This time of the year is characterised by the celebration of black history, music, and the contributions of selected artistes.

However, the matter of race is absent from this season of celebration. This feature is consistent with the absence of black nationalism and related thinkers in the educational curriculum in Jamaica, and it can also be discussed within the historical tradition of a trend that resembles the anti-Paul Bogle cry for “skin for skin” and “colour for colour” by the powerful minority in this country.

It is heartening to hear a call to “continue the struggles for black freedom” in Jamaica. In his homily in a memorial service for Amy Jacques Garvey (wife of Marcus Garvey), the Rev Father Bertram Gayle issued a challenge for a new generation that is willing to work hard and make the sacrifice to continue the struggle for black freedom in Jamaica. He raised some major issues on the sickening state of black people in Africa, in the region, and in Jamaica.

I salute Rev Gayle for making such bold strides. His thinking reminds me of that of Dr Albert Thorne of St Ann’s Bay (1895) and Dr Robert Love of St Andrew (late 19th to early 20th century), both men saw the role of Christianity as important in black redemption. Of course, this was an idea that Marcus Garvey embraced and advocated.

WALK THE TALK

Rev Gayle told the gathering that “talk is good”, but now is the time to “walk the talk” as the quest for change requires leaders who are willing to make sacrifices.

Of course, Jamaica’s historical timeline is littered with important milestones of struggles for black freedom,such as the insurrections of Tacky in 1760; Sam Sharpe 1931-1932; Paul Bogle in 1865; and their successors, such as Garvey and Leonard P Howell.

Like Garvey in the early 20th century, the Anglican priest spoke of the sickening and brutal conditions in which black people live in Africa, the Americas, and right here in Jamaica. It was that kind of perspective that inspired Garvey to develop the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Garvey noted that black people in Africa, the Americas, and Jamaica were being exploited and treated as inferior because they were weak and under conquest, with a dependent state of mind.

The UNIA became the largest mass black organisation in the world, with a view to self-education, self-reliance, and black economic empowerment in order to overcome European domination. This call by Reverend Gayle in January was indeed an important antecedent to the events and activities of reggae and black history month.

DECOLONISING CULTURE

It was one of Garvey’s disciples, Ghanaian Kwame Nkrumah, who helped us to make a distinction between “flag independence” and the decolonisation of society: decolonisation of the economy, culture, and politics. Garvey made important contributions to cultural decolonisation in the United States of America and also in Jamaica. Even before he established the UNIA in Harlem, Garvey was busily writing to black newspapers asking them to discontinue advertising bleaching creams and hair straightening products.

In his January homily, Rev Gayle asked this piercing question: “How do we, therefore, live in a world in which in our region, our country, black hair, black skin, black culture, black religion, black philosophy, black art, black knowledge, black language, and life continue to be seen and treated less that their European counterparts?”

Garvey’s ideas were aimed at debriefing slavery thinking. His activities at Edelweiss Park in the Cross Roads area of St Andrew were geared at making practical his new awareness that was intended to develop this critical mass by his assertion of black consciousness. There is no doubt that his political and cultural offerings in the late 1920s to the mid-1930s contributed to the new thrust of activism of the 1930s by the masses and also by the new political parties that were formed in the post-1938 era.

BLACK MAJORITY TIME NOW

When I migrated to Kingston in the very early 1970s I used to see this graffiti on the wall along the roadside: “Black majority time in Jamaica now”. I must admit, I did not have a clue what it meant, and this was just after my graduation from high school.

There is indeed a tradition that discourages black ascendency in Jamaica, which appears to be deeply rooted in the political culture from then to the present, a kind of antagonistic attitude towards “skin for skin” and “colour for colour” led by the Jamaican elite and also by some educated blacks.

During the 1880s some black politicians were attacked verbally and demonised for their advocacy for black rights. On the 100th anniversary of Emancipation in 1938 a newspaper story called for the abolishing of the celebration of the traditional August 1 — Emancipation Day. This request was granted in the making of the 1962 constitution for the newly independent Jamaica. Then, if that was not bad enough, the “founders” came up with this national motto: “Out of many one people”. This was indeed an appropriation of the American motto “Out of many, one” and a framework that is definitely not accepting of a black majority; in fact, it was a ploy to keep as quiet as possible black history and black consciousness in Jamaica.

A CALL FOR A HEALTHY TYPE OF NATIONAL SPIRIT

Rev Gayle did not miss the point about the black majority and its place in Jamaica. He was critical of the fact that in a country with an estimated 90 per cent black population, the descendants of slaves “still struggle to find themselves and [make] peace with their African identity”.

There is a thinking that the race, colour, and class problem in Jamaica are denied and rejected in the motto chosen. The same view contends that the colour black appears in the flag, but the leaders considered black not to be symbolic of race or the skin pigmentation of the vast majority of the population, but to be symbolic of the “hardship we must face and overcome”.

One writer offers an interesting lesson, “Jamaica needs to promote a healthy type of national spirit — a real patriotism based on genuine love of country, a pride in local institutions, and the growth of a capacity in all Jamaicans to look on their fellow Jamaicans with a sense of identification.”

In looking at crime and nation-building a leading thinker and newspaper columnist of the 1980s wrote that one of the principal means by which the State attempts to secure mass support is through the growth and generation of strong feelings of national identity. This new national spirit must be informed by the black consciousness thinking and movement. The tradition of Marcus Garvey and Leonard P Howell has taught us that transformation of the ex-slaves by debriefing their minds must be guided by black consciousness grounded in a new philosophy of education, self-reliance, and economic empowerment of black people. One love, one aim, one destiny.

Louis E A Moyston, PhD, is a consultant and radio talk show presenter. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or thearchives01@yahoo.com.