Commit to peace, resistance and social justice
Published:Tuesday | September 9, 2025 | 12:08 AM
THE EDITOR, Madam:
I am writing to express my thanks to Dennis Minott for his article ‘Jamaica and Haiti: Cultural superpowers punching far above their weight’ published in In Focus, Sunday Gleaner. The article offers excellent summary which is of great significance.
And yet ... Minott speaks of reggae and rasta as ‘symbols of peace, resistance, and social justice’ but ends with the sentence ‘except in matters involving empathy for poor CARICOM citizens, particularly those born and raised in Haiti’. Haiti could be extended also to Gaza, US militarism in the (so far) southern Caribbean and to many other places. Where is the concern now for social justice, etc? No mention of these issues during the recent election campaigns.
I recently spoke with Dr Velva Boles, a black American health professional who talked about her recent visit to Burkina Faso. She said that everyone there is hyped up and in full support of Ibrahim Traoré’s effort to delink from post-colonial oppression and towards self-driven inclusive national development. It is not an illusion.
The Caribbean has tasted a little of this with Haiti in 1804, Cuba in 1959, Grenada in 1983 and possibly Jamaica in the 1970s. Now we have no such national inspiration despite our world-dominating culture – perhaps it is only an echo of times gone by.
Has the wider diaspora been mentally (re)enslaved as Dr Boles suggested, in contrast to those in Africa who now know their time has come?
PAUL WARD