Windrush75: Thoughts and observations

As regards the Windrush 75 nationwide celebrations, for cynics like myself who prefer to use the word ‘commemoration’, Windrush Day began and ended with two speaking engagements designed to honour the Windrush generation (1948-1971). My first stop was the Mayor of Wandsworth’s Windrush75 reception (where I spoke about coming to England and being spat on at my RC convent school), followed by a trek to Deloitte in London where I participated in a panel discussion that was organised by the company’s black staff network.

Having marked this significant milestone in the history of the black experience in post-war Britain, many of us are left wondering ‘what happens next?’ Given the treatment of the Windrush generation (hostile environment and subsequent deportations to Jamaica), we are wise to be suspicious and concerned about what happens when the ‘party-party’ and ‘jump up-jump up’ to ‘jamma’ finish. What happens when the Windrush Compensation Unit is shut down? What happens to the victims who have not yet received compensation?

During the planning for Windrush75, the government hoodwinked some folk by bedazzling them with generous funding to host community events: plenty rum punch and Red Stripe beer! Some hapless folk in fascinators or morning suits had to make do with the traditional English ‘wishy-washy’ tea and cucumber sandwiches from those who wallow in generational wealth and spout rhetoric about “special generation”, preferring to engage with us when we are genuflecting in front of them, distracted by ‘merry-making’, forgetting the proverb: “Chicken merry, hawk deh near, an’ w’en ‘im deh near yuh mus’ beware.” Curiously, now that the jamboree is over, it is All Quiet on the Western Front. ‘Party-party’ done!

MULTICULTURAL SUCCESS

For some folk who have been rewarded with carrots (OBEs, CBEs and knighthoods for supporting the monarchy – accused of racism), it is a different ball game. Windrush75 was a great multicultural success (diversity and inclusion) with a special commemoration service at Southwark Cathedral. To mark the occasion, receptions were held by the newly crowned King, at Buckingham Palace, and by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, at No.10 Downing Street.

In the run-up to Windrush75, there were congratulatory messages from the ‘King of Kings’, Charles III, and from the most powerful politicians in the UK: the Indian (heritage) Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the Pakistani (parentage) Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Humza Yousaf, whose parent also came from Pakistan. Others included the ‘lame duck’ leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer. On reflection, you could be forgiven for playing ‘Spot the Black’. While the Asian community can look to the top of the mountain with a sense of pride, many of us from the Caribbean are still ‘waiting in vain’ for the promise of the American (Oops, British!) Dream to become a reality.

While it is good to ‘look how far we’ve come’, reminiscing about brown cardboard grips, paraffin heaters and the cold welcome from the Mother Country (“No Irish; No Coloureds; No Dogs”), I am aware of our lack of financial power. The few individuals who have made it and could, in theory, “go tell it on the mountain” (of our struggle for survival in Babylon), prefer to hobnob with our oppressors. Take, for instance, the recently knighted Sir Trevor Phillips. He has joined the chorus of pale, pot-bellied, middle-age white media men who envy the young and virile Prince Harry, and in whose heads Meghan Markle lives rent-free. Born in London to Guyanese parents, Phillips (now chummy with the obnoxious TV presenter, Piers Morgan – Markle’s nemesis) is a Windrush descendant who has abandoned the voice of dissent, and recently declared that Meghan Markle “had to learn to be black when she joined the Royal family”.

A proud supporter of the monarchy, Phillips is now a royal mouthpiece!

SAFE SPACEIn any discussion of the Windrush generation, it is important to mention the black majority churches. During the 1950s, most black people found that they were not welcome by the established churches. Some congregants were told not to return, or to find another church to worship. Excluded from “the brotherhood of man”, the Windrush generation founded their own churches during the 1960s and ‘70s. Over time, more black majority churches sprang up. They bridged the gap between the hostile environment and home, providing a safe space for the newcomers and families to socialise while supporting their spiritual needs.

Thus, when Professor Sir Geoff Palmer OD (Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, outspoken Jamaica-born scientist and human rights activist) invited me to accompany him to a church service on Saturday, June 24, I immediately dusted off my ‘Ascot hat’. Dressed in my Sunday best, I dashed off to London to accompany Jamaica’s first honorary consul in Scotland to a Windrush commemoration service at Brixton Seventh-day Adventist Church. Listening to the choir, I found myself singing some nostalgic hymns from my Jamaican childhood, including: When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder, How Great Thou Art, Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah, and To God Be The Glory.

A Windrush child, and keen to honour my maternal grandmother (who immigrated from St Thomas, Jamaica in 1952) and my late father (who came here at the end of the 1950s), I put aside my scholar- activist/reparationist hat and posed for a photo with Professor Palmer and the King’s representative in London, Deputy Lieutenant Christopher Justbelove, who spoke about his mixed heritage. Needless to say, Baroness Floella Benjamin’s insistence that the King “values diversity” and his daughter-in-law, Meghan Markle, sprang to mind. Ahem!

There is no denying that the Caribbean community has made a significant contribution to modern Britain. Founded on July 5, 1948 (75 years ago), the National Health Service (NHS) was literally built by Caribbean nurses who endured decades of systemic racism. To add insult to injury, almost on the eve of Windrush75, Home Secretary Suella Braverman (of Indian origin) announced that the Windrush Compensation Unit would be disbanded, and also advised the police to “ramp up, stop and search” young black men, further alienating the African-Caribbean community. So now, having had a good, old ‘knees up’ with the oppressors on Windrush Day, what comes next? Do we let the Windrush scandal solve itself, or die on the vine? Furthermore, after decades of racist immigration laws, should the Windrush scandal be referred to as ‘the British Scandal’?

Dr Velma McClymont, a writer, poet, storyteller and community activist.