Peter Espeut | Sober reflection on a work in progress

This is the time of year when we reflect on two turning points in our history as a people: the end to legal slavery in the 1830s, and the formal end of colonialism in the 1960s. We must be careful not to romanticise these two events; both brought particular struggles to an end, but each ushered in new periods of struggle in which we, as a people, are still involved. Emancipation and Independence are waypoints on a journey, not endpoints.

On August 1, 1834, chattel slavery officially came to an end, but not on terms drawn up by those formerly enslaved. The date was set to suit the former slave owners (at the end of the sugar crop). To soften the blow on the enslavers, the former slaves were required to give six more years of free labour (euphemistically called ‘apprenticeship’ – really slavery by another name) on the plantations. After the report of the Quakers Joseph Sturge and William Harvey on the abuses associated with apprenticeship (published in 1837), that masquerade was brought to an end two years earlier than planned, ushering in the so-called ‘full freedom’ in 1838.

The former slave owners negotiated for themselves cash compensation for the loss of their human property (£20 million – about £2.5 trillion in today’s money). The British government had to borrow to pay the slave owners their compensation money, and the British public (including descendants of the enslaved) only finished repaying that loan in 2015 – less than 10 years ago. Emancipation may be history, but we must never forget that the past impacts on the present in ways not always apparent.

Up until today, the victims of chattel slavery have not received compensation for the loss of their freedom, for being torn from their families and culture, and the millions of man-hours of free labour they performed which enriched the British ruling class and developed the British economy.

INCOMPLETE

We can celebrate Emancipation and Full Freedom; but sober reflection in 2023 must admit that the job remains incomplete. The real victims have not yet been compensated, and the inequalities caused by slavery are not yet behind us.

The Morant Bay Rebellion was inevitable, because the freed slaves were still legally disadvantaged by Jamaican society and polity controlled by the same interests which had enslaved them. At least in slavery the owners had to provide food, clothing, shelter and healthcare. In the narrow plantation economy of free Jamaica, after Emancipation the former slaves were now free to work for starvation wages, go barefoot, live in hovels and ghettos, and suffer from diseases of one kind or another.

The labour riots of 1838 were inevitable, because chattel slavery had been replaced by wage slavery. It did not suit plantation society to properly educate its labour force: they would only demand higher wages. Post-Emancipation, it was the Church which opened schools to educate and train the ordinary Jamaican, not the colonial government.

After World War II, having lost its taste for Empire, Great Britain offered to hand political and economic power to a local elite. That is what we call ‘Independence’. Without a shot being fired, or a voice being raised in anger, representatives of the British monarchy came to Jamaica to preside over the lowering of the Union Jack and the raising of the Jamaican tricolour. Instead of the colonial state undereducating Jamaicans to be able to exploit their labour, the local elite has taken their turn at the helm. That is where we are today as a nation, and that is what we are asked to celebrate.

We can celebrate Independence from the colonial power; but sober reflection in 2023 must admit that Independence as a project remains incomplete.

And I am not here referring to ditching the British monarch as our ceremonial head of state, only to replace him with a local figurehead, leaving the local elite to continue to exploit our people. That would not advance the Jamaica Independence project in any substantial way, in any meaningful way. In my view, the real reason this Government refuses to open up the process of constitutional reform is that they are afraid where the Jamaican people will take it.

WASTED

Sober reflection will conclude that the People’s National Party and the Jamaica Labour Party playing musical chairs have wasted the 61 years of our political Independence. If in slavery the planters ruled through the House of Assembly, what has changed in 2023, where the private sector make their secret donations to the two political parties and call the shots? If the colonial state supported private industry by suppressing public education to keep wages low, what has changed with Independence?

The Government wishes us to celebrate the expansion of the BPO sector with its low-paying jobs, just as in the past we were asked to celebrate the expansion of free zones with their low-paying jobs; all this to distract us from their failure to train a skilled workforce – a STEM workforce – to enter the high-wage software and IT industries. Where are the thousands of chemists we have trained over the years who should be launching food-processing industries, extracting essences and essential oils to produce condiments, using our agricultural products to make chocolates and confectionery, and to add value to our vegetables and fruits? We can’t even keep our teachers and nurses!

We need to seek reparations for the wrongs of the past, including from our two major political parties which have exploited modern Jamaica for their own advantage, and have devalued our currency from being stronger than the US$ to being more than 150 times weaker. The devaluation of our human capital is even more dramatic! Jamaicans from deprived backgrounds have gone overseas and done well, because our governments did not put things in place here to develop their potential. Shame and scandal!

Where does the Jamaica freedom and Independence project go from here? We have to find a way to change direction. The opinion polls show conclusively that the majority of Jamaicans have ditched the two parties, and believe that none of them will take us in the right direction. I agree!

Jamaica is poised for something new. I can’t wait!

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and development scientist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.