60% of Jamaicans regret independence from Britain

[MarxSchmarx]

I suspect similar sentiments exist throughout a lot of former colonial countries:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13952592

I've met west Africans who were born during the colonial times and were raised to see themselves as Frenchmen first and still don't quite identify with the country they are nominally citizens of.

What perhaps is not clear is whether the colonies would have fared as well if they had not left en masse and in large numbers. I don't think it's quite fair to compare a Jamaica that had an alternative timeline with the British isles, but then again, it does suggest a certain resignation among people about the prospects of improving their own countries.

[HEAD ICE]

I recently watched a documentary on netflix about Jamaica (i think it was called Life and Debt???). There was a lot going on in that movie that can only make sense through a marxist analysis. Pretty much right after Jamaica got independence they were in debt and have been in debt to the IMF since. This is something familiar to almost all the cases of 'de-colonization', be it diplomatically or through 'national liberation.' What 'de-colonization' has meant is that foreign capital can penetrate and control the affairs and economy of a former colony in a much more efficient manner than direct military occupation. Not only that but it removes the barriers to 'investment' from other capitals as well.

Instead of "breaking the links", the "links" have become stronger. I don't have any direct statistics on hand and this is just a guess, but it probably wouldn't be a stretch to say that Jamaica as a British colony had a higher income per capita than it does today.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

This seems sad that the indigenous people haven't yet created their own national identity from the grips of colonialism. I suppose something like this though takes some time, even more so when many struggle with the pervasive influence of capital.

[Manic Impressive]

This seems sad that the indigenous people haven't yet created their own national identity from the grips of colonialism. I suppose something like this though takes some time, even more so when many struggle with the pervasive influence of capital.
I don't think you could really call any Jamaicans indigenous as the original occupants were all butchered or assimilated.

[MarxSchmarx]

This seems sad that the indigenous people haven't yet created their own national identity from the grips of colonialism. I suppose something like this though takes some time, even more so when many struggle with the pervasive influence of capital. I don't think you could really call any Jamaicans indigenous as the original occupants were all butchered or assimilated.

It strikes me that the bigger question is whether it will make any difference if they sought to restore an indigenous, precolonial identity. For example this has been the approach in say Bangladesh and has yielded results as independent states arguably as anemic as Jamaica's.

[∞]

So they prefer British colonialism over globalist colonialism...

[Ocean Seal]

I suspect similar sentiments exist throughout a lot of former colonial countries:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13952592

I've met west Africans who were born during the colonial times and were raised to see themselves as Frenchmen first and still don't quite identify with the country they are nominally citizens of.

What perhaps is not clear is whether the colonies would have fared as well if they had not left en masse and in large numbers. I don't think it's quite fair to compare a Jamaica that had an alternative timeline with the British isles, but then again, it does suggest a certain resignation among people about the prospects of improving their own countries.

If they were truly independent instead of a neo-colony they wouldn't regret it. The advantage that they had as a colony is that they would have had British citizenship and also living standards very significantly higher a generation ago. So perhaps they believe that Jamaica hasn't progressed because it is no longer a colony instead of the fact that capitalism is failing. So in effect they aren't independent, they don't have citizenship, and they see their society in collapse. Instead of longing to become a colony they should organize and kick off the imperialists and then overthrow their native capitalist class. And then they would see the progress that they have been missing.

[Manic Impressive]

But how can they restore an indigenous identity when there are no indigenous people left? The people of african or european origin are both there because of colonialism. They already have a distinct identity evolved from British and distinct from African culture.

I can't say I know much about Bangladesh or who was in that area before the British were but I'm pretty sure that the indigenous people weren't all killed off by disease war and forced marriages to assimilate the indigenous people.

[thesadmafioso]

The IMF truly is an immense force of regression on the world stage, a horribly damaging instrument of subjugation by means of debt. Economic imperialism at its finest, really.

[RedSonRising]

I recently watched a documentary on netflix about Jamaica (i think it was called Life and Debt???). There was a lot going on in that movie that can only make sense through a marxist analysis. Pretty much right after Jamaica got independence they were in debt and have been in debt to the IMF since. This is something familiar to almost all the cases of 'de-colonization', be it diplomatically or through 'national liberation.' What 'de-colonization' has meant is that foreign capital can penetrate and control the affairs and economy of a former colony in a much more efficient manner than direct military occupation. Not only that but it removes the barriers to 'investment' from other capitals as well.

Instead of "breaking the links", the "links" have become stronger. I don't have any direct statistics on hand and this is just a guess, but it probably wouldn't be a stretch to say that Jamaica as a British colony had a higher income per capita than it does today.


Life and Debt perfectly illustrates the problems of neo-colonial Jamaica. The globalized institutions of market management completely ruined the domestic economy of that nation and further disempowered the working class in order to advance a first-world bourgeois agenda. All Western powers have to do is coerce local governments, coordinate with native ruling classes, and voila, a new market of consumers to drain and cheap laborers to exploit. The horrors of class struggle at its rawest.

[Jose Gracchus]

This just tells us the bourgeois national democratic revolution lost its credibility on the historical stage in the early 20th century.

[Tim Finnegan]

They already have a distinct identity evolved from British and distinct from African culture.
Actually, most Afro-American cultures (African-American, Afro-Jamaican, Afro-Cuban, etc.) carry not a little African content, as well as other non-European influences (for example, the cultural of late 19th century Indian immigrants strongly influenced many Afro-Caribbean cultures). The conviction that the African slave populations were without a meaningfully distinct culture (African-derived or otherwise) is part of white colonial mythology, derived from a belief that their own culture had a universal relevance and unshakeable permanence, as opposed to the localised and unsustainable culture of the African "primitive". That was in a large part why the term "African-American", and other similar terms, were constructed: to contest the cultural void traditionally implied by the use of acultural racial signifier, "Negro".

[Manic Impressive]

Actually, most Afro-American cultures (African-American, Afro-Jamaican, Afro-Cuban, etc.) carry not a little African content, as well as other non-European influences (for example, the cultural of late 19th century Indian immigrants strongly influenced many Afro-Caribbean cultures). The conviction that the African slave populations were without a meaningfully distinct culture (African-derived or otherwise) is part of white colonial mythology, derived from a belief that their own culture had a universal relevance and unshakeable permanence, as opposed to the localised and unsustainable culture of the African "primitive". That was in a large part why the term "African-American", and other similar terms, were constructed: to contest the cultural void traditionally implied by the use of acultural racial signifier, "Negro".
Yeah it was the wrong word I was struggling to articulate what I meant. I meant the legal system and constitution mainly. I wasn't saying that the Africans had no culture before they arrived in Jamaica and yes I'm well aware of the Asian influences as well. I just wanted to keep the post short and simple, but yeah I didn't end up conveying what I wanted.