Solidarity with Jamaica to UK's “keep your prison, give us schools, give us infrastructure, not prisons”.

ireland / britain | imperialism / war | opinion / analysis Saturday October 17, 2015 05:53 by Fionnghuala Nic Roibeaird - WSM

In case you missed it, David Cameron does not believe that reparations or even apologies are the right approach when dealing with the legacy of the enslavement of the Jamaican people at the hands of British Imperialism.

Jamaica was under British rule from 1655, when they took the Caribbean island from the Spanish colonialists. Slavery was in place until 1833 when the British were forced to surrender to the will of the Maroons.

David Cameron is related to General Sir James Duff which means that a chunk of his and his family's privilege is founded upon Jamaican enslavement.

Duff had a Jamaican sugar plantation bestowed upon him from his father in-law, James Dawes. Hundreds of slaves were forced to work on it and when slavery was abolished in 1833 he was compensated £4,101 for his "loss" of 202 slaves. In today's money that's about £3.1m.

Instead of compensating for the developing years that British Imperialism caused Jamaica to lose Cameron would rather spend £25m on a prison in which Jamaican prisoners will be transferred from the UK to Jamaica without their consent.

In the words of Emma Goldman, "every society has the criminals it deserves". The crimes that British capitalism has created are to be payed for by Jamaica, without the consent of the prisoners and without the consent of the Jamaican people.

We stand in solidarity with Jamaica when they say “keep your prison, give us schools, give us infrastructure, not prisons”.