Political Life in the Wake of the Plantation: Sovereignty, Witnessing, Repair

Abstract

Over the past decades, Deborah A. Thomas has brought public injustices in Jamaica to public view through a method she calls "Witnessing 2.0," a different sort of bearing witness that combines use of archival materials and social justice advocacy.To reveal government atrocities occurring during the 1963 Coral Gardens "incident" in which hundreds of Rastafarians were tortured over a land dispute, Thomas interviewed older members of the community, filming and recording their recollections.These were included in Bad Friday: Rastafari after Coral Gardens (2011), directed by Thomas, John Jackson, and Junior "Gabu" Wedderburn, a documentary screened at various North American university campuses before officially premiering at the Bob Marley Museum in Kingston.Now it is permanently featured at the National Gallery of Jamaica and Institute of Jamaica in the Rastafari exhibit, informing visitors young and old of this largely forgotten incident.This documentary's impact in restoring public consciousness of this wrong influenced Prime Minister Andrew Holness to make an official apology to the Rastafarian community in 2017, along with the promise of reparative benefits for survivors.Having marked the practical results of her intervention to resurrect the legacy of the 1963 Coral Gardens "incident," now Thomas engages with a significantly more immediate -and thus, more dangerous -episode in Jamaican history, involving global, as well as local governments.

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