Dear Editor,

I write this open letter to The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, William and Catherine, against the background of much cherished sentiments attached to memories of the beautiful wedding of your beloved parents and the birth of their two sons, one of whom you are, William.

I was an impressionable teenager, who, like most Jamaicans, was fascinated with the fairytale wedding and then the cute babies of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. Your beloved mother is still such a hero of many hearts across the world.

My heartfelt thoughts are that you will be only too happy and even humble enough to accede my humble request and appeal to your humanity for an apology to our Jamaican people, who continue to live with the attendant consequences of colonialism, slavery, and the towering heights of white supremacy in all its systemic and viral prevalence in the most fundamental institutions impacting the Jamaican psyche.

These institutions are religious, educational, and political. They do not even have to conspire or collaborate in the ongoing project of mental slavery. Each one simply carries out its own agenda and the job is done.

The insult to our human dignity, self-worth, and autonomy is so palpable that many no longer realise the ongoing effects of the sheer cruelty wrought upon us by the genocide and holocaust of the transatlantic slave trade.

Would you be so kind to just tender an apology for the crimes against humanity?

Your high office, held by others in the past, and now by you for a time such as this, presents us with an opportunity to live on the side of history for healing, reparatory justice, and a celebration of human rights for all.

We know that you will rise above the cold, crude, contemptuous, and crass disregard that we met in Prime Minister David Cameron, who, on his 2015 visit to Jamaica, displayed a lack of sensitivity for the pain and suffering endured by our revered ancestors and the manumitted, who were never even compensated for the centuries of dehumanisation experienced in English colonies across the Caribbean and the rest of the world to aid in the building of the British empire.

We do not believe that any more representatives of Her Majesty’s loyal westminster parliamentary democracy will ever treat us in this way again.

Your simple apology is anticipated.

Rev Sean Major-Campbell

Anglican Priest and Advocate for human rights

seanmajorcampbell@yahoo.com