In my sleep I heard them weeping and wailing; the sad lament for the #Jamaica50

I dreamt dreams of the door of no return last night, I saw the holding pens of our ancestors awaiting deportation and envisioned the walk on the plank toward the gentle bobbing ships of our enslavement. 

I heard the weeping and wailing of their tortured souls. And as I awoke this morning, it struck me that those destined for deportation at dawn tomorrow morning this Terrible Tuesday will be filled with a similar sense of mighty dread and deep foreboding. 

The #Jamaica50 will be terrified as they wake today. They and their families will be inconsolable. Many will not have slept. Some will, like our 17^th century enslaved ancestors held in the British slave fort Elmina Castle, Ghana, will have wept through the night. 

They too are looking at the door of no return. 

At around 9pm this evening, the guards will individually shackle the detainees, each one from ankle to waist where they will then be taken to an awaiting bus, all in that familiar chain gang line, restrained, shuffling like their ancestors, dancing the dance of no return.

There will be those who resist and they will be beaten and taken by force. There will be those guards, like the overseers of old, eager for the conflict, flying high on the prospect of sadomasochistic violence. 

They killed Joy Gardner

We remember our brother Jimmy Mubenga and our sister Joy Gardner. 

They killed Jimm Mubenga

We recall the brutal horror of their deaths

And at a lonely Royal Air force runway, somewhere near London, ground staff will be laughing and joking, happily preparing the plane, just as those old pirates prepared their slave ships. 

Tonight, children will be weeping inconsolably for their parents, deeply traumatised by forced separation, whilst guards content in their work and happy with their lot will be donning riot gear and checking their batons and pepper sprays. 

And this morning Titan Airways will be busy counting their cash, having been paid handsomely to transport their tragic cargo of human misery. 

Late tonight Virgin Pilots will be discussing their routes over dinner whilst watching the BBC news, they’ll kiss their wives and children sweet goodnights and prepare to fly. 

And as you sleep tonight and dawn silently breaks this Terrible Tuesday, our people will be forced onto that plane with grimacing, menacing threat and for those who resist, unconscionable violence and unspeakable force  

And as I sit here weeping this Mournful Monday morning, and write this most terrible lament through my bitter tears, awake but still in a dream state, haunted by the visions of our tragic past and the dark portents of the future, I ask myself and the nation in Gods name what are we doing? 

Stop the plane. 

6pm tonight at 10 Downing Street; be there.  

Lee Jasper.