Remember Farmer Joe? Who could forget one of the stars, perhaps the real star, of the Jamaica Labour Party advertising campaign during the last parliamentary election exercises? He was the middle-aged farmer, among his cultivation with the cellular phone, telling Portia: "A nuh mi seh suh."

I recently had a dream in which Farmer Joe was also the star. My dream took me to a shindig in the parish of Trelawny, which was being held to welcome back to Jamaica an old friend, Harry, who had been living overseas for some time. I remembered Harry as one of those persons who like to be up to date on all things social, cultural and political, and he had not changed in that respect.

At this get-together over there in the Cockpit Country, Harry soon told me that there was someone he wanted me to meet, so that the three of us could have a quiet chat, away from all the excitement. It was not long before he approached me accompanied by this slim-built middle-aged man, whom he introduced to me as Farmer Joe, yes, that same Farmer Joe.

Harry told me that he had known Farmer Joe for quite some time, as they had both attended the Knockalva Agricultural School in Hanover. He said that they had always kept in touch because Farmer Joe was someone after his own heart, keeping up to date on matters taking place at home and overseas.

Farmer Joe told Harry that he did not have to introduce me, since, according to him, he sees me at times when I do not see him. Of course, I told Farmer Joe that I was not likely to forget him, what with his display during the general election campaign.

deep passion for acting

He said that I should not read anything much into what had been seen in that JLP advertisement, that he had been paid what he believed to be a reasonable sum and that, in any event, he had a deep passion for acting.

Harry, who had never ever really been swayed to the extent of favouring one political party or the other, quickly reminded Farmer Joe that, from school days, he was always leaning towards the Jamaica Labour Party, so that must have been an added incentive to assist in the campaign in that way. So, we all knew where we stood.

Farmer Joe told us that, if he had thought deeply about it, he could have got a bigger package, for the real McCoy was the package relating to Golding's long string of promises which would have brought him a small fortune if he had been allowed to star in such an advertisement.

According to him, however, looking back over the past year, if he had got that package, some of his colleague actors might now have been moved to call him the real false prophet. It was then that Farmer Joe started to tell us about some of the regrets and disappointments that he, and persons close to him, had experienced over the past fifteen months or so. And he did not hold back.

His brow suddenly became quite furrowed as he started to tell us that the first jolt that he received was the size of the Cabinet that the new prime minister put in place and, what is more, he even increased the size when Derrick Smith unfortunately fell ill. He said that he started to have his doubts about the new government, for this was the first promise that the prime minister was seeking to fulfil, and he got it hopelessly wrong.

harry's concern

Chavez and Golding

Harry mentioned that he was really interested in how we were coping here in Jamaica, because, in truth, this financial and economic crisis does not appear to have spared any country or group of countries. It was then that Farmer Joe started to raise his voice, but Harry asked him to "keep it down".

Farmer Joe told Harry that he was well aware of the global economic circumstance, but he was not impressed when people in leadership set a bad example by calling each other names and showing intolerance, for those are some of the very reasons why there is so much quarrel and murder in this country. He was not happy, he declared, about the way the chief servant went about calling people names.

When the leader of the opposition, according to Farmer Joe, asked the Government what they intended to do to protect the basket of items to assist the least fortunate among us, the chief servant's answer was that the leadership of the PNP must certainly have termites in their brains.

brothers and sisters

He said that he was not amused, because, regardless of party allegiance, we are brothers and sisters and, at any rate, that was a legitimate question.

He was not impressed when Golding called the teachers extortionists, for, not only were the teachers, in his view, trying to get a little more money to help with the education of the children of those who were paying, but Farmer Joe himself had a daughter who was the vice-principal at a secondary school over there in St Elizabeth. He said that his teacher daughter had come home to him crying and, much as they tried, she could not be comforted.

Neither his daughter nor he was impressed by the chief servant calling his CARICOM colleague heads of government mendicants; and telling the Opposition in Parliament that none of them could question his government about matters relating to the public trust and taxpayers' money. He expressed himself dissatisfied with the prime minister's lack of good management in seeking to build consensus and to create a spirit of togetherness in these crisis-filled times.

It was when Farmer Joe came to relate what had happened to his friend's niece that I could have sworn that I saw a tear come to Harry's eye. This friend's niece is an attorney-at law who, up to mid-year, had been employed in one of the government legal departments for quite sometime. This is a bright, dedicated young professional who, according to Farmer Joe, is the apple of the eye of all members of her family.

She had worked so diligently for her accomplishments and was highly respected in her profession and in her church, for, as he put it, she was a Christian person.

One weekend, she came home looking deeply crestfallen and, upon inquiry, she proceeded to relate how, from early in the life of the present administration, she and her colleagues had been put under a kind of pressure that had been altogether unknown in her department up to that time.

Eventually, for her own sanity and peace of mind, she felt that she had to resign from a position that constituted the core of her existence.

Farmer Joe was convinced that there is a residual meanness that characterises the attitude and posture of the present administration and which threatens to become its signature.

blessings

Harry still wanted to know how the global recession was affecting us here in Jamaica. Farmer Joe declared that, as far as he was concerned, more blessings always come to those who give thanks for what they have received. He was not too confident that many leaders would rush to our assistance at this time, even if they were in a position to do so.

He said that he had been in Montego Bay on the day that President Chavez came there to sign the Petro Caribe Agreement. This was before the last general election and there was a big JLP-led demonstration against President Chavez. And he also recalled Golding's remarks at the time, that we were selling our patrimony for a few barrels of oil. He said that those few barrels of oil had helped to tide us over in these storms of troubled times.

He wondered why the chief servant had not taken Portia's sensible advice to apologise publicly to President Chavez, for that is the kind of gesture that resonates handsomely and positively at home and abroad. He had learnt from his boyhood days that it takes a big man to apologise.

Farmer Joe did not want us to bring our conversation to an end without trying to assure us that he did not have anything personal against Portia; it was a matter of doing a job.

script about portia

What had given him much pause, he confessed to us in the dream, was that they gave him a script about Portia being unable to manage, but that during her incumbency he had not witnessed even the faintest odour of victimisation in the air.

And so, we returned to the festivities and, as we walked, his last words had to do with him droning along that, not in his wildest dreams, did he ever expect that political victimisation and unnecessary name-calling on the part of such high leadership in his homeland could have come to affect members of his own family and close friends, so directly, and in the manner in which they had been bruised.

I soon left the Cockpit Country to return to the Corporate Area and, deep in thought as I drove along, I noticed that almost everyone that I passed along the journey had the same kind of furrowed brow that I had seen on Farmer Joe's countenance. I awakened to find that, sometimes, "dreams walk straight", and, like Farmer Joe, immediately prayed for more inspiring and caring management and leadership during 2009.

A.J. Nicholson is Opposition Spokesman on Justice. Feedbacak may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.