IanBoyne
TO SAY that Pearnel Charles has paid his dues is to be guilty of a gross understatement. The persecutions he has undergone in his own party, the attacks against him by his own party leader and the attempts to cast him aside from a party to which he has devoted his entire life and went to prison for have, if anything, only strengthened his resolve to stay the course.
You can't help but admire such uncommon fortitude and resilience, indispensable traits of great leaders. Pearnel Charles is nothing if not doggedly determined, passionately committed and resolutely focused. And though he is not known as an arrogant politician, he has a robust self-confidence.
Pearnel Charles has no doubt that he is the best man to lead the Jamaica Labour Party after Edward Seaga leaves the political scene. "I have prepared myself and I am ready for the task", Pearnel says in an e-mail responding to my article last week on the succession issue facing the two main political parties. "Like steel I have passed through the baptism of fire, from liquid to red hot to solid steel, never mind the colour", he quips.
A FINE RHETORICIAN
In my article I had committed a mortal sin: I had not even mentioned Pearnel's name as a possible successor to Mr. Seaga.
Pearnel Charles is one of the most personable, likeable and endearing politicians in Jamaica and his relationship with us in the media corps has always been excellent. For my part, I regard him as one of the finest Jamaican platform rhetoricians ever. In fact, in many years of attending political meetings, the second most moving and heart-tugging open-air platform speech I have ever heard was from him in Half-Way Tree Square many years ago as he waxed eloquent about the need for Rockstone Labourites. It was only eclipsed in my view by Michael Manley's speech ('If I have a Team') in Sam Sharpe Square in December 1980 announcing the date of the general election.
Pearnel is not impressive in stature, but he has no small dose of charisma. Pearnel will, however, need more than that to sit in Jamaica House as Prime Minister. Although like most in the media corps, I have a general feeling of warmth toward Pearnel, I have to say dispassionately that there are a number of things working against the achievement of his burning passion to be leader of the Jamaica Labour Party. Indeed, he has many rivers to cross.
NO INTELLECTUAL DEPTH
For one, Pearnel's strength is seen as precisely his weakness in certain crucial circles in Jamaica. He is perceived as little more than a rabble rouser, an excellent minstrel to whip up the people's emotions and play to the gallery, but someone with little substance or intellectual depth. The capitalist class which has the funds to bankroll political leaders, and the intelligentsia and middle classes who shape opinion and influence thought, are not likely to enthusiastically embrace Pearnel Charles.
Besides, there are too many people, including many ordinary people, who at the mention of his name hark back to his days as Minister of Transport when the rumour never proven but passionately believed was rife in every bar, corner and verandah that "Pearnel owns a lot of buses on the road". Which was not the worst rumour which was spread about him if you know what I mean. But people like Pearnel Charles suffer from a deadly combination: to be black and ambitious. Few of us who have that twin ever emerge with our reputations fully intact.
Psychologists have known that "perception is reality". A Big Lie repeated often enough is believed, an image either developed or foisted is hard to erase. For Pearnel at this stage to convince the monied classes and the intelligentsia that he has what it takes to lead Jamaica in this tumultuous 21st century,
through the treacherous seas of globalisation, American unipolarity, and a WTO-governed and IMF-World Bank-run world is more than herculean.
And the labour movement today is the weakest it has ever been since 1938. Labour has been marginalised globally and in Jamaica. The working class itself has lost a lot of its confidence and sense of identity and has internalised the doubts imposed on it by neo-liberalism. The working class itself is
looking for a Saviour outside of itself and that resolute sense of mission and destiny which it had and which flourished in the 1970s has all but vanished. Trade union leaders in Jamaica are largely echoing the neo-liberals on the inevitability of globalisation and they are among globalisation's most ardent evangelists. So Pearnel's base is not rock solid anymore.
BROWN ADVOCATE VS.
BLACK CHARLES
Pearnel might be a couple of decades too late. Today he has to face someone who also has enormous platform appeal and whose skill in articulating the anger, disillusionment, cynicism and frustrations of the masses is remarkable. I refer, of course, to Audley Shaw who happens to be a tall, brown man, and if you think that that is of little impact in Jamaica today, you are more interested in political correctness and sensitivity than you are in truth. Audley Shaw has capitalised on the people's moral outrage by uncovering scandals and would-be scandals and has carefully and sagaciously marketed himself as a fearless and fierce moral crusader who can't stand the stench of corruption and who is the advocate of the poor black masses.
