Dear Editor,

As I watched Jamaica’s “finest legal minds” genuflect for British lords as we asked them to divine our legal conundrums in the middle of Black history month — or is it election history month? — I couldn’t help but consider that 61 years after the supposed dawn of Independence Jamaica remains ensnared in the vestiges of its colonial past.

The Crown’s long shadow still looms over our nation, with King Charles as our titular head of State and a governor general serving as his proxy. The trappings of British imperialism persist in our parliamentary rituals and appeals to the distant Privy Council.

Financial emancipation remains elusive. Our currency, printed in England, is backed by dwindling reserves and the faltering dollar. As we grovel before the International Monetary Fund, begging for loans, the true extent of our economic dependence becomes painfully clear.

The tentacles of foreign media, particularly the American behemoth, have us firmly in their grip. From the Monroe Doctrine to the relentless bombardment of Hollywood entertainment, we remain subservient to external narratives. Our own voices are drowned out by the cacophony of foreign propaganda.

Neoliberal globalisation, with its insidious erosion of State sovereignty, has further compromised our independence. Foreign corporations control our utilities, our airports, and our natural resources. We have become mere pawns in the global economic game, our own aspirations stifled by the dictates of distant masters.

Poverty, illiteracy, and unemployment cast their long shadows over our land, binding us in invisible chains. Crime and inequality flourish, while corruption and data manipulation undermine our institutions. We have become a nation of fractured fragments, each claiming to be independent but ultimately beholden to external forces.

As author and poet Kahlil Gibran lamented, we are a nation that “wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine press”. We have traded our sovereignty for the illusion of freedom, our dignity for the scraps of colonialism.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa

yannickpessoa@yahoo.com