Tue | Oct 7, 2025

Peter Espeut | We are of mixed heritage

Published:Friday | October 25, 2019 | 12:00 AM

We devote this time around National Heroes Day to celebrate our national heritage, especially those Jamaican citizens or residents who have added value to this land and its people.

Our heritage – that which defines us as a people, as a national brand – is much more than our ethnicities, our folkways, our ‘foodways’, our music, our dance and our language.

Our history defines us:

• Our genocide of the indigenous Jamaicans (the Tainos);

• The destruction of most of our natural forests in the name of progress (sugar and coffee planting);

• The crucible of slavery and the struggle to bring it to an end;

• The work of evangelization among enslaved Jamaicans by non-conformist missionaries;

• Our anti-Catholicism;

• Our struggle against Eurocentrism;

• The rejection of traditional Christianity and the rise of Rastafarianism, Revivalism, and the Evangelical churches;

• Our largely elitist education system, reproducing our class/colour system;

• The low incidence of marriage, and the high rate of children born out of wedlock;

• The replacement of British imperialists by the home-grown variety;

• The creation of political garrisons, manned by armed political thugs, and the taxes they impose through extortion;

• Indiscipline on the roads;

• Political corruption;

• The insidious relationship between the rapacious private sector and the political class greedy for power;

• Our love of all things foreign.

At this time, the public and private media join together to big-up the positive elements of our history and heritage, including the beautiful (if declining), healthy, natural environment we have left, while ignoring the negative aspects of our culture and heritage. At this rate, there will be little improvement in the foreseeable future.

The fact is that, like most nations, we are of mixed heritage. There are aspects of our heritage that we should be proud of, and part of which we should be ashamed. We can’t turn back the clock; our history is what it is; but we can work hard to neutralise and turn around the negative and destructive aspects of our heritage. And if we are concerned with national progress, that should be our preoccupation.

CANNOT REMAIN IN DENIAL

But like every alcoholic and chain-smoker, we must first admit that we have a problem. If we remain in denial, we will never become the place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business – by 2030, 2050, or 2100.

Little by little, we must replace negative behaviours with positive ones. We devalue our high national honours when we award them to failed former ministers of national security, to failed ministers of the environment, and to politicians whose reputations have been tarnished by one corruption scandal or another. The bestowing of high national honours (which come with the titles ‘Honourable’ or ‘Most Honourable’ or ‘Right Honourable’), sadly, has become part of the ‘scarce benefits and political spoils’ awarded annually in a wholly bipartisan manner to soldiers from both sides (remember that both sides are involved in tribalism, and support each other).

I think we should declare a moratorium on awarding high national honours to politicians of all stripes; by bestowing the title ‘honourable’ in its various forms on persons implicated in notoriously dishonourable activities reinforces the sort of negative behaviours we wish to eradicate.

Maybe civil society should establish their own system of national honours that would big-up genuine Jamaican stalwarts in nation-building.

I remember when, some years ago, now retired environmental activist Diana McCauley was awarded a Badge of Honour by the Government for her long-standing struggle against the Government to protect and conserve Jamaica’s environmental heritage. That is what you call ‘damning with faint praise’. And then the environmental destroyers she campaigned against became ‘Honourable’. What a betrayal of our struggle for national integrity and development!

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and development scientist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.