PM Golding Emancipation Message 2009

EMANCIPATION DAY MESSAGE
BY
THE PRIME MINISTER OF JAMAICA
THE HON. BRUCE GOLDING
AUGUST 1, 2009

As we observe Emancipation Day, the anniversary of that glorious achievement 175 years ago, we reflect once again on that horrible period in human history we come to know as slavery. Men, women and children were kidnapped from their homes and villages, rounded up like cattle, packed into slave ships, sold and resold and shipped off to faraway lands to work as slaves on plantations in the West Indies and the Americas.

A few weeks ago, we saw graphic images of the brutality to which they were subjected when President Barack Obama, on a visit to Ghana, toured the dungeons of the slave fort, the warehouse and transit point where the slaves were held, awaiting shipment to the New World. It had a special significance for us in Jamaica because it is from Ghana or the Gold Coast as it was then known, that the majority of our ancestors came.

We are a people whose roots are embedded in slavery. It is a major part of our history. It is what dictates the predominant colour of our skin.
But just as slavery is a part of our history, emancipation is also a part of that history, the culmination of the struggles waged by the slaves themselves, church missionaries and enlightened individuals and organizations both here and abroad.

So, even though our roots are embedded in slavery, we must not allow our minds to be imprisoned in slavery for our branches are free to grow and bloom and produce good fruit.

As I watched the images from Ghana of the horrible ordeal which our ancestors went through, as I reflected on the trauma they endured on the voyage across the Atlantic, the whips that cracked on their backs in the cane fields, the many who were shot or hanged because they dared to resist or even question the abuse meted out to them, I was filled with revulsion and anger. Yet, we cannot allow ourselves to be consumed with remorse.

Slaves we were in the past; free men and women we are today - free to choose, free to make our own decisions. And that freedom means we are free to do what is right and free to do what is wrong, free to build and free to destroy, free to love and respect each other and free to hate and abuse each other, free to train our children in the way they should grow and free to leave them to grow any old way.

Emancipation meant more than breaking the chains of the bondage of slavery. It meant and still means taking responsibility, taking responsibility for what we do, how we live and whether we go forward or backward or remain at a standstill.

So, as we reflect on our past, as we look at the scars of slavery, let us remind ourselves that the human spirit does heal, that on August 1st 1834 our ancestors joyfully sang "Freedom is coming, oh yes I know". This is the legacy we have inherited - not a curse that we still carry. And slavery is only one part of that legacy.
The courage and fortitude that withstood the brutality of slavery and led our forefathers to emancipation is still in our veins. It is what will empower us to confront any difficulty, overcome any obstacle and lead us to a brighter day when we will not only be a free people but a peaceful, happy and prosperous people.

So, let our freedom ring from the hills and the plains, in our hearts and our minds and let us as a free people become a mighty people who will accomplish what we can, what we will and what we must.