£2.50 | SEPTEMBER, 2023 • ISSUE NO. 1946
Black on the Square Celebrating our culture 2 Sept, 12-6pm, Trafalgar Square LDN
FUTURE IS AFRICAN FEATURING: Bea Anderson, The Spit Game, and Melica
PAGE 9
Young Africans are the undisputed trendmakers of 2023 in the arts, business, music and sports
FROM BUSINESS to activism, sports to arts, journalism to music, African is young talent is increasingly dominating the world stage.
The continent has a median age of just 18, compared to Europe’s 44, so it’s no wonder the future is African.
We are the future! African and Caribbean journalists tell their stories 12 page Commonwealth Youth supplement p19-30
Inside THIS MONTH
Somali mums rebel Protests over council housing ‘bias’ p5
ROUNDUP NEWSPAPER
News, views, stories & videos
The Voice says
THE 10 MOST POPULAR STORIES ON VOICE-ONLINE.CO.UK
1. Guyana demands reparations
Latest Caribbean country to seek justice
2. Bristol shafted its Black mayor… again
Questions over Marvin Rees’ treatment
Dawn of a new era Dawn Butler opens up about her journey
3. Europeans benefit from Windrush Home Office citizenship scheme sidelines Jamaicans
p6
‘They don’t understand us’ L’Myah Sherae on the Windrush Scandal p8 Eyongakpa speaks out Artist Em’kal being led by his heart
4. Black kids seven times more likely to drown
Researchers blame Afro hair for lack of swimming
5. Where is Bradford’s Black community? New City of Culture used to have thriving neighbourhood
6. £18 trillion — pay up now
Our frontpage story from last month on reparations report
7. Cops most want a ruck with Black people
p36
Met police authorise batons only for Black-led events
Resilience and liberation Landmark exhibition explores Black Atlantic p38 Tough as they come First Black women to row across Pacific p47
8. GRM Gala hits new heights
All the glitz and glam from this years awards ceremony
9. Cops are out of control
Activists lay down agenda for policing reform
10. Shabaka will stay in our hearts Tribute to a legend
This issue is 48 pages
Housing crisis is a Black issue
HOUSING IS a Black issue. Of course, it’s an issue for everyone but the facts don’t lie; Black families are three times more likely to be homeless. We are massively overrepresented in the rental sector with council, housing association and private landlords. And we are much less likely to own our own home. In this edition, we highlight the frustration of Somali women who are out on the streets protesting against what they see as Tower Hamlets council “de-prioritising” their families in need of rehousing due to damp and mould. A survey earlier this year found a third of homes have mould. Social housing campaigner Kwajo Tweneboa has done wonders to highlight the issue, and it is notable how most of the families he visits are Black. Not because he seeks them out, but because that is the reality. The tragic death of toddler Awaab Ishak in Rochdale due to mould sent shockwaves through Britain and led to a new law. Yet the measures are weak, and the issue of racism is largely unacknowledged. It is commonplace for council officers to dismiss mould as being caused by ‘cultural practices’, telling the tenants to just open the windows or giving a lick of paint which mould simply grows through. The private rented sector is no better, with non-white tenants being twice as likely to report having experienced “illegal acts” from landlords. The Government has, to its credit, outlawed no-fault evictions, which is a major cause of homelessness. But more action is needed. With private rents rocketing and landlords effectively auctioning flats to the highest bidder for rents, Black families are once again likely to lose out due to having less income as a result of systemic racism in the jobs market. So what are the solutions? We need to raise the rates of home ownership to have more assets to pass down the generations. And we need to look at pooling our resources to buy property, as other communities have done and the Caribbean community used to do with pardners. We also need a massive social house-building programme from the Government, and a revival in Black housing associations to run our fair share of homes in order to deal with the racial disparities. Black mothers, fearing for the lives of their children, should not have to come out on the streets with placards for society to wake up to the Black housing crisis. It is time for authorities to act.
