THE EDITOR, Sir:
I DEEPLY regret the inconvenience to which the many honest Jamaicans who have developed close ties with the UK will be subjected because of the new visa requirements. However, I cannot avoid seeing this imposition as a further verification of my own sovereignty and independence.
In fact, in my own mind, it has augmented the new Oath of Office. I am only truly independent when I can survive on my own without special maternal props and favours. Perhaps this new development will nudge us further along the path to constitutional reform and the attainment of authentic nationhood.
There is no need for panic. We have survived the Middle Passage, three hundred years of slavery, systematic dehumanisation and denigration, another hundred years as second-class citizens in our own land and forty years of international inequities. We have recovered from devastating earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and even a financial sector crash to become possibly one of the most affluent, but certainly one of the most influential of all developing countries. Trust me when I tell you we will overcome this as well.
I have seen migrant, Black, Jamaican women move from the bottom of the pile to the very top of their career choices in a few short years in white, nationalistic, male-dominated, visa-required circumstances. This can only slow us down. It cannot break the indomitable Afro-Jamaican spirit. And in the same way we have beaten down the door and have forced the American Music Academy to recognise our music, the world will come to know one day that we are truly a great nation.
It is still such a real pity though, that the 99 plus per cent of decent, hardworking, law-abiding Jamaicans have to be so greatly affected by the renegade few. Whether we are apple-pickers, chambermaids, college professors, business executives, global nurses or we are educating the world's children, we stand as equals with, and oftentimes, heads and shoulders above many others. We must therefore be doing something right, and we must defy and denounce the caricature which seeks to make us into the world's devils.
We have to do our best to clean up our act at home and abroad immediately. We are a noble people, and we deserve a nobler reputation. Nevertheless, I am still one fiercely nationalistic and proud Jamaican and neither the lawless few nor this new visa restriction will change that.
I am etc.
STANLEY REDWOOD
Middle Quarters
St. Elizabeth
Via Go-Jamaica
