Dear Jamaicans,
In looking at the controversy of what is happening in Jamaica with the opposition to mining in the Cockpit Country, we should not look at this in isolation of a global and historical perspective.
Extrapolating form the records of history, can help us to have some level of clarity of some things which face us today.
If we focus our minds as far back as history can recall, we will find that humans have been indefatigably pursuing a path of conquest, exploitation and control of the earth and its resources.
On this diabolical path the more powerful exterminate or use the weaker and vulnerable ones to facilitate their mission of conquest and control.
Politics and religion unfortunately have been two of the most insidious tools used by the ruling class in the brainwashing and controlling of the masses.
No I am not a communist, socialist, or any of the other classification attributed to anyone brave enough to challenge and expose the controlling class, which mercilessly and truculently control the means of production and distribution without any regard for the environment and the lives of the people they rule over and control.
I will explain here exactly what I mean by the ruling or controlling class:
1) Governments wielding unbridled hegemonic power whereby they can control weaker nations and take at will their natural resources, destroy their economy unless they bow to their will and demands. Dictate to them how they should operate their countries or else?
2) The plethora of powerful Oligarchs with so much economic power that they can buy, bribe, and threaten to acquire what they desire, regardless of how what they want to do will harm the country and its people.
3) The morally weak politicians in whose minds conscience is quiescent at best , who are controlled by the lust for money that they will sell out the natural resources of their countries to the Oligarchs which in tern establish an ogolopolistic control of the resources of the country, with little or no benefits to the masses, while the environment uncontrollably suffers.
Let me now address what I said about religion and its role in shaping our lives and conditioning us to be the way some of us are today.
By Religion I mean the Europeanization of Christianity (not sure if there is such a word but bear with me) was used to justify slavery and the perpetuation of the myth that some races were inferior to others and that some races did not have souls, so killing or abusing them was equivalent to how you treat an animal.
A typical case of this, is during the period when persons form Africa were being transferred to the so called “New World” to be used as slaves, one of the ships had problems and the Captain ordered that all the slaves were to be thrown overboard, they all drowned and the captain successfully claimed money form the insurance company for the loss of his “CARGO”.
The court ruled that the captain did not commit murder, he disposed of CARGO to ensure the safety of the ship.
During the period unjustifiably called “Emancipation”, slave owners were compensated for the loss of their property but the so called emancipated people who worked as slaves to enriched their owners, got only the stigma of inferiority and incessant castigation for their “ignorance” which generally meant that they were illiterate and did not speak with the desired fluency in the foreign language of their past masters.
Yet their so called illiteracy was due to the the fact that they were prevented form learning to read or write, (another method of calculated control) by the very people who professed Christianity as their religion.
Renowned Scholars have pointed out that at the time of Independence form Colonialism, 80% of the masses were barely functionally literate, which means that they were hampered or trapped in a state of dependent psychology and ripe for exploitation and control. 50 + years later many are still in a state of exploitable credulity, which the controlling class will not hesitate to capitalize on.
During slavery, where were the voices of the Church speaking out against the savagery and brutally meted out to the slaves.
In North America they were loudly silent because they were part of the conspiracy to perpetuate slavery.
A slave was the property of his/her master, therefore if the slave ran away from the brutality of slavery that slave was “stealing” his/her master’s property and the bible said that “stealing was a sin”
Churches had specific areas in the Church which so called “people of Colour” had to sit because the front rows were reserved for another group of people.
Let me hasten to say here that I am not a racist, because I am the product of 3 different races, my Great Grandfather was a white European who came to Jamaica and married a so called Mulatto woman, my mother’s ancestry is Indian, my fathers mother was a descendant of the Maroons.
I am a human being and see myself as a human being when I asses people I do so on the basis of their character and actions.
I do however plead guilty of sometimes speaking inconvenient truths, and I will only retract my claims if they are proven to be false.
The sole purpose of the content of this article is to show that in our evolution as humans too many of us have not really progressed in our appreciation for each other and the environment.
We started out killing and conquering each other, we have actually gotten better at that now.
We have been from as far as history can recalled besotted with an inveterate propensity to destroy the environment and we get better at this every day.
How long will we continue before we realize that we are on an almost irreversible path of self destruction.
I am fully convinced that the governments and Oligarchs, will never turn back form their destructive paths as long as there is money to be made, they continue to ignore all the sensible warnings and advise given to them about the importance of preserving the environment.
They will continue to ignore what is happening in other countries in the world where mining is destroying the environment and playing havoc with the health and water sources of the people.
They will pay no meaningful attention to the alarming rate of deforestation in Africa and the Amazon.
The fact that water borne diseases are now one of the most prolific cause of illness and death, will not deter them form their pecuniary lust to establish bauxite mining in the Cockpit Country.
They will lie to and try to buy the loyalty of the people whose lands they want to contaminate.
The cries of the legendary Maroons of the Cockpit Country will fall on deaf ears.
So my brothers and sisters of Jamaica, those of us who truly care about the environment and the legacy we want to leave behind for our posterity, we are on our own.
In the common understanding of our mission let us dig deep and find the afflatus to propel us into action to do whatever it takes to stop them form destroying our Cockpit Country.
KGD
