Arnold BertramAS THE race for succession within the People's National Party gathers momentum, the legacy of 'Drumblair' is once again the subject of debate. There are those who contend that the profound contribution to nation-building made by some of Jamaica's finest sons and daughters who founded the PNP and led the national movement was nothing more than middle-class patronage and brown man rule.
Such views fly in the face of the selflessness and sacrifices associated with the life and work of Philip Sherlock, Noel Nethersole, O. C. Fair-clough, Richard Hart, Ken Hill, William Seivwright, Howard Cooke, Roger Mais, Vic Reid, M. G. Smith and other outstanding Jamaicans who, along with the Manleys, constituted the Drumblair intelligentsia, and established such a fine tradition of public service and patriotic commitment.
Proponents of the anti-Drumblair propaganda will have to explain their motives for denigrating a tradition from which Michael Manley and P. J. Patterson have emerged, and which places a premium on intellectual capacity, public integrity, individual responsibility and the pursuit of excellence.
It was in 1923 that Drumblair first came to the attention of Norman and Edna Manley. What attracted the young married
couple, who had recently returned to Jamaica, to the 25-acre property in St. Andrew (just off Upper Waterloo Road), was "the charming two-storey house, sheltered by tall trees, with spacious lawns, acres of meadows, with picturesque white washed stables nestling under the branches of a flame red poinciana tree."
BIDDEN AND CULTIVATED
A decade later the Manleys finally settled at Drumblair which, for the next 28 years, served as their residence, working farm, studio and 'court'. It was a court to which the talented were bidden and cultivated. A movement which remained pro-British in outlook, even as it became anti-colonial in character, and while it was open to all social classes, it never had any pretensions to being proletarian.
The Manleys themselves were a part of the social elite, with Norman enjoying "undoubted eminence and personal authority rooted in his achievements" Rhodes Scholar, prize man at Gray's Inn, First Class Honours in the Bar Finals, legal luminary, and King's Counsel. Edna, for her part, had achieved international recognition as a sculptor and was busy exploring possi-bilities for establishing a presence in the cultural landscape of colonial Jamaica.
Drumblair emerged at a time when the social and economic profile of Jamaica provided stark evidence of the failure of British colonial policy to develop the island. The collapse of the stock market in the United States in 1929 and the economic depression which followed was still being felt, even as the giant British sugar firm, Tate & Lyle, was acquiring a dominant interest in the Jamaica sugar industry.
Marcus Garvey had returned in 1927 to the tumultuous acclaim of the Jamaican masses. By 1929 he had established a cultural centre for the performing and visual arts at Edelweiss Park. It was here that we had the first flowering of Jamaican popular culture, as the African-Jamaicans community embraced the opportunity to express themselves in an environment which was uniquely theirs.
This was the Jamaica which Norman and Edna Manley set out to influence from their base at Drumblair, by enlightened activism. Edna Manley began with the creative use of the art form she had mastered to express "the deep rooted hidden impulse of the country and that which gives it its unique life." The subjects represented in her sculpture depicted ordinary Jamaicans at work and leisure, while the controversial 'Negro Aroused', "epitomised the awakening of the Negro from the long lethargy into which he has been sunken by the subduing influence of the slaver's whip to a vision of a 'New Jerusalem'."
Norman Manley, by 1932, was at the peak of his profession, and was clearly seeking a wider stage to express his increasingly progressive philosophical outlook. That year he became active in the Jamaica Boxing Board. In 1934 he was at the helm of the Jamaica Olympic Association and accompanied the Jamaican team to the Empire Track and Field Athletic Games in England.
PROGRESSIVE ELEMENTS
The discussions at Drumblair had also begun to attract the more progressive elements of the upper classes as well as a new generation of artists and writers who sought direction and stimulation from the Manleys. They were drawn from the landed gentry, the leaders of commerce, upper middle-class professionals, the emerging intelligentsia and the peasantry.
In a unique framework of class collaboration they enthusiastically subscribed to Manley's vision of the future, and under his leadership gave a people, divided for centuries by race and colour, a sense of national purpose and of their possibilities in the modern world.
Among the writers gathered at Drumblair, Roger Mais had a special significance for Norman Manley. Mais was an artist who Manley knew most intimately, and whose work provided him with the opportunity "to interpret... that other world to which the majority belong... a strange world that involved widely different acceptances and rejections of values."
The verandahs of Drumblair also cradled new ideas, which later materialised as fundamental institutions of the national movement. One such was the weekly newspaper, Public Opinion, which made its appearance in February 1937, and represented the first medium to consciously express Jamaica's cultural nationalism. Another was Jamaica welfare which was launched in 1937 to develop rural Jamaica on the basis of voluntarism and self-reliance.
Then came the labour rebellion of May 1938 which had a profound effect on Manley and subsequent events at Drumblair. His recollections of that fateful night in May are worth recalling. "That night my wife and I sat under an old yoke tree in the Drumblair garden and discussed the situation. I felt very strongly that unless somebody intervened and tried to take charge of things in the interest of the workers of Jamaica... I rang the governor and told him... I would put aside legal work for the time being and entertain proposals from any group of workers... and negotiate on their behalf."
Drumblair's embrace of the national movement led to the establishment of the most fundamental institution of the period. The People's National Party which was launched on September 18, 1938 at the Ward Theatre. This was the crowning achievement of the Manleys and the Drumblair intelligentsia.
By 1947, despite his loss in the 1944 elections, Manley had emerged as the political leader of the developing federation of the West Indies. It was in this context that Drumblair became the Mecca for Caribbean leaders and intellectuals, including Eric Williams and C.L.R. James from Trinidad and Grantley Adams from Barbados.
In September 1961, Jamaica voted in a referendum to withdraw from the West Indies Federation. Ironically, that same year the curtains came down on Drumblair, as it was taken over by creditors and later subdivided to discharge debts against it incurred largely underwriting activities of the PNP. Intuitively, Edna had retained one of the lots, and it was here that they built the house in which they spent their last years together. Given the reality of the times, the house was appropriately named 'Regardless'.
Today, 44 years later, much of what Drumblair stood for is under siege; its method of class collaboration, its core values and its vision of Jamaica as a viable and prosperous independent state. The competition for political leadership which has given rise to the debate on relevance of the Drumblair legacy is still to be decided. For those who will participate in this decision, C. L. R. James has a word of advice "political leadership is a matter of programme, strategy and tactics..." All other questions are subordinate to the capacity of leadership to maintain the unity of the Party and to develop a programme around which the country can progress spiritually and materially.
