For Jamaicans, the absence of the country’s representative at last week’s UN general assembly vote on a call for a “humanitarian truce” in the Israel-Hamas war was more than just an embarrassing political effort to “walk between raindrops”, as one government critic put it. It was shameful.

In the annals of international diplomatic history, Jamaica’s decision on apartheid in July 1959 was a pivotal moment.

Prior to this, the world had witnessed India’s efforts at the UN to condemn South Africa for its racist treatment of Indians in 1946-47, before the country descended into the era of legally defined apartheid. But it was not until more than a decade later that Jamaica become the first nation to initiate sanctions against South Africa.

The response from the South African government was volcanic. They decried the move as a blatant intrusion into their sovereignty, urging the British colonial power to intervene and quash Jamaica’s audacity.

The South African authorities were not merely angered; they were deeply apprehensive that Jamaica’s action might set in motion a ripple effect of sanctions imposed by other countries. Jamaica, a member of the West Indies Federation since 1958, had the potential to spark a political chain reaction across the British Caribbean.