Arnold Bertram
IN AUGUST we will celebrate the 43rd anniversary of political independence. Even as we congratulate ourselves on our outstanding achievements on the material plane, we should devote the time required to a serious assessment of the extent to which the social fabric of the society has degenerated over the period. For it is this degeneration which is laying to waste much of the talent and creative energies at the base of the society, and which is daily manifested in the increasingly aggressive, violent and criminal tendencies in too many of our young Jamaican males.
At the heart of this degeneration is the abandonment of the ideals and hopes of the early national movement, and the surrender of the political process by the middle and upper classes to elements bent on plunging the society into anarchy.
THE PNP AND THE EARLY NATIONAL MOVEMENT
In September 1938, the most advanced elements among the Jamaican middle class at home responded to the lead from the Progressive League in New York to "set the ideal of nationalism before all Jamaicans" by launching the People's National Party (PNP). Prominently seated on the platform of the founding conference were Norman Manley, Rhodes Scholar, legal luminary and a man of singular genius, Noel Newton Nethersole, a solicitor and himself a former Rhodes Scholar. The third Oxonian was H. P. Jacobs, editor of the Public Opinion, while the special guest speaker for the occasion was British parliamentarian, Sir Stafford Cripps. The established middle class was clearly in charge.
The all-embracing character of the party was evident in its decision to provide a constitutional framework for the affiliation of all those organisations deemed capable of contributing to national reform. Party groups were mandated "to promote political, economic, social and cultural progress within the group area in accordance with the fundamental aims of the party." The activities of the party were to be financed by obligatory and voluntary subscriptions. Norman Manley's declaration that "however much we differ from the people of Britain ... all our ideas about politics come from Britain ... all the institutions to which we are accustomed are British," satisfied the emerging middle class that this was the party with which they had an affinity and in which their right of leadership could hardly be contested.
THE JLP AND THE POLITICS OF CONSERVATISM
In direct opposition to Manley's dream of self-government for Jamaica stood Alexander Bustamante, the hero of the 1938 labour rebellion, who equated independence with a return to slavery under the rule of the brown man. He cleverly exploited the cultural conservatism of the Jamaican peasantry, the loyalty of the urban working class and their abiding faith in the British monarchy to establish the JLP in July 1943 as an organisation "pledged to keep within a moderate, conservative policy in order not to reduce beyond reason, or destroy the wealth of capitalists to any extreme that will eventually hurt their economic inferiors."
The other source of opposition to the national project came from the large landowners and the commercial elite who launched the Jamaica Democratic Party (JDP) in March, 1942. For them, the ideals of the national movement and the campaign for Universal Adult Suffrage were not only mistakes, but milestones on the road to anarchy. As far as they were concerned, there was enough evidence to suggest that black people could neither rule themselves nor develop an
independent state.
After the 1944 elections, the JDP made common cause with Bustamante's JLP. The propertied classes had found a charismatic leader who shared their view that what was needed was the submission of the masses to the paternal benevolence of the rich under the continued supervision of imperial Britain.
THE CHALLENGE TO THE ENTRENCHED POLITICAL
LEADERSHIP
The first challenge to the political monopoly of the established middle class in the PNP came from the party's own left wing led by Ken Hill and Richard Hart, who attempted to organise the masses along a path of revolutionary socialism. Their expulsion from the party in 1952 marked the first open division within the leadership of the PNP as to the direction that the national movement should take, at a time when the Cold War divided the world into irreconcilable camps of socialism and
capitalism.
The second challenge was led by a militant 'black nationalist' movement and directed against both the middle class leadership of the PNP as well as the big planters and commercial elite in Bustamante's JLP. In 1958, the Rev. Claudius Henry established the African Reform Church on Rosalie Avenue in lower St. Andrew. In April 1960, Henry and several of his followers were arrested and charged with treason-felony. During the trial, Henry's son, Reynold, who was head of the First Africa Corps a black revolutionary organisation based in New York arrived in Jamaica with seven of his members, armed with automatic weapons to launch a rebellion. It was not until June that the combined police and military forces found the guerrilla camp and arrested the militants.
In August 1962, Jamaica became an independent state. The sharp divisions which greeted the early national movement resurfaced. One section of the national political leadership was convinced that Jamaica would be better off under the British and strenuously opposed the transfer of political power to the African-Jamaican majority. Some transferred their wealth from Jamaica, while others spared no effort to ensure victory for the culturally conservative JLP in the elections to decide who would govern independent Jamaica. This was the period in which D.C. Tavares Jr. and Edward Seaga led the resurgence of the JLP in the Corporate Area.
Within the first year of political independence, the inherent racism of Jamaican society was placed under the microscope, when in April 1963, six Rastafarians engaged in a personal vendetta attacked a Shell petrol station in Coral Gardens, Montego Bay, and later a party of police and civilians who pursued them. Eight people were killed.
