Gordon Robinson | Wanted: an independent identity

Although we’re in the midst of traditional celebrations of Jamaica’s 63rd year of Independence, I’m urging us to remember what independence should mean to every Jamaican.

This is the land of my birth.

I say this is the land of my birth.

I say this is Jamaica, my Jamaica,

the land of my birth

I always remember Rachel Manley’s narrative in award winning Drumblair (and, again, in Horses in her hair) about gatherings of young poets, writers and artists at her family home mentored by her grandmother Edna who called them her “Focus Group”. This was a targeted effort, part of the push for Independence, to ensure Jamaican identity was nurtured and documented through the eyes of young, unpolished, often unpublished writers.

But, as we’ve become more independently dependent on technology, I wondered if those seminal “independence” artists would be remembered or Jamaican identity preserved. I remember when Gleaner was the most effective outlet for these expressions of Jamaican literary talent.

Not so much today.

Then, voila, on Amazon.com, I saw a recently published book , Lost and Found (An A-Z of neglected writers of the Anglophone Caribbean) by Alison Donnell (2025; Papillote Press) that turned out to be a treasure trove of the kind of Caribbean literature Edna worked so hard to nourish. So, since Ian “Booklist” Boyne is no longer with us, I’ll step into the breach by alerting you about this new, unusual literary offering especially as it fits squarely into this weekend’s theme.

The author first encountered Caribbean writing 30+ years ago as a Warwick University undergrad and library visitor. She spent a lifetime researching Caribbean Literature only to discover some of the best Caribbean writing wasn’t highlighted by “metropolitan publishers and pedagogies.” She found the widely published works, although brilliant, was “just the tiniest fraction of what might be read, taught and discussed under this rubric.”

So she searched and re-searched and found gems. She also discovered Gleaner was once a major supporter of Jamaican literary culture. Gleaner published original fiction and anthologies of short stories/poetry for adult and child readers. Its literary competitions gave encouragement and validation for Jamaicans to consider professional authorship as possible.

Gleaner might consider revisiting its roots; demonstrating its difference from Tik-Tok; re-establishing newspapers’ relevance. The word “newspaper” has become an oxymoron as news is consumed long before any “newspaper” can publish. To remain relevant, “newspapers” should focus on investigative journalism; opinion; leisure; and new, different voices with Jamaican and Caribbean identities writing about Jamaican/Caribbean experiences.

Gleaner once published some of the writers noted in Alison’s book including:

Vera Bell about whom Alison writes: “mid-century writing life provides an important, if now near invisible, alternative to the dominant Windrush story of a male West Indian literary career. Apart from her early poem ‘Ancestor on the Auction Block’, Bell’s literary works have remained beyond scholarly sights; scattered among little magazines, newspapers, radio archives, and out-of-print anthologies. Her contributions across different genres interrogate colonial injustices, often through the lens of strained encounters and attachments between individuals and endeavours to represent Jamaicans, in all their discord and distress, as an inclusive people….”

Relevant to the independence identity we should be embracing? You betcha!

Gloria Escoffery: “Although best known as one of Jamaica’s finest visual artists and art critics, Gloria also played an important role in the cultural transformation of Jamaican writings during the mid-century nationalist moment. Part of an influential network of creative, politically progressive women, including Vera Bell, Edna Manley and Una Marson, as the literature editor for Public Opinion newspaper Escoffery was backstage curating a national literature in the making in the 1940s.”

Alison also re-introduces us to Inez Knibb-Sibley; Claude Thompson; Vivian Virtue and W.G. Ogilvie all dedicated to bringing Jamaican lives, voices, places, beliefs to literature. They tried to reshape Jamaica as Jamaican. They didn’t deserve the subsequent shift of focus away from homegrown talent to those who migrated.

One more Jamaican ga’an abroad

One more disciple leave di yard

But, if you t’ink sey we a go stand up and wait,

no way while we hold di gate fi yu.

No t’ink so at all.

But I man on yah; I man born yah.

I nah leave yah fi go America!

No way sah; pot a bwoil yah;

belly full yah

Sweet Jamaica

These writers were also working educators. Their efforts to develop cultural literacy around Jamaican ways of being, thinking, talking establishes the vital connection between 1940s/50s literature and anti-colonial struggles. They are literary ancestors of Eddie Baugh, Mervyn Morris, Velma Pollard, Erna Brodber and Rachel Manley all deserving of higher international profiles. Even in Jamaica their profiles don’t fit their contribution. They should be celebrated on Jamaica’s 63rd anniversary as icons showing how Jamaican society can be reconstructed with Jamaican identity.

