Martin Henry

This is going to be a great year for history. A people without knowledge of their past is like a tree without roots, Garvey warned us.

In 1807, 200 years ago, British participation in the Atlantic slave trade ended by Act of Parliament. Britain then proceeded to seize slavers on the high seas and to free their human cargoes in her colonies. Several thousand free Africans were landed in Jamaica, with a big concentration in St. Thomas, a parish with some of the strongest African retentions.

The bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade will be marked around the world with many events. Jamaica, too, is planning commemoration, but we haven't heard very much yet about specific events planned. In any case, this year's Emancipation Day should take on special significance. And so should Independence Day. Efforts should be made this year to ignite a strong popular interest in our past.

During the bicentenary fresh interest will develop on such old questions as how the slave trade affected Africa, the collaboration of Africans in the slave trade, how slavery contributed to European wealth and dominance, the formation of New World societies in slavery and the impact of slavery on their post-emancipation development, and, of course, why Black free and independent states have generally done so badly in the family of nations. It will be a great time to re-evaluate the pat answers which are sometimes more influenced by sentiment rather than scholarship.

Freedom by force of arms

On January 1, 1804, Haiti became the first of the free and independent states and has been the only one to achieve freedom by force of arms. The bicentennial was strongly marked internationally in 2004 without, I think, the frank re-examination as to why Haiti, with such a head start in freedom, is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and one of the poorest in the world in the company of other Black states.

A fair balancing of the external impositions and of internal problems of governance and culture needs to be done in the frank manner of South African president Thabo Mbeki when he spoke at the UWI in June 2003. The Jamaica Economy Project has set out to do this for Jamaica in Independence and is already stirring up healthy controversy. We expect much of them this year.

The police are now on to a ganja for guns trade between Jamaica and Haiti. Jamaica and Haiti, and also the surrounding Latin America, share a long history of trade, legal and illegal, and the movement of people.

January 1 also marks the anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. President Batista fled to the neighbouring Dominican Republic leaving the revolutionary Fidel Castro and his band of guerrillas in charge of the country. No change of leadership has occurred in Cuba since then; but one is imminent. Raul Castro temporarily rules in brother Fidel's place as the latter at 80 remains too sick to rule after surgery. Both Castros are set to leave the stage soon — and the Cuban revolution will follow very shortly behind them. There are large numbers of descendants of Jamaican immigrants in Cuba, including close relatives of mine. An open, post-Castro Cuba is going to create significant challenges and opportunities for Jamaica.

Voted overwhelmingly

Last October, the people of Panama voted overwhelmingly in a referendum to go for the mega-project to expand the Panama Canal, returned from U.S. control, to double its capacity. Thousands of Jamaicans worked on the U.S. construction of the canal in the early years of the 20th century. Now in the early years of the 21st, the Jamaican Government is publicly hoping for jobs for Jamaicans on the expansion programme.

In 1907, one hundred years ago, Kingston was levelled by a powerful earthquake on January 14, and Sydney Olivier arrived four months later as Governor to lead in picking up the pieces, doing a distinguished job of it. But that's another story for another time in this year of history.

This will be a historic election year, with ample opportunity for an all-angles investigation of the political history of the country and the social and economic impact of that history for good and for ill.

Martin Henry is a communication specialist.