MICHAEL BURKE



This year, a few of us will be observing an octave of emancipendence. An octave is really eight days of prayer of either supplication or thanksgiving. The octave of emancipendence will focus on thanksgiving for the various steps from slavery through political independence to the present. It is basically an octave of prayer and thanksgiving for emancipation and independence that has Jamaica's history as its base.

Two weeks ago in my piece, "Spain, World Cup, Jamaica", I wrote that the Jews came here to escape the Spanish Inquisition. I wrote that "much of the brutality of the Spanish inquisition was the responsibility of the soldiers and not even the Spanish government, let alone the Pope..." I stick to that.

What Ras Barrington responded to was something that I did not write. Of course, the Pope and the Spanish monarchy were responsible for the Spanish inquisition which the church has apologised for. I wrote that much of the brutality was the responsibility of the soldiers. One person was curious as to how I wrote that. But it is even on the internet where the Pope of the day wrote letters to the Spanish king about complaints that he had received about brutality.

Indeed, this is the experience of peoples all over the world, including Jamaica. The government gives the security forces one directive and some in the security forces take the law into their own hands. Even in Israel around the time of Jesus' birth, the Roman soldiers were going from door to door bullying people to pay more than they were supposed to and "pocketing" the excess. Not even the pagan Roman rulers told any soldier to do that.

Why would it be so hard to understand this? Is it because the anti-Roman Catholic brainwash stubbornly persists? Ras Barrington wrote correctly about the Moors and their impact upon Columbus' navigation. In the past I wrote and said on radio that Africans were here even before the Tainos. On one occasion Mutabaruka had me on Cutting Edge on IRIE FM to talk about a point I made in a commentary about the African skull that is in the Seville Great House Museum in St Ann's Bay.

I have written and spoken on radio many times that Moors, who understood navigation in a way that Columbus did not, assisted him on his voyages. I have even written and said on radio that there were Africans here before Columbus came who pre-dated the Tainos. But the article "Spain, World Cup, Jamaica" was not about the African impact on Jamaica. It dealt specifically with Spain's impact on Jamaica being topical in light of Spain's World Cup victory.

One person tried to rewrite history by stating that Spain did not finance Columbus, and that the Jews did not come here fleeing the Spanish inquisition. He did not offer the correction and anyone can make a good guess why. He does not have one. When I taught history I would have given him zero for that.

The fact is that were it not for the Spanish, the English would never have captured Jamaica. And if the English never captured Jamaica we might not have lessened tobacco production to grow more sugar cane. This was when the demand for African slaves grew greater. The cruelties, pain and hardship that our forefathers underwent during slavery was a direct result of that.

The worst slavery by any standards was sugar cane slavery in the Caribbean, Latin and South America along with cotton slavery in the United States of America. And this is why emancipation was such a big event in British colonies like Jamaica. So this is the reason I suggest that the octave starts on July 31, to recall the hardships of slavery, to August 7, to signify our successes and failures in the years from political independence to the present.

Reflection on the process to emancipation should include the Maroon wars where Nanny was a hero, and the Christmas rebellion in 1831 where Sam Sharpe was the hero. Between emancipation and self-government in 1944 there was the 1865 Morant Bay rebellion, the role of Marcus Garvey and Alexander Bedward and then the 1938 experience that brought about leaders like St William Grant, Allan Coombs, Alexander Bustamante and Norman Manley.

Then there were the years towards political independence in 1962 when a gradualist form of self-government was introduced. After political independence our greatest achievements have been the development of the physical infrastructure of Jamaica. One important thing that we can learn for the Jews is the way in which the history of their race is observed in the Passover meal on the 14th Nissan on the Jewish calendar in each year.

Indeed, the proposed octave of emancipendence is a way of comparing our history to the Jewish Passover and a way of teaching the struggle of the Jews from slavery to freedom. In a real way, the Jews, like Jamaicans, celebrate emancipation and independence as one event. It can be providential that our emancipation and independence holidays are five days apart.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com

July 29, 2010

jamaicaobserver