Gleaner can contribute by reinstituting the platform it once gave to young, unpublished writers to establish their literary voice and regional readership. This Gleaner did before the period when literary history pushed people’s gaze to London to create Caribbean literature through the eyes of Windrush passengers. I guarantee another V.S. Naipaul, Roger Mais, Vic Reid, John Hearne, Andrew Salkey or George Lamming exists right here. Right now!

John Hearne and Roger Mais were also Gleaner columnists.

Alison’s book is dedicated to Caribbean literature so also profiles works of the region’s unacknowledged greats like Phyllis Shand Allfrey (Dominica; WI Federation Labour and Social Affairs Minister); Olga Comma Maynard (Trinidad; cultural historian, educator and writer whose 1929 collection, Carib Echoes: Poems and Stories for Juniors, remained in print for six decades); Oscar Ronald Dathorne (Guyana; eventually settled in Nigeria and Sierra Leone); Marie Eileen Flora Hall (Antigua; often mischaracterized as an “American poet”); Dorothy Lovell (Barbados; radio story-teller whose 1950s/60s work narrated working-class Barbadians’ lives in their language).

Alison’s work confirms my instinctive belief, growing up during pre-and post-independence, that our bodies were freed in 1838 but our minds remain enslaved. Our essence is still imprisoned in English tradition; English education; English law.

Alison put it more profoundly: “The transatlantic slave trade and indenture legitimised the violent denial of personhood and the erasure of ancestral histories; colonialism’s culture preserved the practice of disavowal into the mid-20th century through its institutions of law; church; and schoolroom.”

I go further. In 2025, we still have no idea who we are; from whence we came; or where we’re going. We still subjugate our identities beneath a veneer of pretentiousness we call classy; beautiful; elegant; well-mannered. We even dare to call it “cultured” while scorning our real culture; isolating and vilifying our Afro-centric people like Rasta and Maroon while glorifying some AFTER they earn international acclaim.

So Bob Marley is touted as potential National Hero. But our political leaders studiously ignore people like Haile Mikael Cujo, just another committed Jamaican with heroic and flawed characteristics like Bob.

The list of Jamaican businessmen with particular profiles who have been awarded the Order of Jamaica and/or Order of Distinction (Commander Rank) for “entrepreneurship” is long. They didn’t select themselves and all deserved their awards. But I can’t help noticing that Vincent Chang, one of Jamaica’s most visionary entrepreneurs, was awarded Order of Distinction (Officer Rank) for “services to the entertainment industry”. Entertainment you ask? Yep. His Tastee Talent Contest threw up greats like Yellowman; Beenie Man; Papa San. But Vincent, who came to Jamaica from Hong Kong at 13, was fundamentally a businessman/entrepreneur who founded Tastee (1966) when baking/retailing patties as a business was socially infra-dig.

Haile Mikael’s team toiled courageously to produce a draft Constitution for national discussion. He circulated it to every imaginable public authority including Legislators but, predictably, unceremonious dismissiveness was the response. You see, Mikael’s draft Constitution doesn’t suit Government’s pre-determined path so won’t even be acknowledged; Vincent’s vision didn’t fit imported social norms. Neither Haile Mikael Cujo nor Vincent Chang fit the profile we’re colonially conditioned to prefer.

Neither did Bob who was treated as ignominiously until he earned international fame. Is THAT the Jamaican identity? Is THAT “out of many”?

If dem a dread locks run dem mek dem come.

If dem a bald head run dem mek dem come.

If dem a screw face run dem mek dem come.

Run dem; run dem; run dem mek dem come!

Eric Donaldson (a.k.a. “Mr. Festival”) won the Festival Song competition a record seven times. In 1977 Sweet Jamaica celebrated the national motto’s inclusiveness. In 1978 Land of my Birth paid homage to Jamaica land we love. Humourist and lyricist Leighton Keith “Pluto” Shervington’s patriotic hit I Man Born Yah rocked mid-1970s parties. But he was soon on one of the five flights.

Enjoy Independence celebrations. Try to reconnect with your real identity.

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com