August 2024
COMPARATIVE POLITICS ARTICLE
Colin Clarke had an important paper, relevant to his recent book, Racist Regimes, Forced Labour and Death (2024), published in the July, 2020: ‘Race, religion and differential incorporation in Jamaica in the second half of the twentieth century.’ Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 2020, Vol. 58, No. 3, 301-319.
The leading theme of this paper is that the secular world view of the materialistic but necessitous poor in the most impoverished sections of Kingston, Jamaica has driven them into the arms of violent dons (gunmen), who – in the absence of police engagement – offer their own version of citizenship in the shape of differential incorporation de facto. This ‘citizenship of a lesser kind’ contrasts with the orthodox range of legal and political rights enjoyed by the majority of Jamaicans who are not ghetto dwellers. It is imperative that a national effort is made in Jamaica (and other societies with similar problems) to rectify human rights abuses associated with differential treatment – notably policing.
