THE WINDRUSH GENERATION AND HOW IT CAME TO PASS

I am a child of the Windrush Generation and the United Kingdom (UK) has managed to make me feel nothing but disdain with regard to their deceitful and dishonest behaviour which has led to the needless ruination of thousands of lives.

Last week in the United Kingdom parliament, the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary apologised to me and the thousands of CITIZENS who have been denied their rights by the government for almost 50 (FIFTY) years. I would prefer if they saved their apologies until after the wrongs perpetrated upon every victim has been corrected and each individual has been adequately compensated.

The abject shame in what they have done to people who rushed to their assistance, during and after the Second World War, shows exactly who they are. I am particularly hurt by the fact that my mother worked herself to death for this country, died at the age of 59, months before she could draw her pension.

I believe the intention of the United Kingdom government was to keep this whole matter quiet until they had repatriated us back to countries we do not know or until we all died.

I have exiled myself from the UK for most of the last thirty years and made a conscious decision that I would never return unless the UK acknowledges my rights and refrain from its questionably unlawful insistence that I am not a United Kingdom citizen, while knowing that this treatment is wrongful. I have done this although it has destroyed my life in so many ways that cannot be explained here. I do mean this literally and if I told the whole story, I guarantee, no-one would believe it.

THE FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE IS THIS:

WE WERE GRANTED CITIZENSHIP AND A BRITISH PASSPORT.

WE WENT TO BRITAIN AS UNITED KINGDOM CITIZENS.

THE UK GOVERNMENT NOW INSIST THAT TO OBTAIN A PASSPORT WE MUST APPLY FOR CITIZENSHIP.

Why would I apply for UK citizenship when I arrived in the UK lawfully and as a UK citizen?

What one must always remember about the British ruling classes is this: WHENEVER THEY ARE IN TROUBLE THEY ARE ALWAYS EXPEDIENT and QUICK TO ABANDON OLD FRIENDS FOR NEW. They are in the process of doing exactly that with BREXIT. Nonetheless, I wonder who these NEW friends are going to be? The old friends they left behind when they joined the Common Market?

Four days after writing the above paragraph, I made the most astonishing discovery. Apparently, I have no need to wonder who the UK expect their new friends are going to be. The UK has made it clear that they really do intend that their new friends will be the old friends they have betrayed so appallingly over 500 years. Having used their “Hostile Environment Policy” to force the nurses who moved to the United Kingdom after 2004 to return to wherever they came from, the UK is, as I write this, in Jamaica avidly recruiting the best of our nurses in order that they may, once again, rescue their National Health Service. You know, the same National Health Service for which there was no money tree from which nurses could be given a pay rise. Even before they have managed to completely abandon their new friends, they are busily cultivating old friends to, also once again, RESCUE THEM. I wonder if they will offer them UK citizenship and passports. Is the audacity of these people not incredible?

Listening to the current uproar about “The Windrush Generation” which is taking place in the United Kingdom, I must arrive at the conclusion that the entire UK ruling classes are incomprehensibly arrogant and, at the same time, ignorant and stupid.

The debate which is taking place is focussed entirely on their nonsensical, irrational, inward-looking and typically British way of seeing everything that concerns their ex-slaves and the majority of other subject matter. Despite all the noise being made, the political classes of the United Kingdom are deliberately suppressing the real cause of this “so-called” fiasco. They say it is wrong that it has happened, but not one of them has spoken of the real cause.

In order to explain how idiotic is their behaviour, as they have made the entire episode into a party political game, one just needs to look at what happened in parliament last week. Jeremy Corbyn was seeking to score points against Theresa May in Parliament. So, she told him that the decision to destroy the EVIDENCE WHICH COULD PROVE THE LEGITIMACY OF OUR STATUS was taken by Labour. The whole political debate then shifted to this supposed factoid, although it is totally irrelevant. The dates they are debating, let me say it once again, are totally irrelevant.

By the way, during all these years that I had been trying to clarify my status, the Home Office had the evidence which may have done just that. They chose to destroy this evidence, I believe in 2012. I had been seeking this evidence since the late 1980’s. Does this suggest anything to you?

Here is the shame of this United Kingdom. I currently reside in Warsaw, Poland. I have been asked repeatedly for the documents I have been trying to get from the United Kingdom for most of my life. I explained to the Polish authorities why I cannot present the relevant UK documents. THEY BELIEVED ME!

United Kingdom, SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!

I have been trying to get something done about this injustice for most of my adult life, until I gave up twenty years ago, swearing not to return to the UK, unless the matter was resolved. I am prepared to die in an unpleasant situation in a strange country rather than accept being treated in the manner in which I have been by the UK government.

In 2010, I outlined all that had happened to me in a twenty-page document. The story as outlined in this document was the story of one who is suffering the consequences of British treachery. Basically, it was a cry for help after having lived under the most difficult of circumstances for thirteen years. These circumstances being akin to a prison sentence, without a date of termination. I wrote this document out of desperation to find a way out of my self-inflicted prison sentence.

