ONE has to understand the vision of Norman and Edna Manley to understand what made Rex Nettleford tick. To a large extent the same was true of the great artist, Albert Huie. They were Jamaican nationalists who were determined that the nation would make a mark on the world with its own identity. They were of the same spirit in their vision of “brand-name Jamaica” which was different from the nationalist white and mulatto business community which only wanted to ape anything European, yet having a Jamaican label.

A Jamaican who studied in Russia in the 1980s told me of having gone into the library of the Russian university where he studied, and in the section on Caribbean Studies the work of Rex Nettleford was all that he saw. This indeed spoke to the high esteem in which Rex Nettleford was held worldwide. Albert Huie, through his paintings, was a Jamaican landmark of the same ilk, particularly by art lovers the world over who purchased his paintings.

In 1937, Norman Manley founded Jamaica Welfare. Coming as it did as a need to stop the rural to urban drift because of the collapse of the banana industry due to disease, Jamaica Welfare would promote community development in many ways, especially through an appreciation of Jamaican creativity. Jamaica Welfare would push programmes to have local crops grown such as cassava, and promoted cottage industries. The earliest recordings of Jamaica Farewell and the Banana Boat Song by Harry Belafonte were produced by Jamaica Welfare.

During the Second World War, Jamaica Welfare became the Jamaica Social Welfare Commission. After political independence, the name was changed to the Social Development Commission. In 1959, Norman Manley, as premier of Jamaica, founded the now defunct Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation. He was of the view that Radio Jamaica and Rediffusion, the only radio station in Jamaica in the 1950s, was not sufficiently “Jamaican” in its programmes for a nation close to achieving political independence.

With the formation of JBC, there were local programmes like Lou and Ranny starring the late Louise Bennett-Coverley and the late Ranny Williams. There was the promotion of local popular music. The mento, which came with the African slaves, was the base for the Jamaican dance form called ska that evolved into rocksteady and then into reggae. In a real way this cultural development was promoted by JBC.

And it was with this same mindset that Rex Nettleford founded the National Dance Theatre Company. He fully understood that an independent nation should have its own forms of dance, drama and entertainment. It was a cultural and nationalistic mindset that was shared by Albert Huie. Encouraged by Edna Manley, Huie would be “in your face” with his murals of black Jamaicans that were equalled only by Edna Manley’s sculpture.

Mention has been made of Nettleford’s publications, particularly Mirror Mirror, Caribbean Cultural identity: The case of Jamaica and Manley and the New Jamaica. Incidentally, Bruce Golding as head boy of Jamaica College wrote an article entitled Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall who’s the fairest of them all? in the JC magazine of 1966, a few years before the publication of Nettleford’s Mirror Mirror. And Golding’s article some 44 years ago is worthy of reading, especially now that he is prime minister.

The ferment for self-government and Jamaica’s independence got its most advanced push in 1938 with the disturbances both in the canefields and on the waterfront. This was something that Nettleford always had in his consciousness. But of the people paying tribute to Rex Nettleford, only a few have spoken of his role in shaping the trade union movement in Jamaica as the first director of the Trade Union Education Institute at the University of the West Indies.

Among the few who spoke of Nettleford’s role in trade unionism were Senator Dwight Nelson, lecturer and writer Claude Robinson, and Nurses Association of Jamaica president, Edith Allwood-Anderson. Through Jamaica Welfare, in a real way Norman Manley was also the father of the service co-operatives in the way that the Roman Catholic Church would pioneer the financial co-operatives commonly known as credit unions.

I have consistently argued that it is way past the time for trade unions to organise workers into co-operatives as has been the case in many other countries for many decades now. But Nettleford never took the trade unionists to this higher level, perhaps because that was not for him to do.

Norman Manley argued that the mission of his generation was to bring about self-government and independence and the mission of the next generation was to bring about economic independence. It may not have been the work of Rex Nettleford’s generation to take trade unions to the next logical step which is the organisation of co-operatives. But it certainly should be the mission of this generation. May their souls rest in peace.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com