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Robert Wedderburn An introduction to this remarkable and controversial historical figure. Robert Wedderburn - a
tribute Robert, it has been suggested, may have continued to assume his role as a radical preacher to provide himself with a degree of protection from prosecution for his radical and revolutionary pronouncements. It is difficult to reconcile his sceptical views with those of a true believer in the traditional teachings of Christianity, particularly towards the end of his days. Bitter experience throughout a harsh and unrewarding life in Jamaica and England had left him with no illusions as to the realities of existence facing the poor and the racial minority sub-cultures alike. As he grew increasingly aware of the manner in which an educated white middle-class elite colluded with the priesthood to ensure the perpetuation of a society where both were able to retain all their advantages, his bitterness grew. His faith (if it had ever truly existed) in a God, who could permit such circumstances to arise, was rapidly undermined. He could not hide his disillusionment. For this unlettered man, abandoned by his father, separated from his mother, brought up in circumstances of dire poverty and discrimination at the close of the 18th century, his insights into the nature of existence were quite astonishing. It is not easy for us today, in these sceptical times, to appreciate the extent of his achievements, raised in this rational, scientific age, with the freedom to hold views and to speak our mind with few restrictions. Robert�s era was still greatly influenced by superstition, subject to repression, deliberate suppression of education of the masses to perpetuate the under-class deference for their �masters�, a time when freedom of expression was restricted by a ruling class fearful of the rumblings of discontent from within a working class afflicted simultaneously by great poverty and increasing unemployment after the Napoleonic Wars. His bravery in speaking out, unconcerned by the threat of arrest, execution, was immense. He refused to compromise when some of his fellow radicals were shifting position to safer legal ground, or going into hiding abroad. Imprisoned and sentenced to hard labour, he turned his back on an offer of assistance from Wilberforce, a man he admired considerably, as this would have implied compromising his conviction that the lot of the working poor and those enslaved in the West Indies were one and the same. He remained true to his convictions to the end of his days. He was to die in obscurity and poverty, yet unbroken, still committed to his vision of a new order where all peoples and minorities would be treated justly, with humanity. No doubt completely unsuspecting that his notoriety in an age of intolerance would eventually be replaced by respect and admiration nearly two centuries later, Robert Wedderburn, acknowledged today as a pioneer in the struggle for the right to freedom of expression, was a true visionary, and a hero of his time. |