I went to the UK embassy in Warsaw and tried to tell my story. I was greeted by two receptionists who virtually laughed in my face as I related what had happened. The difficulty in relating my story was that their English was about upper-intermediate level. I think I am qualified to judge after spending nearly thirty years teaching the English language.

For this reason, I pointed out that the matter was too complex, so would they be so kind as to get me someone who might have the ability to understand what I was saying. They disappeared for approximately fifteen minutes. When they returned they told me that they had been told by “someone responsible” that I needed to show them my grandfather’s birth certificate. Note, not my father’s, but my grandfather’s. I pointed out to these ladies that I could have a problem with that as both my grandfathers had died before I was born. They pointed out to me that, nevertheless, they were the rules. CLEARLY A TOTAL FICTION.

I thought long and hard about who would be in a position in British politics to help me. Funnily enough, last week I heard the person to whom I chose to send my document playing the political game by suggesting to Amber Rudd, the current Home Secretary that she should resign over this same matter.

I sent this document in 2010 to DIANE ABBOTT, the current shadow Home Secretary.

I do not believe myself to be in any way ineloquent, or that my communication was in some way poorly communicated. However, I never received a reply.

Despite the perniciousness of her legislation, Theresa May is not responsible for what has happened. The only thing her legislation has done is to amplify an injustice which has persisted for decades.

BRIEFLY, HOW DID THIS COME TO PASS?

The abhorrent and detestable manner in which we have been treated did not begin in 2012. The story began in 1838 when we were granted full emancipation. The British government who had taken us from Africa and brought us far and wide across the world as slaves and forced us to give our labour without compensation for 400 years, had decided that this really was not the way to treat other human beings, although there were some who believed we were not, human that is.

In their wisdom the British government made the decision that COMPENSATION ought to be paid. I am sure at this point you are thinking the compensation would go to the people they had kept enslaved for 400 years. However, you would be wrong. The compensation was paid to the OWNERS OF THE SLAVES FOR THE LOSS OF THEIR PROPERTY.

This sowed the seed for the next one hundred years of abject poverty for the ex-slaves. For current purposes it is not necessary to go any further in this direction, other than to say that the ex-slaves in the colonies, including Jamaica, were so grateful for this “freedom” that you could find a picture of the British monarch in every home. To close this particular topic, it should be noted that the compensation was used to buy up all of the land by the now extremely rich ex-slave owners.

We were FREE BUT PENNILESS AND HOMELESS, so we had to sell our labour to the nouveau riche in the colonies FOR NEXT TO NOTHING. Many of whom used this wealth to return to the motherland and become members of the ruling classes.

Fast-forward almost exactly 100 years. There is a maniac by the name of Hitler about to do to Britain what they had done to us for 400 years. So, the British cry out for us all to rush to the aid of the ‘MOTHERLAND’. We did in our thousands. I do not think the British would dare to argue with the veracity of anything I have stated so far.

This is the background to how the Windrush Generation came about. The motherland had lost a large percentage of her young men. So, once again, they needed our assistance. They came to the colonies and advertised extensively, inviting our young men and women to come to the motherland, as citizens of the motherland. We were happy to drop everything and rush to their aid. Many carrying a picture of the Queen’s father. No further explanation necessary.

Citizenships and passports were handed out so freely that they did not even properly record to whom they had been given. Parents were permitted to bring their children on their passports. In my younger brother’s and my case, we travelled on my aunt’s passport as our parents were already in the UK.

Upon arrival we were greeted with signs when seeking accommodation which said, “ROOM TO LET. NO NIGGERS AND NO DOGS”. I only mention this to point out how different was the welcome to what we had anticipated and expected.

THE SOLUTION

It is the responsibility of the United Kingdom government to find all persons affected wherever they may be in the world.

The United Kingdom MUST then do THREE things:

• RESTORE THE CITIZENSHIP OF ALL AFFECTED, AS WE LEFT THE COUNTRY OF OUR BIRTH AS CITIZENS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.

• RECOGNIZE OUR RIGHTS TO A BRITISH PASSPORT

• RECOGNIZE OUR RIGHT TO COMPENSATION, THE AMOUNT OF WHICH HAS TO BE DECIDED ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS TO BE ASSESSED BY AN INDEPENDENT ARBITRATOR. (In view of the now over 500 years of history between us the independent arbitrator should come from the Commonwealth).

Theresa May’s maleficence has served to bring light where there was darkness. This darkness has existed for many more years than is generally accepted by the United Kingdom because their desire always to take without giving is based on a particular kind of greed, which enables them to easily renege on agreements as the details are no longer available.

They may then interpret everything themselves, and always in their favour. Can one consider such people trustworthy?

Finally, how did we really come to be in this situation? Simply put, what was put into legislation was not what we were told, and we did not have the representation to know otherwise. By the time this was gradually discovered by individuals, it was sufficiently buried, in unwritten decisions and lies, until now.