Snapshots of history - Difficult times in the 1970s

Former Prime Minister, Michael Manley.

IT IS difficult to draw lines between the decades. The Jamaica of the 1970s began in the militancy of Black Power and progressed to the Michael Manley's socialism. In 1970, Prime Minister, Hugh Shearer, is reported to have called the "people shouting Black Power with clenched fists" as "copycats and hypocrites masquerading in black skin by day and sleeping with a white skin in bed at night". "When you see these people," he told an audience of secretaries and delegates of the BITU in Montego Bay, "just say, Lord, forgive them".

The Black Power movement was absorbed into the rising influence of Rastafarianism, which featured locks adherents and followers who said they had turned their backs on materialism. They were also followers of Marcus Garvey, who had left a legacy of philosophies of Black upliftment which were happily embraced by many. The movement disturbed the middle-class and all government who saw it as a source of social instability. The Manley government had set the stage for sweeping social reform and the appearance of the PNP's own Democratic Socialism.

The period 1972-1983 may be characterised as the period of the first full-scale ideological battle the country has ever see. The book, 'A History and Geography of Jamaica' comments "Democratic Socialism" was the new political philosophy for Jamaica, called "Communism" by some, partly because of the leader's (Manley's) close friendship with Fidel Castro of Cuba.

In 1979, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) declared itself a "Social Democratic Party" in rebuttal.

Michael Manley was sworn in on March 2, 1972 as Jamaica's fourth Prime Minister, by the Governor-General, Sir Clifford Campbell, at King's House.

In May, the Government announced Free Education. No tuition fees were to be paid in government secondary schools and school services such as games, home economics, drama classes would be free of cost as at September 1974. There was to be free tuition for all Jamaicans admitted to the University of the West Indies. The government set out to earn more from its local resources. A levy was soon imposed as a higher royalty for bauxite mined in Jamaica on the bauxite companies. The royalties were to increase in two stages to 8 per cent by 1976/77. Later the Government bought some of the mining assets in the local Kaiser Bauxite Company. The government also acquired some of the assets of Reynolds Jamaica Limited at a cost of US$7.5 million.

Author Jack Watson ('A History of the West Indies') says, that the agenda of any government of the '70s was to provide full employment, to reduce illiteracy and to find money to pay for the imports which were needed.

"By the mid-1970's Jamaica had an uncomfortably high level of crime and of industrial unrest, with a tendency towards political gang warfare," notes Watson.

Inflationary pressures did not help matters.

Manley's reforms

The slums of the poor and the poverty of rural Jamaicans were a nasty contrast to the opulence of tourist luxury on the coasts and elsewhere. The Manley Government began the task of improving housing by importing pre-fabricated units from Cuba in the 1970s. This, combined with their declared socialist leanings, was construed by some as a signal that the island was going communist. Urging Jamaicans to lean to the 'right' and to the United States instead was the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

Jamaicans had a choice to make in 1976.

At the same time, the PNP government called a state of emergency and established a special gun court to deal with the growing wave of violence. Two hundred Jamaicans had died by the time the '76 elections were over.

Manley won the elections, and the PNP saw it as a mandate to press towards socialism. As the socialist leader pursued nationalism of the bauxite industry, he also became a spokesman for developing nations, including many nations which were "trying to shake off the vestiges of colonialism". They were demanding change in the global economic order. The international community applied pressure in response through the International Monetary Fund, to which Jamaica was a subscriber.

Before the break was made with this institution, the island was in serious financial trouble under "austerity measures", with unemployment well over 60 per cent. Crime and violence became a serious problem

One year later, in 1977, the Green Bay Massacre followed, where five young men, JLP followers, were executed on the firing range by members of a specially created Intelligence Unit. A trial was subsequently held, but no one was charged for their murder.

During the period also, a plot was discovered by the Jamaica Defence Force to overthrow the Government by force. Twenty-four JDF personnel and three civilians were detained. All those tried were eventually freed.

The run-up to the General Elections of 1980 was marked by extreme violence in which modern automatic weapons were used and hundreds of people slain.

Sources: The Daily Gleaner, The Gleaner's History and Geography of Jamaica, and History of the West Indies by Jack Watson.

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