By Michael Spence
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| Michael Spence |
I read it all. I lived through it too. That "fashionable socialist era."
The "Socialist Lyrical Era" produced a Michael Manley who talked socialism but had no Marxist-Leninist framework or real plan. He lacked the courage to govern Jamaica as a socialist state because it would have meant taking on a revolution: 2% owning 95% of the land vs. 98% who were landless, many homeless, and squatting.
Mass squatting started at emancipation in 1838. 450,000-plus ex-slaves got freedom but no land. Most of us descend from those people and from squatters, some of whom were here before the British.
My community, Bethel Town in Eastern Westmoreland, shows another way. It was a free village.
Baptist Rev. Phillipo in 1837, bought 200 acres and sold ¼ and ½ acre lots for £10, paid from a £10/month plantation wage. Kew Park, Woodstock, and Hermitage still exist. That’s why SE Westmoreland had little squatting. Solution: give people legal, livable space. Adapt the Phillipo model.
- Jamaica = 2.7M acres. Crown = 1.08M acres.
- Give 1M squatters ¼ acre each = 250,000 acres. 830,000 acres of Crown land remain.
- We could even do 2.25 square chains with community services built in.
- Manley missed it. And in 2026, we still have no plan.
Now the Trespass Act stands, and since June 9, 2026, new Crown land squatters can’t be regularised. That’s a dangerous road.
Coopers Pen has become entertainment for some, even journalists. This is also why Jamaica sits at the bottom of Caribbean GDP per capita poverty. Haiti is #1. Are we #2 now?
Squatting has a solution. Don’t wait for the "Squatter Time Bomb" to explode— or for someone to suggest prison, squatters' erasure, or deportation as the answer.
Michael Spence
Michael Spence is a graduate of Cornwall College and the University of the West Indies. He is a trained teacher, a sociologist, and a writer for Bark Di Trute.
Micspen2@hotmail.com
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Most.of our political.and business.leaders continue to pussyfoot and deejay around the problem.with.no.longterm practical solution.in mind
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