As a nation, there are so many painful parts of our history. It is more painful when other nations come bringing Trojan horses to our shore. The gift of Gandhi statues to Jamaica is an affront to a nation — a nation with blackness permeating the length and breadth of it. I call for the removal of this racist’s statue.
Mahatma Gandhi was no lover of Africans. He despised black people while benefitting collectively as an ethnicity “Imported” into Africa by British colonial masters.
Throughout his life, there has been no report of his empathy for his poor, downtrodden African brothers. Gandhi was concerned only about the Indians who were originally laborers brought to Uganda, Kenya, Mauritius, Madagascar, Malawi and South Africa to build primarily the railroads in those counties.
Gandhi has done wonders for his people, eventually articulating Independence from their British overlords. Not one time did his conscience led him to be vocal or to be militant for those whose historical country provided him home and comfort. He was renowned for being rude towards South African blacks and to speak disparagingly of Africans, and openly a racist in all forms.
I would not want to believe the Indian government takes our black majority for granted or believe we are naïve as to lessons of history concerning our black brethren in Africa and the diaspora. Worst, it would be a wrong judgment call and egregious action on the High Commission part to place two statues at the University of the West Indies and at “Tom Redcam Library” of a racist, non-tolerant foreigner whose statues are in a public space in a country which has been at the forefront of anti-racism.
The High Commission seemed to have no public or private education on the resistance played by Jamaica by both political parties going back to the 1960s when then Prime Minister Hugh Shearer banned all trade with South Africa and Portugal or the 1970s when under Michael Manley, Jamaica was vocal against the racist colonizers in Africa.
It is in light of the pain and suffering why it is an insult to have a racist statue on the grounds of our national institutions such as our University and our library.
Gandhi, it is time for your statue to be taken down and placed where your racist DNA belongs. In fact, all monuments to the racists and colonizers should not be in our public space. Our black majority people have lost too much blood for us to be insulted now.
