Peter Espeut IT MUST have been one of my drinking buddies at the Senior Common Room, UWI, who first insightfully observed that Michael Manley was an economist (a graduate of the London School of Economics) - posing as a sociologist - but who made economic mistakes; while Edward Seaga was a sociologist (a Harvard-trained authority on Jamaican culture e.g. Kumina) - posing as an economist - but who made sociological mistakes.
The paradoxes could continue: The JLP is ostensibly a pro-business (big-man) party made up mostly of grass-roots people - small farmers and workers; while the PNP is ostensibly a pro-small-man party made up mostly of middle-class professionals and intellectuals. It's a strange country we live in!
Manley may have had economic goals, but he was most eloquent on his social goals: to create equality in a Jamaica still suffering from profound inequality inherited from slavery and colonialism. And that was the source of Manley's popularity with the masses - not any pretensions of economic management ability, not any plans for increases in production or productivity, but his promise of social equality through emancipation from the legacy of slavery.
I was a teenager in 1972 and already at university when Michael Manley first became Prime Minister, and as a person just becoming aware of the great injustices woven into the fabric of Jamaican society, I was captivated by the moral positions he seemed to be taking on so many issues. The post-Independence JLP Government which preceded him was fraught with corruption and violence: three "missing" schools, where ground had been broken, all the materials bought and paid for, all the labour, all the furniture, but only the bare earth to be seen, or grazing cattle; the shady deals where lots of land in Beverly Hills ended up in the hands of JLP Government ministers.
I was present at the National Stadium when Santos of Brazil played Chelsea of England, and I saw the famous Pele embrace a spectator to shield him as he was being beaten by police, and receive a few blows for his pains. There was the tear-gassing of the spectators at a Test Match at Sabina Park, the weeping and wailing as homes in Back-o'Wall were bulldozed to make way for Tivoli Gardens, the cutting off of the locks of Rastafarians, the beating of many poor people with the "Rock-Steady" (insulated large-gauge electrical wire).
Michael Manley (the economist) came on the scene in this context, vowing to improve the lot of the majority, the vast underclass of the country. The message was "The Word is Love", and many - myself included - got caught up in the spirit and the fire. In the first year or two there was JAMAL, and thousands volunteered to teach other Jamaicans to read and write. I had been teaching literacy since 1969, and worked with JAMAL as a writer of literacy materials. On Labour Day I joined with tens of thousands and worked in the hot sun. The status of the majority of Jamaicans stigmatised as "illegitimate" (only parents should really be called illegitimate) was to be elevated. And then there was the grand design, the ultimate symbol: to turn the sugar industry which brought so many Jamaicans here in chains as slaves, to turn the sugar lands over to the descendants of those slaves. I worked with the Social Action Centre and the Sugar Workers Co-operative Council as a writer of education materials and trainer of worker-educators in the cane fields of Frome, Monymusk and Bernard Lodge.
The idea of empowering the disempowered did not sit well with the powerful, and Manley was bitterly opposed, even by some in his own party. Signs of the tension showed when the Government put serious obstacles in the way of its own programme with the sugar co-ops, and the unions (including the PNP union) fought for their dues by opposing the workers change of status to become owners. (The same thing is happening today as elements within the Government put obstacles in the way of the Government's own environmental plans and programmes). I saw their feet of clay, and wept.
There were many problems with the PNP programme of the 1970s (e.g. they built more houses than any other Government, but they used them to create more garrisons), but maybe the fundamental problem was economic: it was impossible to elevate so many without either pulling others down or increasing GDP. Not enough was done on the economic front, and there was no real fundamental change on the social front, because the middle class in the PNP were not committed to make the changes. Manley's vision did not stretch to an eradication of electoral fraud or garrison politics.
Seaga (the sociologist) was committed to fiscal discipline, but was not surrounded by a lot of talent. He trusted himself more than anyone else, and to get what he wanted done he concentrated power into his own hands. The essence of social development is empowerment of people through group formation, but empowerment means letting go of some power - power sharing - which he was not prepared to do. He was seen as a dictator who would not delegate authority (for whatever reason), and he alienated the poor (for they saw him as being on the side of the big man) and he alienated the private sector so much that they ran back to the party of the '70s they had grown to hate!
You can see Seaga the sociologist at work in the creation of the "model" community of Tivoli Gardens, with strong internal identity and cohesion. But it has not evolved into a viable national model, for if this archetype of the garrison is multiplied, it aggregates to a sharply polarised society. Rather than use his training in how groups work to consolidate a coalition around a national or even party consensus, he alienated large numbers within his own party, leading to an exodus of talent. Although he is a sociologist, his social agenda for the nation has never been clear. He sold himself as a financial genius, but his reputation in that field has become somewhat tarnished by his personal misfortunes.
What post-colonial Jamaica with its profound social inequalities and real development potential could have used, is a movement with a leader possessing both a clear social agenda and economic acumen, and the ability to create consensus. We are the poorer as a nation for being subjected to much less than this. Even until today!
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and Executive Director of an Environment and Development NGO.
