Ambassador Dudley Thompson - a noble Pan-African warrior
Published:Thursday | February 2, 2012 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
AMBASSADOR THE Honourable Dudley Thompson was one of a special breed of black Jamaicans witnessing the end of colonialism and the birth of independent Jamaica, whose steadfast emphasis on our origins and links with our African ancestral roots helped forge a strong foundation for the liberation of mental slavery.
I remember meeting him as a child, taken to his house by my father, and being amazed to see for the first time walls decorated with African artefacts, spears, shields, drums, masks, strange and unusual things I never knew existed except as props in Tarzan movies.
His political life in the People's National Party during the 1970s, when he, Tony Spaulding and D.K. Duncan set the radical mode of democratic socialism, made him famous and then infamous. But he stepped away from the scandal and moved back into the life he had lived long before entering Jamaican politics as a high-class lawyer working with the emerging leaders of Black Africa. His association with the Mau Mau independence struggle and its leader Jomo Kenyatta was just the first of his many strong African links, and Dudley Thompson continued to build on his association with the liberation of several African states from European colonialism.
Fondest memories
My fondest memories of him were at the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism (WCAR), at which Ambassador Thompson was co-leader of the Jamaican delegation and I, in my capacity as the Rasta Information Service, was co-opted to be a member of the Jamaican team. Reparations was the main issue of the WCAR, and when the topic threatened to block progress on other conference issues a special Reparations plenary was convened. With his lengthy history of association with the topic, and especially his work as a member of the Group of Eminent Persons which had met prior to the WCAR to present a position paper on reparations, Ambassador Thompson was chosen to represent Jamaica and I was selected to join him. We also had the company of a Jamaican Rastawoman living in Ethiopia, for what became the most interesting, active and far-reaching deliberations of the WCAR.
Ambassador Thompson's first-name friendship with every African world leader present at the WCAR made Jamaica one of the most important delegations and countries attending the conference. As a result his comments, drafted statements and releases gave Jamaica's views prime position in the decisions of the Final Report. Ambassador Thompson was proud to be seen with and accompanied everywhere by us two Rasta ladies in our Ethiopian dresses echoing his passionate support of reparations, and to give strength to our insistence that the list of reparations should (and did) include: "Facilitating the welcomed return and resettlement of descendants of slavery who so desire."
A noble Pan-African warrior, Ambassador Dudley Thompson used his 'Burning Spear' to attack the demons of colonialism and racism, and as a pole to hold high the banner of Marcus Garvey, his hero and role model. His gigantic contribution to African liberation will be long remembered.
BARBARA MAKEDA BLAKE HANNAH