FORTY years after the People’s National Party (PNP) took office in the general election of February 29, 1972, the policies and programmes pursued by Michael Manley continue to have resonance in a country still struggling to match performance with promise.

The 40th anniversary of that historic election was observed at a public forum hosted by the Michael Manley Foundation in the Joyce Robinson Hall of the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Library Wednesday evening.

The panellists — PNP member of parliament and medical practitioner Dr Dayton Campbell; principal of Buff Bay High School and immediate past president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association Nadine Molloy-Young; and UWI lecturer in international business Dr Densil Williams — acknowledged Manley’s leadership and contribution in the period when he was a seminal figure in national politics and a respected figure on the global stage.

So, what is Manley’s relevance for contemporary Jamaica now that the party he once led is back in office at a time not dissimilar to the 1970s, a time of economic uncertainty and social instability?

It’s accepted that the agreement inked between the former Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Administration and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has unravelled due to the Government’s inability to deliver on commitments under the pact. Current PNP minister of finance Peter Phillips has begun to explore a new deal and formal negotiations could begin soon.

Meantime, significant inflows expected under the agreement, which comes to an end officially in May, have not materialised. And things are not likely to get back on track until the new Administration comes up with a credible plan to restrict the growth in public sector wages and other expenditures; grow the revenue through a fairer tax system; and grow the economy by removing humbug.

While the specifics of every epoch and every generation are different, my sense is that there are similarities between the challenges of the 1970s and now.

I joined the Jamaica House staff as Manley’s press secretary and media adviser in the summer of 1973 in circumstances that were completely unexpected.

The prime minister was in Canada for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting hosted by the flamboyant Canadian leader Pierre Elliott Trudeau. At the time, I was temporarily employed as an assistant professor of journalism at my alma mater, Carleton University in Ottawa.

My friend Hartley Neita, who was travelling with the prime minister, called to enquire whether I would like to be interviewed by Mr Manley for the job of press secretary as he, Hartley, wanted to concentrate on running the Jamaica Information Service.

I agreed to the interview but did not think anything would come of it: circumstances at Carleton had changed since my arrival a year earlier and a permanent job with the prospect of academic tenure was a real possibility. With a wife and three young children, the choice seemed pretty straightforward.

Earlier in my career, as a reporter at the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) and later at The Gleaner, I had occasionally covered Manley the trade unionist and later the politician; but I had never had an opportunity to talk with him at length to get a measure of his thinking. So I could not pass up the opportunity, even though I was confident I would not be taking the job — if it was offered.

I accepted the offer because I saw it as an opportunity to participate in a process that I was convinced would lead to fundamental change in a society that needed to change fundamentally. For the next six years up to 1979 when I returned to media work, change was the only constant.

A society ‘massively encumbered’ by history

Manley, in his first book, The Politics of Change, wrote that the PNP had won the 1972 elections “comparatively unencumbered” as far as specific pledges of a detailed, traditional election manifesto were concerned.

However, he wrote, “From another point of view we were massively encumbered by history, by need, by hope and by a set of generalised expectations.” Much of the rhetoric and actions of the subsequent period in the 1970s was to give voice and concrete actions to those needs and expectations.

From a thorough grounding and commitment to social justice, human equality and participatory democracy, Manley sought to transform a society that was mired in elitism and inequality and an economy that delivered disproportionate rewards to the owner and managerial class while the majority of workers subsisted on the margins.

That’s my understanding of the 1970s when Manley gave concrete visibility to his ideas through programmes like the special employment programme, the National Housing Trust, self-supporting farmers development programme, a national minimum wage, free secondary and university education, the National Youth Service, the bauxite levy on the foreign mining companies, a state trade corporation as part of a scheme to control prices, social legislation which removed the stigma of illegitimacy and provided equal pay for equal work for women, among other things.

Manley’s legacy has been and will continue to be controversial. And while it must include the economic contraction of the 1970s it must also include his unwavering belief in democracy, social justice, egalitarianism, and people power.

The expression ‘people power’ was in the forefront of the PNP campaign leading up the party’s impressive general election win last December 29.

Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller’s natural philosophical inclination is to pursue policies to help the poor. She knows that far too many young people are attached to neither jobs nor training; some end up in antisocial pursuits. And she also knows that uplifting the poor on any sustainable basis requires long-term investment in education as well as an economy that is growing and creating meaningful jobs.

Meanwhile, the debate about why Manley made the choices he made has been going on for decades and is not likely to subside soon.

He has been criticised for entering into a borrowing relationship with the IMF after fiercely lambasting its conditionalities and dictates, and for his retreat from democratic socialism and a major role for the state in the economy in his second premiership in 1989.

To me, these actions were a pragmatic acknowledgement of the difficulty of realising fundamental social justice because, in some cases, the efforts ran up against unyielding special interests and privilege; in other cases, they were beset by resource constraints and bureaucratic inertia.

But he insisted that we had to keep trying. He wrote: “In view of the vast complexity of individual human aptitude as against the needs of society, the organisation of economic opportunity for everyone is, and will continue to be, the most challenging technical problem facing modern man. But success in this field must always stand at the centre of political and social concern.”

kcr@cwjamaica.com