Jamaica

Jamaica - a history of racism and revolt

Mass deportations to Jamaica follow a long line of racist attacks on people of Caribbean descent—but that history also shows that people always resist, writes Nick Clark

‘Bob Marley inspired a generation—to stand up for our rights’

Brian Richardson, author of the new book Bob Marley—Roots, Reggae and Revolution, spoke to Socialist Worker about Marley’s music, politics and legacy

Storm Sandy shows the hypocrisy of our rulers

Post-tropical storm Sandy is the largest Atlantic tropical system on record. Before it hit the US it ravaged Jamaica, Cuba, the Bahamas, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Jamaica: an island of rebellion

The Union Jack was lowered over Jamaica’s capital Kingston on 6 August 1962, watched by Princess Margaret for the British crown.

Quotes of the week

‘A particular form of black culture, the violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture associated with Jamaican gangs and American rap music’

Deportations threaten people’s lives

A man was rushed to hospital on Monday after slashing his own throat with a razor to stop his forced deportation to Jamaica by the UK Border Agency (UKBA).

Ska With Laurel: Bringing together history and politics of British ska

02 November 2010
Born in Cuba in 1927 but settling in Jamaica at the age of 11, Laurel Aitken was dubbed "The Godfather of Ska", and he was the real pioneer of the genre.

African Revolution - Tiken Jah Fakoly

12 October 2010
Veteran musician Tiken Jah Fakoly merges the sounds of Africa with funky reggae from Jamaica.

Made in Jamaica: The contradictions and power of reggae music

20 October 2009
Made in Jamaica, a 2006 documentary film by French director Jerome Laperrousaz, finally receives a limited cinema release in Britain this week.

An England Story: a fitting tribute to the pioneers of black British music

01 April 2008
Black British music today has an unmistakable style – one that instantly separates it from the output of the two countries that have historically shaped the scene – Jamaica and the US.

How the IMF wrecked Jamaica

10 July 2007
When Michael Manley and his People’s National Party (PNP) were elected in Jamaica for a second term in December 1976, all who challenged imperialism and racism walked tall.

Events commemorating the end of the slave trade

24 March 2007
Ms Dynamite in Search of Nanny Maroon Niomi Daley, the British hip-hop star better known as Ms Dynamite, travelled to her ancestral land Jamaica to make a TV documentary about slaves who fought back.

Slave rebellion that led to liberation

08 July 2006
The decisive episode in the overthrow of slavery in the British Caribbean was the great Jamaican revolt that began on 27 December 1831.

Roots reggae and resistance from Jamaica to Brixton

27 August 2005
Once feared by the authorities and celebrated by rebels from Notting Hill to Zimbabwe, roots reggae has been sanitised. Bob Marley is presented as simply uplifting summer music. But a series 1970s reggae reissues is making it possible to see how innovative, influential and politically aware it was.

An outrageous deportation threat

25 June 2005
A family in Hackney, east London, with children aged three and five, is under threat of losing their dad. Immigration officials say Duane Thomas must go back to Jamaica because he overstayed his student visa in 1997.

Jamaica's song of freedom

28 August 2004
FOR A small island in the Caribbean with a population of 2.6 million, Jamaica and its people have had a massive cultural impact on the wider world. For 300 years Jamaica was the jewel in the crown of the British colonies in the Caribbean, its riches based on the enslavement of Africans.

Is this how to deal with gun crime?

26 July 2003
"THE WORST estate in the country" is what the mainstream press have called the Stonebridge estate. The press talks about "Jamaican drugs crews", gang shootings and teenage drug dealers. But Stonebridge is not very different from hundreds of estates across Britain where people's lives are blighted by poverty, neglect and the fear of crime.

Drugs slur

12 January 2002
DEPUTY BRITISH High Commissioner to Jamaica Phil Sinkinson has made outrageous claims that one in ten people on flights from Jamaica are smuggling cocaine. He used this to justify his demand for a crackdown and harsher sentencing. British customs and excise officials rubbished Sinkinson's comments. They revealed that there were no figures on the number of "drugs mules" to support Sinkinson's claims.

IMF bled dry West Indies

27 October 2001
"CAPITALISM AH no we fren" says the Jamaican reggae dub poet Mutabaruka, echoing the rebellious spirit of our times. Mutabaruka's words are caught on an acclaimed new film documentary that takes as its subject a part of the world-the Caribbean-that should be one of the richest. Instead the Caribbean is becoming ever poorer, due to crippling debts imposed by the IMF and World Bank.

But these 4 are failures

29 September 2001
FROM THE channel that brought us the sensationalist fly on the wall documentaries Jamaican ER and Lagos Airport we now have How Racist is Britain? The four-part series has been screened in the run-up to Black History Month in October.