Time of and for Change
By Sankofie | Published | No Comments
As the universe evolves, as it has been doing for at least the past 13.8 billion years, (how old did you say you are?), things have been becoming more complex. Man has predicted and re-predicted while the universe has simply exercised its divine sovereignty to act in the interest of its own destiny. Man has been looking back, establishing data sets and making predictions as to how things should or will be. Truly a Sankofa journey into futurism through the lenses of ancestry and heritage.
With that said everyone occupying the earth space, a minuscule part of the solar system which itself is a minuscule part of the universe, would have at least heard by now that we are in a period of great change, transformation and move into higher consciousness. Existing on earth, in one of the billions of galaxies, we are all being impacted by the consequences of human perspectives and actions, evolutionary processes and cosmic events. We are all invited to flow or flounder.
What does this have to do with Jamaica? Even as a mere dot on the universal landscape, we are inflicted by a disease called inter-connectivity. One of its symptoms is that happenings in the much wider universal space of its existence, must affect it in some way shape or form, at even the most minuscule level. So as change has become an imperative in the universal space we see change and the need for change also arising in the Jamaican space.
Recent and perhaps even not so recent needs for change have been reflected in for example (1) the call for the removal of the Westminster Parliamentary system, inherited from the British. Time to get rid of the Westminster system – Phillips | News | Jamaica Gleaner, The Westminster Model and the Destabilizing of Democracy in the Caribbean – Executive Summary, (2) the proposal to rethink Jamaica as a Republic Systems of Governance and Accountability Mechanisms and intermittent calls for the removal of the Governor General as Head of State, (3) In December 2024 the Revival Pilgrimage to Watt Town received recognition from UNESCO’s and was added to its list of ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.’ Inscription of Jamaica’s Revival Pilgrimage to Watt Town to UNESCO’s Representative ICH list, December 2024 – Jamaica National Commission for UNESCO. This declaration inherently demands that certain British Law, on the Jamaican law books be modified or removed to allow for this international recognition to have meaning outside of criminality. (4) The call for the removal of British Laws as part of Jamaica’s legal system began with Jamaican Independence. The two are mutually exclusive in the true meaning of Independence.
I am not unaware of the many of us who would delight in being recognized as British in Jamaica. I am not even unaware of the fact that the ‘MANY’ in our motto who we are trying to make into ‘ONE’ people could possibly include slave masters and other participants in the system of slavery. But even with that how has aspects of British Empire remain dominant aspect of and independent Jamaica. Why has Law and Religion not processed and progressed through Emancipation, Independence and entered into a ‘free’ Jamaica?
So, I am freely, proudly Jamaican but I am ‘monarch-ed’ by the King of England, a country and people who enslaved, beat, raped and much more, my forebears. I am freely, proudly Jamaican but I am forced to live by British laws that are not in keeping with the Jamaican reality and are out of step with current trends. I am freely, proudly Jamaican with one of our ways of religious expression, Revivalism in Jamaica Part 1 | Fiwi Roots, internationally recognized but locally criminalized. And yes, lest I forget, I am freely, proudly Jamaican but I am harassed and oppressed by those who have found solace in the worship of their colonizers’ God and cannot bear that the God of my ancestors is emancipated and independent. Just a thought…….