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SEPTEMBER 2023 THE VOICE | 3
News Feature
Battle for Bob Marley beach
‘DEEP CONNECTION’: Norman with father, renowned Rastafari elder Gladstone Stephenson, on the beach
Future of sacred land in the balance as Black Brit fights luxury resort development. EXCLUSIVE by Sinai Fleary
A
BRITISH JAMAICAN is suing a company to stop them ‘bulldozing’ his family’s land on Bob Marley beach in Jamaica. Norman Stephenson, from St Paul’s, Bristol, says his family will not be bullied off their 2.79 acres of beach in the Bull Bay area. He is fighting to protect three acres on the famous beach in St Thomas from becoming a £160 million luxury hotel resort. Stephenson said he has been fully supported by members of the Marley Family and said Ziggy, Cedella, Sharon and Stephen Marley have all assisted him in some way. Stephenson, whose father lived on the beach for over 50 years, told The Voice the hotel plans would destroy the cultural and religious heritage of the beach. The row comes after campaigners said ordinary Jamaicans were being shut out of their own beaches because hotels only wanted wealthy tourists. Stephens o n ’ s case is currently being heard in Jamaica’s Supreme Court. He says he has been paying land tax since 2008, but the developers dispute his ownership of the idyllic beach. Reggae icon Bob Marley, inset, often visited the beach leading it to be named after the late legend. Stephenson wants the land protected as a cultural heritage site because it was also home to one of the earliest Rastafari communities in Jamaica after many fled major cities following persecution and harassment from colonial government authorities. The land was also believed to be a hideout for runaway slave Three-Fingered Jack, who went on to form a Maroon community on the island. Stephenson’s father, renowned Rastafari elder Gladstone Stephenson — also known as Bongo Gabby — was a spiritual mentor. Stephenson, director of Afi Dance — a company that promotes health and wellbeing
through African dance and drumming — told The Voice about his deep connection to the beach. “I always felt like this beach needed protection [but] because of my father’s staunch Rastafarian beliefs of not dealing with Babylon he didn’t have the correct papers for the beach. “The land is absolutely beautiful and it was hidden, nobody really knew about it, only the locals, but this was the beach where Bob Marley and The Wailers lived.” In 1992, he travelled to Jamaica and found his father, who he says was an “original Nyahbinghi” and they developed a relationship over the next 16 years — before he sadly passed away in January 2007. Before his father died, Stephenson says he was given permission to apply for the “proper papers to protect everything”. In 2008, he took on the task of trying to secure the b e a c h land and started to pay land tax for the plot in “small parts”. Stephenson, who travels back to Jamaica from the UK every year, claims whenever he went to the land tax office there was a “major problem” and a lot of confusion as “they were not able to keep consistent records”. Rastafarians’ connection with Bob Marley beach goes back to 1958 when several Rastas were arrested and killed by British colonial police for possession of cannabis — a plant used as a religious sacrament. Five years later, the Coral Gardens Massacre occurred in Jamaica, which saw hundreds of Rastafarians detained and attacked, as police searched for three Rastas who they claimed burned down a gas station. The incident resulted in a huge state crackdown on Rastas. It is estimated 150 ‘beard men’ were arrested, with many others beaten, killed or had their locks forcibly cut and trimmed. Many Rastafarians fled the city and found safety and peace on the beach with Stephenson’s
father. According to Stephenson, the original owner, Leslie Wright, allowed his father and the Rastafarians to live on the land “undisturbed” and never “bothered him” when he was building his home or a Tabernacle on the land. In October 2020, Stephenson went to Jamaica and hired several lawyers who were assisting him with the case. Stephenson was born in Red Hills, St Catherine, and came to the United Kingdom in 1964. His lawyer in the Supreme Court case, Marcus Goffe, said his client had paid “over one million Jamaican dollars maintaining, repairing, renovating and proving the property, as well as on surveys, land valuation and payment of land taxes.” He added: “Those are just the receipts he was able to locate after so many years spending on the property since 2008.” An official Government of Jamaica receipt seen by The Voice, shows that Mr Stephenson paid tax totalling over $205,000 Jamaican dollars (£1,048) for tax
years 2018/19 and 2019/20. However, in March 2020, he claims when he logged in online to make a further payment, using his Taxpayer Registration number (TRN) — a unique Tax ID — he saw the name of a company as owners of the land, who are now ordering his family to leave. The company ordered the residents to leave by October last year, which they have refused to do. In July, the company was given the go-ahead to begin construction on 210 acres of land, which includes the contested Bob Marley beach. The Voice contacted the company several times and they did not respond to our request for a statement. Goffe said situations like this are “very common” but many do not reach the courts because “the title owners just bulldoze and forcibly evict the so-called squatters, most of whom are unaware of their rights or how to enforce them”. Goffe says the issues of land ownership for descendants of enslaved African people in
Jamaica is a direct legacy of slavery, as African people were not legally granted any land when they achieved full freedom. He added: “Instead there wasreparations (£20 million) paid by the British Government of Jamaica to the slave owners and later the imposition of the Torrens land system on the legal system and the landless victims of slavery. “Hence the majority of Jamaicans who are descendants of those victims of slavery remain landless, treated as squatters on other people’s lands.” The Voice contacted the National Land Agency, which holds
SUPPORT: Left to right, Sharon Marley, Rita Marley, Stephen Marley, Ziggy Marley and Cedella Marley are backing Norman Stephenson (photo: Getty Images)
the records of registered owners of land in Jamaica. They said the matter would be investigated and a “comprehensive response” would be provided, but so far no further information has been received. The company offered alternative land of three acres in the same area but not on or near the beach and it was “stoney ground and rubbish” — so Stephenson refused the offer. There are approximately 30 people currently living on the beach, including the Stephenson family, which has been earmarked for development. Dr Devon Taylor is the president of Campaign group Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JABBEM). He believes the beach should be a designated heritage site due to the historic and longstanding presence of the Rastafari community in the Sugar Loaf Mountain and Bully Bay areas. He said: “Norman’s father was important in the establishment and maintenance of the Rastafari way of life and tradition. That site carries significant importance and significant heritage which should be preserved.”