Daniel Thwaites | “Jamaica” is an offensive colonial relic

We need to get along with renaming Lady Musgrave Road. Just. Do. It. Obviously the name annoys some people tremendously.

I hadn’t thought about it enough for it to annoy me, but I discovered, upon reflection, that this movement to rename it was maybe something I could enthusiastically get on board with. Provided, that is, that they don’t stop half-way and actually get rolling with this “decolonising” business.

The current moment got started with statues, some grotesque, being torn down in America. Of course, we must follow. But the initial problem for us to join this twilight of the idols is that we simply don’t have a lot of icons and statues to destroy. This is no minor inconvenience, but a serious impediment to achieving the enormous collective bonding and personal emotional satisfaction we can get from destruction.

Truth is, it being always easier to destroy than to build, we’re somewhat leapfrogging the process. If the need to decolonise wasn’t so pressing we could be busying ourselves with erecting statues to the people and causes we want to admire for this or that, and leave the destruction to some future generation (who will most assuredly sneer at us for not having seen things correctly).

But we do have a few statues and The Gleaner reports that the Government has now convened a review. Overall, a process of managed decommissioning is surely preferable to mob vandalism. I know of Columbus, Queen Victoria, and Gandhi. All have “problematic” views on race. Perhaps the Government will find it fit to expend funds, of which we are overflowing, to remove the offending stones and place them in some museum or cemetery.

In terms of conforming to modern tastes, I’m just happy that men like Sharpe, Gordon, and Bogle left no extensive trace of their thoughts, for being Biblical men, they would assuredly have held some awkward opinions. Could N.W. Manley survive a thorough deposition from a woke perspective? And don’t even bodda ask ‘bout Busta!

Anyway, once done with the statuary we can turn with earnest to the other aspects of “decolonisation”. Where better to start than with the name of the country itself? We can call up the United Nations and tell them we’ve decided to change out the old name like a piece of dutty draws. It nuh good again!

After all, “Xamayca” was a Spanish mispronunciation of a Taino word meaning “land of wood and water”. The British took the island from the Spanish and further bastardised the word into “Jamaica”. I propose renaming it immediately, not only because there’s precious little wood and water left, but really because the name stands as a living offence to the Natives who lived here first.

Let’s do something historical, and big, and completely within our power. Right now! Ditch the name “Jamaica”, steeped as it is in colonial history, and drenched as it is in the blood of natives and Africans. It is, after all, a cultural appropriation, ripped from an exterminated people by the exterminators. It is an offensive colonial relic. Time fi ah change!

WHAT ABOUT PARISH NAMES?

How about the Parish names? What we find here is a veritable festival of colonial celebration, commemorating Kings and Queens and Governors. Let’s hop around through time and “call them out”.

St Catherine was reportedly named after Catarina Henriqueta de Braganza, wife of Charles II, monarch of England. St James for James II. St Ann is thought to have been named after Anne Hyde, James’s wife and mother to Queen Anne. Today one may have a special charging station for one’s Porsche constructed, colonially. Kingston was dubbed so for William of Orange, who came to British throne as William III. Hanover is named after that royal house, and specifically for George I, the first Hanoverian king of Great Britain.

Oh, there’s more! Lord Chancellor Sir Edward Hyde, the first Earl of Clarendon. Sir William Trelawney, born in Falmouth in the county of Cornwall. William Henry Bentinck, first Duke of Portland and Marquess of Titchfield. Willam Montagu, the fifth Duke of Manchester, and his son, Viscount Mandeville.

Colonel Sir Thomas Modyford’s had a daughter, Mary, and a wife, Elizabeth. He thought they were saints, naturally. He was a planter in Barbados before graduating to Governor of Jamaica.

Now get this straight: Modyford was the man who brought full-scale plantation slavery, British style, with him from Barbados to Jamaica. He divided the island up into parishes, and he’s written all over the current map. How can we have this?

We must erase the stamp of colonisation at once. Those parish names you know, are comfortable with, and may be on your birth cerfittikit, will have to go. It’s for your own good. In fact, once the changes are enacted, mention of the previous name should be an offence. Obviously hearing the name “Manchester”, “Kingston”, or “Portland” will trigger immense psychological distress and irrecoverable feelings of inferiority.

How about the political system? The Westminster system and any variant or derivative thereof is obviously too thoroughly tainted by colonialism. It’s gotta go. Also, a Representative Parliament has to go. Voting? That’s gotta go too. Each is a prime example of a colonial inheritance!

How about decolonising the law? We must do more than just remove a few form of words that acknowledge the Queen or something surface and insignificant like that. Why stop at the merely symbolic? Why not grab a hold of the English Common Law tradition (see the name? “English”) and tear it out root and branch?

There are, after all, other systems. For instance, we could furnish ourselves with adequate research about whatever law obtained in West Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries and bring ourselves to conform with that. “To honor the ancestors”.

What about the language and the religion? Forget about “patwa”, it’s too close to colonial English, so it’s not a convenient escape hatch. If we’re going to do this we have to be thorough. And all those Churches? They’ve got to come down like the statues.

Or ... or we could just be happy with who we are, accepting our history and our marvellously “mix-up an’ blen-up” reality, and work to make the country a better place. But wait? Did you say “work”? Where’s the fun in that? I want the easy revolution, not the “many are called, few are chosen”. I want the kind where you wave a wand, crush some stones and change some names and then it’s all better.

- Daniel Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.