Let’s not leave empty-handed
Dear Editor,
Jamaica should not miss the golden opportunity to lead and lift African people from racial discrimination still practised in many parts of the world.
Small as we are, our athletes and musicians say yes, we can.
PJ Patterson recently intoned a demand for something tangible as reparation, more than a pious declaration of regret. Reparatory justice is “something tangible” we will lose when Jamaica removes The Queen as monarch without getting compensation for the people mentally and physically ravaged for generations in enslavement under British rule, carried out exclusively for the further enrichment of Britain.
It is saddening to see former prime ministers Patterson and Bruce Golding advocating for removal The Queen, which will result in Jamaicans, for the second time, being released empty-handed.
It is written by imperial statute that the monarch of the UK will refer a claim to the Privy Council for redress of injustice that cannot go through the courts. That is what the complaint of chattel slavery in Jamaica is about — Patterson’s demand for something tangible.
The call to complete Jamaica’s Independence is better answered by completing the struggle of our ancestors for the unfinished business of reparatory justice paid for at the price of their blood and tears.
The law speaks to slavery as a crime against humanity, the law provides a route for compensation for victims of slavery, but the noble and honourable men will not take it. So equal rights and justice remain in the silence of the grave of those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Bright souls, ‘wha mek yu tun back? As you reach River Jordan you tun back’.
That is the national hymn for Independence after 60 years.
Frank Phipps, QC
frank.phipps@yahoo.com