THE Jamaica Observer published a column by Garfield Higgins in The Agenda magazine of February 15, 2015 which attempted to lay a case for former Prime Minister Edward Seaga to be made a national hero. The information presented — on appearances — seemed quite impressive and to the casual observer certainly did a reasonable job of supporting the call being made. If nothing else, the column was a good fillip for diehard Labourites as it attempted to canonise Seaga and distract the populace from the haemorrhage being caused by its currently woefully inept leader Andrew Holness, himself a student of the so-called great man Edward Seaga.

Let me be clear: Edward Seaga has served this country well and I would never argue about the institutions that he has helped to establish and has conceptualised. I do share another writer’s view, though, that “Seaga’s ideas were not solely his as many Jamaican business people and politicians outside his party were pushing for the establishment of these institutions and, at the same time, there were international agencies providing financial advice to developing countries from which Jamaica benefited during the period under discussion”.

It would also be unfair to say that Seaga wasn’t a man of some vision. However, saying that he was a genius and that this qualifies him as a national hero is a tune that will only play to the JLP gallery. We should temper our enthusiasm for such grandiose pronouncements as, after all, Edward Seaga was elected by the people of Jamaica and paid by the taxpayers to do what he did based on Higgins’ plaudits. On the face of it, Higgins might have got away with this public relations stunt aimed at winning some applause in the JLP’s corner, were some of us not paying attention; not just to his article, but to the history of the period.

Any call for national hero status, if it is to be taken seriously, must address Seaga’s role in the internecine warfare that has wracked our country since 1976 and from which we are yet to recover.

To my mind, the worst thing that any leader can do is divide the very people that he or she claims to represent. Seaga is not entirely alone as far as blame is concerned, however, as the events have the imprints of both parties all over it. In fact, neither of our political leaders from this era would in good conscience qualify, as the blood that was shed in their respective names still stains the conscience of our nation.

Seaga, despite his reputed “political astuteness”, has done quite poorly as a political leader. I say this against the background that his entry into Jamaican politics in 1957 was marked by that group of Jamaicans of his own hue and ilk as “destined for great things”. His social anthropological training provided him with excellent tools which he used to great effect and which endeared him to Jamaicans in the western Kingston area, where he practised all his politics. Winning against Dudley Thompson in 1962, given the PNP’s strength in that community at the time, was either sheer genius or brilliant “bandooloism”. Whichever you choose, he made a legend for himself in West Kingston, but was unable to transfer that magic into the party at the leadership level. My assessment of him tells me that selfishness has condemned the JLP to the pantheon of political history.

He may have been good at raising up institutions (using other people’s ideas) but he failed at building the most important institution of all: the Jamaica Labour Party. The fact that his departure — forced or otherwise — has left such a huge vacuum at JLP HQ is testament to this. He, himself, articulated in a 2005 television interview that “the JLP is comprised of a group of individuals who have all come together for a political end, as opposed to the PNP which is governed by an ideology that its membership shares…” His inability to frame a vision for the party that its officers and membership shared is the best testimony to his failure at the one thing that he wants us to believe he was good at: leadership.

That will be his epithet.

richardhblackford@gmail.

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