And Audley has not had the rumours attached to him that Pearnel has, even if Pearnel says and others would agree that Audley's 'brown man' status offers him some natural protections. Besides, Audley's political
savvy and weight in the party is prodigious.
True, Pearnel is able to generate a level of emotional attachment, bonding, warmth and comradeship (for want of a better word) among Labourites, especially peasants and working-class people, that Audley can't rival. And when Pearnel hits the ground and begins to reason with his grassroots people, he is hard to beat. But as the Bible says, "Money answers all things." If you are not the favourite of the capitalist class, your popularity among the masses is not the most decisive factor in your success, for money can turn the masses against you and in an age where media have become extremely important especially talk radio a propaganda campaign against you is sure to strike.
FAMILY FEUD
Besides, Pearnel faces the greatest obstacle of all: His brother-in-law, Bruce Golding. Bruce's strengths will be hard to surmount and Pearnel is likely to find that, as the Bible says again, "A man's
enemies will be of his own
household."
Bruce Golding is not the kind of opponent you want to be going up against in any race. For one, Bruce has charisma. It is certainly not of the Michael Manley variety and it is less than Pearnel's, but Bruce has an ability to connect with the people and to understand some of their deepest feelings and hurts that is not to be underestimated.
True, he can lose the masses sometimes and go over their heads when he is off on his constitutional reform agenda, but when Bruce is ready to talk about the everyday concerns of Miss Mattie or Brother John he is devastating. Bruce has empathy and knows how to strike the right emotional chords. One of the most moving and feelingly delivered Budget speeches I have ever heard delivered in the Jamaican Parliament was given by Bruce Golding in the early 1990s when I was press secretary to Hugh Small. In addition to Golding's remarkable ability to connect with people's everyday issues and struggles, he is one of the most intellectually creative politicians since Michael Manley. Bruce has brought fresh, challenging ideas to the Jamaican political scene and brought back ideas and political philosophy to our often parochial agenda. He has a keen understanding of economic and financial issues, a requisite grasp of international affairs and an acute understanding of the need to build alliances. He also understands the importance of vision. His understanding of the bankruptcy and structural weaknesses of our political system is profound, and his suggestions for reform are among some of the most innovative which has been put on the table.
This is what Pearnel Charles faces in going up against Bruce Golding for the leadership of the JLP. And Golding is the darling of the business class, especially of big business whose interests, incidentally, could be well served by his constitutional reforms which would see them exercising political power without facing the masses electorally. The intellectual debate would get really exciting if Bruce has to face that incisive intellectual and political philosopher, Peter Phillips, in a national election to debate his constitutional reforms.
Pearnel makes a telling point in his e-mail to me, and that is, that "the people have had the big school intellectuals leading since Bustamante and Shearer", and yet this has only led to "the mountaintop and the valley of the shadow of debt". Now let's get to the clincher: "Whereas the next leader can hire heads and consultants, he or she cannot purchase heart, feeling, love, passion and the understanding for the people. I agree that heart alone can't do it but having an empathetic spirit is the beginning."
This is where we must take the debate now: To what must we give the greater weight in choosing the successors for the two political parties. Must we give the greater weighting to the intellectual or the emotional and affective? We need both, but which must have the greater weight at this particular juncture in Jamaica's history?
It will take enormous technocratic and intellectual skills to steer Jamaica over the next decade and beyond. Having people who just love poor people and want to give every poor child a place in school is not enough. Nobody loved the poor than Michael Manley and what were the economic results for whatever reason?
Yet, we have to reckon with Pearnel's view that "Something of the order of Bustamante/Michael Manley's style of winning the trust of the people, convincing them that you really care, getting people to do for themselves what they would not do under normal circumstances" is critically important.
In the last few years it has been fashionable, especially in the Caribbean, to underplay charismatic leadership in favour of technocratic leader but in my view that is a grave mistake. We need to reopen the head and heart debate. The succession discussion affords us an excellent opportunity to do so.
Ian Boyne is a veteran
journalist. You can e-mail your comments to ianboyne
@yahoo.com.