About the same time, the political 'garrison' emerged as a most negative feature of the political process. The objective was to create a partisan political monopoly in a defined geographical area by the use of violence, intimidation and manipulation of the political process. The political wars which ensued as a direct result displaced thousands of Jamaicans from their homes, created a proliferation of squatter communities and nurtured in the hearts of the displaced a deep desire for revenge.
In the middle of the escalating political warfare, Chinese businesses in Kingston became the object of attacks in 1965 after charges of racism were levelled at this racial minority. The violence against the Chinese lasted for one week during which their businesses were looted and set on fire. The following year, the first state of emergency in independent Jamaica was declared.
The Black Power rebellion of 1968 climaxed a decade in which popular disaffection and racial protests brought the society to the point of implosion. In desperation, those who still believed in the national project turned to Michael Manley in 1972 to restore some stability and hope to a bitterly divided nation.
THE RETREAT OF
THE MIDDLE CLASS
It is ironic that it was in response to Michael Manley's attempt to ensure social justice for the poor and dispossessed that the disaffection of the
middle class from the PNP began. Looking back there are two events which did not seem then to be related, but which taken together created a new political situation. The first was the blow to the economy that came with the massive increase in the price of oil followed by the first major devaluation of the Jamaican dollar. Since then, the Jamaican economy has only grown marginally. One far-reaching consequence of the devaluation of 1973 was that it effectively brought to an end the participation of foreign teachers in Jamaica's education system, since with the devalued currency salaries were no longer attractive.
The second was the declaration of 'Democratic Socialism' in 1974, which was the launching pad for a range of social programmes aimed at relieving extreme poverty. In the context of a shrinking economy, these welfare programmes could not be adequately financed from
revenues. The increasing
polarisation of the society along ideological lines set the stage for the first large-scale migration of the middle and upper classes to North America. The role of the middle class in the politics of the PNP has never been the same since. Even with the majority in the 1976 elections it was clear that the alliance of classes which had brought the party to power in 1972 no longer existed.
As it was recorded by political scientist Carl Stone: "Where 75 per cent of the white-collar workers and other professionals had given the PNP their support in 1972, this number had declined to approximately 57 per cent in 1976. More significant was a precipitous slide in support by capitalists and wealthy professionals; only an estimated 20 per cent backed the PNP in 1976, down from 60 per cent in 1972. Reinforcing this sharpening social division, the party scored large increases among blue-collar workers and the unemployed poor, the two groups who gained most from the PNP's term of office."
The price paid for Manley's commitment to social justice was horrendous as, by 1980, the economy declined to its lowest level in four decades.
Even as the middle class was retreating from the PNP, it found no haven in Seaga's JLP. His handling of Ian Ramsay and Frank Phipps served notice as to what any challenger to his leadership could expect. The following decade it would be the turn of Anthony Abrahams and Pearnel Charles.
THE EMERGENCE OF
A NEW CRIMINAL ELITE
In the 1980s, Jamaica became a trans-shipment point for the illicit trade in cocaine. This activity created a new criminal elite, which by the general elections of 2002 had acquired considerable influence over the electorate by using their illicit fortunes to provide welfare services, build community infrastructure, woo front-line community and political leaders, corrupt public officials and finance the acquisition of modern arsenals.
It was from this power base that they took the strategic decision to maximise their influence in the legislature, by ensuring the election of candidates sympathetic to their interests. This constitutes the most formidable challenge to date to the integrity of political leadership.
THE ROLE OF LEADERSHIP
It is now clear that profound changes in values, norms and modes of behaviour are being experienced as aspirations for a better life continue to be frustrated by the lack of social and economic opportunities. These frustrations are being vented against all forms of traditional authority as the dispossessed is drawn into new alliances and looks for new political personalities on which they can pin their hopes for a better life.
The education and training system has for some time been incapable of expanding the
middle class to meet the requirements of national development. Indeed, it is the 'lumpen proletariat' which is expanding fastest and exerting a decisive influence on the values, attitudes and mores of the society. Today the illiteracy rate is marginally higher than it was at Independence, and despite the increase in tertiary enrolment, the disjuncture between the needs of the labour market and the courses being offered reinforces the joblessness among young graduates. When we add the fact that the majority of our graduates end up finding employment abroad, we are in reality exporting the best and retaining the worst of our human resources.
The increasing and just demands of redress by the poor cannot be accommodated simultaneously with the claims from the 'lumpen of every class' for a parasitic relationship with the state. One can predict with certainty the opposition of investors and holders of the debt to any attempt by the Government to spend money that it has not earned. Without their continued confidence, the collapse of the economy is only a matter of time. Only the most far-sighted and selfless leadership can save the day.
Mandela's leadership in South Africa and the success with which he persuaded the middle and upper classes to remain an integral part of the political and economic process provides an example well worth studying and emulating.
Arnold Bertram , historian and former parliamentarian, is current chairman of Research and Product Development Ltd. Email redev@cwjamaica.com.
