Their Royal Highnesses, William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, are in Jamaica for a three-day visit. The Royals are here to represent Queen Elizabeth II, current British monarch and grandma to William, in celebration of her 70th year of ascension to the throne.
Many Jamaicans have voiced their opinions on the visit of the Queen’s representatives. As is expected, opinions vary: some welcome the visit, some oppose it, yet others are indifferent.
My view is that any member of the British Royal family should be warmly welcomed to our island home, but not in the capacity of Jamaica’s Head of State – unless they have come to provide redress to the historical injustices our people have suffered at their hand.
The Cambridges' family is culpable in the evils experienced by our ancestors in their capacity as 1) a major participant in the Transatlantic Slave Trade, resourcing it and playing a lead role in determining its immediate beneficiaries; 2) the head of the British Parliament, creating the legal framework needed to sustain the venture with over 100 acts; and 3) the head of the English Church, often providing the religious and moral grounding for the inhumane institution. It is primarily from the perspective of the third point that I would like to ground my position on the Royals' visit.
The British monarch is the “Supreme Governor” of the Church of England (Not the Jamaican Church!). A doctrine of this expression of the Church (one shared by the larger Anglican Communion) is that all human beings, inclusive of every British Royal, are deeply flawed, intentionally and or unintentionally engaging in unloving relationships with God and neighbour. The Season of Lent is a time in which, among other things, members of the Church are invited intentionally to adopt, over a prolonged period, a posture in which they own their wrongs, and make deliberate efforts to make amends.
The idea is that shalom (peace) is disrupted and needs to be restored, if humans and their societies are to experience life in its fullness.
The Church’s understanding of doing and being in the wrong/sinning is by no means reduced to the individual or private domain; rather, it is seen as a phenomenon in which individuals, willingly and unwittingly, are caught up in the corporate. Expressed in an African philosophy, "Ubuntu" (I am because we are); and in Rastafari "I-n-I." It is often said that this notion is at variance with modern, western individualism. One wonders, however, if this is only the case when the collective association is negative.
The Church's invitation to each one, then, through its Ash Wednesday liturgy, to “Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ”, is grounded in a collectivist value system, informed by Scripture, Tradition and Reason. As such it is not directed to individuals in isolation, but to the individual as a connected being (a person) – sharing in the good and bad, the successes and failures, and the strengths and weaknesses of community.
The demand for the British monarchy to tender a formal apology and to compensate those they have historically wronged is not a personal attack on any current member of the British royal family. It is not a denial of the good any royal has done, and it certainly does not assume every Royal, since Britain joined the Transatlantic Slave Trade, has supported the institution! Rather, it is an invitation to wade in the rough, yet healing waters of truth-telling, so humans can overcome the sin of estrangement and all can truly flourish as God intends. Like the exhortation that ushers us into the Lenten season, it is to invest in the Royals tremendous faith – that they, through God, possess the strength and courage to say and do what it takes to face the truth, be the corrective to their connectional wrongs and, in so doing, strengthen the bonds of friendship and play their part in charting the way forward to a fuller realisation of God’s Kingdom of justice, peace and joy. It is also a declaration that we will hold each other accountable when we fall short, not only for our own good but also for those who come after us.
The demand speaks to a principle that transcends the historical relationship between the British Empire, headed by its monarch, and the peoples of Africa. It is a principle that applies to all of us who, of necessity, are communal beings. Our individual actions and our actions in whatever capacity affect us and others, as do the actions of the communities with which we identify. Lent calls for repentance on whichever level we find ourselves complicit in the face of evil.
Let me be clear: I do not believe reparative justice is the panacea to all our challenges. Far from it! To believe and act in this way would be to render ourselves non-subjects of our own history and quest for shalom, indefinitely dependent on the goodwill of the beneficiaries of those who oppressed our foreparents. Each of us has a role to play, including our elected national and regional leaders. We, the descendants of the enslaved, have to concoct and apply to ourselves our own healing potions. In the face of displacement and no compensation for our 300 years of forced labour, we have to ton wi han mek fashan. We have to resolve to become Josephs in Egypt. We have to (re)write our histories, (re)name our streets, construct our monuments, (re)form our institutions, embrace our language and culture, reh teh teh! Reparative justice, it would seem to me, however, is not an insignificant tributary to the larger river of shalom we so desire. We must hold ourselves responsible, as we most certainly must hold the Royal family responsible for the Jamaica we have come to know and love.
My hope is that as Elizabeth II approaches the end of her long leg of the British monarchy's unjust reign over us, she will formally begin the process of undoing the grave injustices against our foreparents that her foremother, Elisabeth I, initiated 460 years ago. These are injustices against us, too, for we bear in our bodies and souls - individually and collectively - the wounds and trauma of an institution that has so enriched and privileged our ancestors' enslavers and their descendants. The Lenten challenge is to acknowledge our participation in wrongs and to make amends:
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.”
Wan lov!
Some Sources:
The Transatlantic Slave Trade, UK Parliament
The British Monarchy's involvement in slavery, Jamaica Observer
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