I am almost at the end of quite a good book-Dead Yard: Tales of Modern Jamaica by Ian Thomson, an Englishman. I highly recommend it! Thomson weaves together interviews with Jamaicans-high and low-in England and Jamaica (and elsewhere) to expose the unpretty underbelly of the local social and political landscape. It is an appropriate read at this time of Emancipendence. One of Thomson's conclusions seems to be that the mentalities and attitudes of slaves and slave masters have very much persisted into 21st century Jamaica. He is critical of the lack of an ethic of hard work among the Jamaican labour force; and he believes many of the modern elite (of all shades of colour) have retained a contempt for the majority of the population. He suggests that Jamaican politics has been organised to keep the majority under control-dependent and underdeveloped.
Thomson does not believe that Jamaica has sufficiently transcended its history of slavery and colonialism. He understands why so many Jamaicans have migrated to his country. Emancipation freed more than the slaves; it also liberated slave owners from dehumanising relationships with people whose labour and lives they exploited, for slavery dehumanised the masters too.
New society
Emancipation was an opportunity for thousands drunk with almost absolute power over hundreds of thousands to create a new society of free people. While the former slaves flocked the churches as rejoicing crowds, the former owners moped and bellyached at the small sums they would receive as compensation for the loss of their property; the really injured parties-the former slaves-received no compensation for the loss of decades of freedom and the displacement from family and homeland.
Emancipation gave legal freedom but not power-either economic or political. The former slave owners still controlled the House of Assembly, the judiciary and the vast majority of the land; the former slaves owned no land and, therefore, had no right to vote (only landowners could vote and, in fact, if you owned land in several parishes, you could legally vote in all of them, although you could only stand for election in one parish at a time).
So-called "Full Freedom" was granted in 1838 on terms largely determined by the former slave masters; the dehumanising relationship between masters and slaves was replaced by new dehumanising relationships, between masters and servants, and landlords and tenants. The former slaves were offered pittances as wages and were charged huge rents for house lots and provision grounds they and their ancestors had occupied for generations. Rather than launching a "New Jamaica," Emancipation launched a new class war which, many will argue, is not yet over. The Morant Bay riots (compare with Hackney and Ealing 2011) were inevitable.
Voting power
Meanwhile, the non-conformist missionaries were buying up and subdividing disused estates and selling them to the former slaves, giving them the power to vote. And, as at every election, more black and brown Jamaicans entered the House of Assembly, the former slave masters were slowly losing their grip on power. The only thing to do was to shut down the House of Assembly before black people took over the country! They voted themselves out of existence. Now with Crown Colony government, and the governor selecting all the members of the Legislative Council, the power of the former slave masters was secure.
The churches were starting elementary schools right across the island but high-school education was only for the elite. The plantations needed an unlettered labour force and the plantocracy had no use for education among their field workers. After almost half a century of Independence, who runs things? The Houses of Parliament are named after one of the heroes of Morant Bay, and its members look quite different from the House of Assembly of old but the private sector still calls the tune and has stubbornly refused to have it made public how much businesses are paying the piper. And too many leave primary school illiterate.
It is amazing how durable these old relationships and old attitudes are. The traditional churches-source of liberation for many over the years-have now become part of the tribal Establishment and their declining numbers are a sign of rejection. My wish is that as we approach the anniversary of 50 years of Independence, and 178 years of Emancipation, all social and economic groups in Jamaica will assess their roles over the years and will grasp firmly the opportunities for building a new Jamaica. Read Dead Yard, and go to see Ghett'A Life! (The Gleaner)
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and Roman Catholic deacon.