The author of the statement “the more things change the more they remain the same” is the 19th century French novelist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Kerr. The recent acceptance of Joan Gordon-Webley into the People’s National Party (PNP) comes to mind immediately. This is common to every political era in Jamaica since the 1940s.

We have a tendency in Jamaica to speak of happenings as if it is the first time in history that they have occurred. One can understand the media doing this even if one is not in agreement with it. The media has to appear to have fresh news to sell itself. But apart from catchy headlines that make old issues appear new, the body of the stories should have the depth of history.

Outside of the media, those who speak of recurring events as if they are new, whether refreshingly or disturbingly so, have inherited this from the days of slavery. Slaves were brought up to believe that knowledge did not extend further than what they knew. The education process has not changed this mental curve, as even those with doctorates are guilty of this.

Mention has been made by others in the media to past defections from one political party to the other, such as Karl Samuda who flip-flopped between the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), the PNP, and the JLP again in the 1990s. Mention has also been made of Patrick Atkinson, Ian Hayles, and others who “crossed the floor” in recent times. Some might remember the defectors from the JLP to join the National Democratic Movement, many of whom returned to the JLP. But these references do not go back far enough to give a proper perspective of the reality of politics.

For example, did you know that:

* In 1942, Alexander Bustamante left the PNP and established the Jamaica Labour Party in 1943, which means that Bruce Golding was the second JLP leader to have been a member of two political parties (in Golding’s case the NDM and the JLP)?

* The Jamaica Democratic Party candidates in the 1944 General Election had mostly defected to the JLP by 1949, and that the Farmers’ Party candidates who ran in the 1955 General Election mostly defected to the JLP by 1959?

* Burnett Birthright Coke was the first elected legislator in Jamaica to represent both the JLP and the PNP?

* When B B Coke ran for the JLP, in 1944, and won the old St Elizabeth Southern seat, he defeated Donald Sangster (later prime minister) who ran as an independent in that election?

* In 1947 Coke was a co-founder of the Agricultural Industrial Party, but ran as an independent candidate in 1949, and that by this time Donald Sangster (later prime minister) joined the JLP who defeated Coke by a mere 48 votes?

*By 1955 Coke was a member of the PNP and defeated Sangster, and that Coke, who was speaker of the House of Representatives (1955-62), kept winning his seat for the PNP until his death in 1967?

* Ken Hill, a former vice-president of the PNP and a former mayor of Kingston, was the elected representative for Kingston Western between 1949 and 1955, and that upon his dismissal from the PNP in 1952 co-founded the National Labour Party and later joined the JLP?

* In 1958 Ken Hill was elected the JLP/DLP Federal MP for the County of Surrey, but fell out with the JLP in 1961 and returned to the PNP in 1962, later serving as a senator and deputy mayor of Kingston while being a PNP member?

By the way, there is an anecdote that Wills Isaacs complained to Norman Manley about the return of the Ken Hill after all that had happened, to which the elder Manley asked Isaacs: “Wills, when was forgiveness ever wrong?”

Did you know that Madam Rose Leon, the founder of Leon’s School of Beauty Culture and founding president of the Jamaica Manufacturers’ Association, was the first person in Jamaica to be a Cabinet minister in governments of both the JLP and the PNP, and was co-founder of the short-lived People’s Democratic Labour Party?

In 1966, Rose Leon joined the PNP. She was forgiven by Norman Manley for saying some very harsh things about him and his wife Edna Manley when she was in the JLP. Joan Gordon-Webley’s recent switch to the PNP reminds me of this, as Gordon-Webley has been reported as saying some very harsh things in the past about Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller.

Rose Leon (minister of health and housing in 1953-55) was convicted of slandering Percival Broderick (father of the former JLP MP of the same name ), who had been a PNP member of the House of Representatives between 1949 and 1955. Despite all that, Rose Leon joined the PNP in 1966, lost in the 1967 General Election, won a Kingston and St Andrew Council seat in 1969, became deputy mayor of Kingston in 1971, won the St Andrew West Rural seat in 1972, and was minister of local government between 1972 and 1976.

Did you know that:

* Rose Leon was defeated by Dr Mavis Gilmour in 1976 who was herself a defector from the PNP?

* PNP stalwart Dr Ivan Lloyd resigned in 1969 and supported his son Garnett, who ran in the subsequent by-election but lost to the PNP’s Seymour Mullings?

* Clement Afflick, a former JLP/DLP Federal MP who retained the Portland Eastern seat in a by-election following the death of the late Kenneth Jones in 1964, and was convicted of libelling Norman Manley in 1968, joined the PNP and was its candidate, in 1972, against the JLP’s Leopold Lynch in Portland Western, but lost again?

* Former PNP mayor and candidate for the House of Representatives Frank Spaulding supported his JLP son, Winston, in the 1970s while his other son Anthony remained a vice-president of the PNP and minister of housing?

What can Joan Gordon-Webley bring to the PNP? I do not think that the PNP would welcome her previous style of political campaigning. But, the question is not what Gordon-Webley would bring to the PNP, rather what she would take away from the JLP. Clearly her crossing weakens the organisational structure of the JLP. But the real question about Joan Gordon-Webley’s switch is: What’s new?

ekrubm765@yahoo.com