Jamaica’s most famous children, Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey, are eternal international ambassadors who taught us that the first step to freedom is to liberate our minds. But on the island they come from, political corruption and bloodshed are the order of the day.

The two main political parties are the People’s National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). The PNP was founded by Norman Manley in 1938 shortly after an uprising that is now known as the "Labour Unrest." The JLP was formed in 1943 by George William Bustamante after he was released from prison by colonial masters. He was sent to prison for inciting violence amongst the masses. Bustamante and Manley were two first cousins from the mulatto class. It was rumored that Bustamante struck a deal with the then white Governor of Jamaica, Sir Authur Richards, to attack the PNP for his release. They both denied the rumor, but history was to prove that there could be some truth in it.

As far as I am aware, the JLP has never implemented any well-meaning policy in all their sixty years in existence. The only thing they have done to the best of their ability is to rival and undermine the PNP. The PNP members are so busy looking over their shoulders for the next bad move by the JLP they themselves have lost the plot.

In 1955 the PNP took part in the formation of the West Indian Federation. The Federation was supposed to unite the Caribbean people and enable them to pool their resources together to survive the aggressive, cutthroat, capitalist-orientated global community, but this was not to be. Bustamante’s JLP campaigned against it saying Jamaica was much too superior to its other tiny neighbors, had its own culture and history and would not benefit from a union. Did Bustamante think for one minute that we had different cultures and histories when we were all in the same slave dungeons? There was a referendum and the people voted against the Federation.

So, what is Jamaica today without the Federation? In two weeks time, Jamaica will be celebrating forty-one years of independence, but is there much to celebrate? There is an AIDS problem courtesy of tourism. Political warfare brings the island to a standstill. Jamaica is now a major drug transhipment point. High profile politicians and police officers are involved in the drug trade. Extortion of businesses by hoodlums is a million-dollar industry, and the Jamaican currency is nearly one hundred dollars to the British pound.

The present PNP leader and Prime Minister P.J. Patterson is now pushing for a more united Caribbean through a free market and for a separate court of appeal in the region from that of the old British colonial master. The JLP, now under the leadership of Edward Seaga, a Syrian man, says no one will get true justice in the Caribbean and a free market in the region is a Federation in disguise and vows to campaign against it. Does this man respect our right to self-determination? I don’t think so, but then again they never did.

I appeal to you all here at this conference to support a united Caribbean and a Federation if it comes to that. I leave you with these words from two of Jamaica’s famous sons: Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey.

"Old pirates yes they rob I, sold I to the merchant ships. Minutes after they took I from the bottomless pit, but my head was made strong by the hands of the almighty. We’re forwarding this generation triumphantly." — Bob Marley

"We are descendants of the men and women who have suffered in this country for two hundred and fifty years under the barbarous, that brutal institution known as slavery. You who have not lost trace of your history will recall the fact that over three hundred years our forebears were taken from that great continent of Africa for the purpose of using them as slaves. Without mercy, without any sympathy, they worked our forebears. They suffered with their blood which they shed in their death, they had hope that one day their posterity would be free and we are assembled here today as children of their hope."— Marcus Garvey