Jamaica is an independent nation that really deserves to be a sovereign. Although the island encompasses many different ethnicities, we are still undeniably a super-majority African populated country. To the world, we identify as African first. To ourselves, not so much. The symbols and institutions of Britain still serve as a constant reminder that the Queen of England remains this country's head of state. We, the offspring of kidnapped Africans that fueled the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, are kept under a constant state of duress by the powers that be to permit this nonsense to continue. So just as our very lives were monetized to the extent this island was once Great Britain's most valuable colony, our modern economy continues to undergo financial warfare in the form of odious IMF debt and a severely devalued currency that was once at parity to the $USD. Today $1 USD = $127.83 JMD. Meaning, the wealth we need for our economy and essential services is extracted to strengthen all of Western Europe. Now we even can add China to the mix. The underbelly of capitalism keeps the African continent and it's people, no matter where they reside in the world, as beggars by design.
At 55, the same cord Jamaica needs to cut from Britain is the very thing strangling the island. All the violence, corruption, and poverty in our society stem from this. Britain exacerbates it by holding onto Jamaica to oversee its destruction, rather than assume full responsibility for it's significant contribution to the nations's current state. Remaining steadfastly unapologetic about its inhumane crimes against us and our ancestors. How can we possibly mature as a nation with this relationship still in tact? As a critical mass of Africans wake up to the reality that Africa is our motherland and not Britain, we can transform every institution to reflect the real aspirations of the people. Not just the political class and the wealthy.
I wholeheartedly agree Jamaica is paradise despite it all. No place on earth like this place. If every Jamaican resident can't make this claim however, we have a serious problem given our place in world history. I constitute it as a failure by our government to use every leverage afforded to it, including geopolitical given where the island is situated, to build Jamaica for Jamaicans. Incentivizing our most valuable export, our human resource, to make their lives here and share in the island's prosperity. We cheapen ourselves by selling to the world the impression we are only a tourist attraction. The bones of Africans in the soil and the sea should serve as a constant reminder to do better.