THE EDITOR, Madam:
I HAVE just read the Letter of the Day (Tuesday, Feb 6), "The Real Focus" with mixed feelings. I agree with Mr Bourne's focus on our progressive development as primarily the family unit and ultimately unity. I also support him when he said Black History (so-called) should never be rooted in just the past. The late pre-eminent scholar Dr. John Henrik Clarke stated that history, "...is a past, present and future event". Hence Black History Month should focus on the present and future whilst learning from the past, not dwelling in the past with romanticism or self-pity. However, I feel compelled to redress some other key points made.
The issue of "fire bun Babylon system" etc., is pure metaphor and I'm sure Afrikan ('Black') people in Jamaica and worldwide do not take those lyrics and chantations literally. Duppy surely know who fi fool if this is the case! I believe such calls relate to a mental cleansing in order to "...emancipate ourselves from mental slavery" and to overstand the conditioning we are all subject to.
Also, we need not look to other "ethnic groups" for models of good family. The Afrikan in Jamaica had/has that model from its ancestral homeland. The problem has been that the very aspects of Jamaican family (and especially the extended family) with its high values and morals are being pressured by western individualism and low value and moralistic models.
Finally, Black History Month should just be the pinnacle of our on-going focus, it is not something we just pick up for one month and then forget about for a whole year. As someone of Jamaican parentage born in England, my visits to Jamaica over the last six years has demonstrated to me that development is a "past, present and future event" and long so may it continue.
I am etc.,
KWABENA OSAYANDE
Birmingham, UK
Via Go-Jamaica
