The censure motion moved by Gregory Mair against Peter Phillips in Parliament was withdrawn last week. The motion was withdrawn to prevent the political appeal of Peter Phillips from becoming unstoppable. A statement attributed to Michael Manley was that an excited crowd does not have a mind but a mood.

In 1970, Michael Manley was censured for criticising the government for signing a certain contract. However, the contract did not “exist” because it was fraudulent. But it was Michael Manley who detected the fraud when the minister of agriculture disclaimed any knowledge of signing any contract. The JLP majority in parliament censured Michael Manley, which only enhanced his popularity.

Michael Manley wore a shirt marked “Censured for saving Jamaica” and thousands of buttons were printed with the same message and were worn by PNP supporters. In my column in the Jamaica Observer on March 3, Enquiry and Old McDonald’s Farm, I reminded readers of that 1970 matter. Nevertheless, Gregory Mair went ahead with the censure motion. But good political sense prevailed on the part of the JLP to the disappointment of the PNP.

I speculate that had Phillips been censured, he would have become an instant hero and were he to become the PNP president and Opposition leader, then the campaign money would pour into the PNP. This would have been converted into a landslide victory for the PNP in the next election. The fact that the case involving Kern Spencer and the Trafigura Enquiry takes place in this period after the Manatt Phelps and Phillips Enquiry would not have turned back the PNP if the censure motion had been passed.

When Michael Manley became People’s National Party president and Opposition leader in 1969, he decided to go to Ethiopia. So for that matter did the then prime minister Hugh Lawson Shearer. At that time the Rastafarian Movement was growing in popularity and Michael Manley, as a result of going to Ethiopia and an innovative campaign, was able to get Rastafarians en masse to participate in Jamaican elections. It was Michael Manley who got the rod from His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie, not Hugh Shearer.

At the time, the main campaign tool of the political parties was the street meetings. At one such street meeting held at Coronation Market in West Kingston when he returned from Ethiopia, Michael Manley explained that he did not give the Emperor a gift of rum as Shearer had done. Manley had given Selassie a wooden map of Jamaica with each parish being done in a different type of Jamaican wood, which was his explanation for Selassie’s choosing to hand him the gift of the rod.

Every time that Michael Manley held up the rod the crowds went wild with excitement. A roar greater than a packed stadium at a football match shouting “Goal” always happened when Michael Manley displayed the rod, which was dubbed as “the rod of correction”. One night during the 1972 political campaign, the JLP’s Edward Seaga, then the minister of finance, announced at a JLP meeting that he had found the rod which Michael Manley had mistakenly dropped in his rush from a meeting the night before.

Michael Manley called a meeting at Coronation Market. His mother Edna Manley handed him a parcel wrapped in orange paper which he opened and displayed the real rod with the ivory tips and the ends. And the crowd roared with excitement. What would have happened had Michael Manley not countered Seaga’s statement with a meeting where he displayed the rod? In later years we would learn that the rod had indeed been temporarily lost at the time.

My speculation is that the PNP would have won anyway and that Seaga’s popularity would have decreased, especially if it was believed that he had the rod which was not rightfully his. An excited crowd does not have a mind, but a mood. At a certain point there is no turning back of the emotion.

Which brings me to Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (formerly known as Mother Teresa of Calcutta). Today is 25 years since she visited Jamaica. Her holy life was due to holy intentions and avoiding the near occasion of sin before sinful acts become unstoppable. Today our family life authorities promote abstinence from sex for those not yet married. This is in keeping with Christian teaching. The Roman Catholic church teaches and exhorts its faithful “to avoid the near occasion of sin”. With sin there is indeed a point of no return. Unstoppable emotion is good for politics depending on which side is benefiting, but not good at all when it comes to sin.

When Blessed Teresa visited former Governor General Sir Florizel Glasspole at King’s House she did not eat there but asked if she could take home the food for the poor. Asked by a journalist if she thought she would be successful in feeding the world’s poor, she responded, “Our Lord did not ask us to be successful. He asked us to be faithful.” Blessed Teresa died in 1997.

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