Today is the 114th anniversary of the birth of Rudolph Burke, my paternal grandfather. He was born on June 13, 1899, according to his birth certificate, according to his own account and according to all of his official documents. I write this because there are those who debate the year in which he was born, whether the year before and or the year after. I am sticking to the official documents as well as his own account, as I recall what he told me when he was alive. He died on February 2, 1972.

Rudolph Burke, who attended Jamaica College a 100 years ago, rose to the rank of Cabinet minister in the 1950s. A foundation member of the People’s National Party, he was president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society for more than two decades and was known for the pivotal role he played in developing agriculture, including being the founder of the annual Denbigh Agricultural Show in Clarendon some 60 years ago and also a foundation member of the board of Jamaica Welfare (now Social Development Commission).

He served on 46 agricultural boards. In those days, either Jamaica Welfare or the Jamaica Agricultural Society generated most of the service co-operatives. He was Norman Manley’s candidate for the post of governor general in 1962, but Manley’s party did not win. The Jamaica Labour Party won, and our first prime minister in political independence, Sir Alexander Bustamante, recommended Sir Clifford Campbell, who was appointed.

One of the greatest things that was said of Rudolph Burke was that he was very courteous to all people, whatever their station in life. And yet he was very outspoken and represented the small farmers to the colonial governors with the assertiveness that runs in the family. He had no class or colour prejudice in him and believed that all men were created equal and should at all times be equal in the law and in other aspects of life. He had maroon-black skin and was of African descent.

Is saying “Good Morning” or “Good Evening” something that should be thrown away with obsolete telephones and typewriters? And should it be the same with “Please” and “Thank you”? Traditionally, ordinary Jamaicans were courteous. They had to be, especially as the majority of poor people worked on the sugar estates where the alternative was to be flogged. This was maintained up to 1938, exactly 100 years after the abolition of slavery, when the law stated that “a man could reasonably chastise his servant”.

It was also true that the ex-slaves had certain interventions that made them courteous. There were the Baptist free villages and Moravian churches in the early days after slavery. These churches took in more peasants than did the other churches. But the rural-urban drift, by people in search of jobs, helped to break down thes family unit. Add to that the Empire windrush, where thousands of Jamaicans left for England between 1948 and 1951 to rebuild Great Britain, and the effect is even greater.

Most of those who went to England at that time left children behind, many of whom were left to their own devices. Small wonder then that the Kendal train crash of September 1, 1957 was really caused by vandals. How many of them were living outside of their family units? It is interesting to note that a 20-year-old vandal on that train in 1957 would be 76 years old now.

Rudolph Burke had a great sense of fair play and justice. He understood quite clearly that two wrongs do not make a right. He would have seen this, had he been alive, in the recent saga concerning the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) Credentials Committee and Doran Dixon. The rude and coarse behaviour of Dixon does not give the JTA the right to disqualify him as a candidate for the presidency, or from any other post for which he might be nominated for that matter.

Too many of our teachers do not live in the real world and think that that they can go through life giving detentions to adults as if they are schoolchildren. Too many of our teachers do not even bother to follow the education code and consequently get themselves into trouble.

Also, the other extreme, too many of our teachers behave like children. And this is partly because many teachers have never lived or worked outside of the school environment and they think that the general world is just like running a school. One would have thought, though, that the teachers would have understood that two wrongs do not make a right. It was something that I have understood since prep school, as we were taught this on at least one occasion.

What is far less known is that Rudolph Burke grew the six children of his marriage with the philosophy that everyone should serve. In other words, every Jamaican should volunteer their servies in some way for the common good of Jamaica. While his eldest son (my father) died nearly 14 years ago in November 1999, his eldest daughter (Mrs C Leleith van Whervin) lives on and remembers when her father would lecture his children that everyone should serve.

Whom can one tell that in this day and age, you might ask? There may very well be very few people, if any, that can be told that today. And yet this is indeed the problem with Jamaica. We need so many volunteers and very few people will come forward. And Jamaica would have been far better off today if more people served voluntarily. But where are the volunteers? Do we have enough people who will come forward even to teach basic manners?

I am mindful of St Matthew’s Gospel 25:31-46, when Jesus Christ spoke of the separation of the sheep from the goats and ends with the words “whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me”. I am also mindful of the letter of James 2: 17, where he wrote, “faith without works is dead”. Maybe these scripture verses inspired Rudolph Burke as his life was certainly one of service to Jamaicans.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com