It is not an everyday occurrence for human beings to be resurrected. We Christians claim that Jesus Christ was resurrected and, of course, there are gospel accounts of the dead being raised, including the story of Lazarus. But all ideologies can die and all can be resurrected. And the death of an ideology does not automatically mean that it ceases to have its adherents.

When Michael Manley made his statement that “socialism is dead”, that to a large extent was the changed reality at the end of the 1980s. But did Michael Manley stop being a socialist? Not according to the video of his last-ever interview before he died. In that interview, recorded about six years after his ‘socialism is dead’ statement, Michael Manley, then in retirement with less than a year to live, stated that he would always remain a socialist.

In the Sunday Gleaner of October 23, former Prime Minister Edward Seaga said that a statement by Julian Robinson was curious because Robinson had said in an interview that the People’s National Party (PNP) is a democratic socialist party. Seaga then alluded to the ‘socialism is dead’ statement made by Michael Manley. Someone should hand Seaga a video of Michael Manley’s last interview, as perhaps he has not seen it.

Many statements made by politicians of both major political parties about the other are not answered. It is not always because the statements are unanswerable, but the politicians know that it is mobilisation and not issues that win elections in Jamaica. Therefore, they view responses to such statements as a waste of time.

For this reason, Dr D K Duncan is to be commended for responding to Seaga’s comment on the 1976 election results implying that it was influenced by the state of emergency. Like Duncan, I recall the statement made by Seaga on election night 40 years ago, in December 1976, which was somewhat different from what he wrote in his last article.

Whenever Edward Seaga speaks or writes about the 1970s it is always wise to have a copy of Michael Manley’s book

Struggle in the Periphery at hand and vice versa to get two sides of the story.

We hear about negative growth in the 1970s for which Seaga, like many of his supporters, blame the Michael Manley-led socialist government in the 1970s. Reading or listening to Edward Seaga can give the impression that the world oil crisis of the 1970s did not happen. Politicians will be politicians, I suppose — even retired ones.

It is indeed true that there were certain negative excesses in the 1970s as some felt that socialism was a licence for anarchy. In the late 1970s and early 1980s my brother Paul Burke was chairman of the PNP youth organisation. This became the grand excuse for some people to jump the fence of our family home to steal fruits from the trees. And when accosted by a neighbour they said: “Is socialis’ yard, so we can tek some.”

But back to the oil crisis. Michael Manley announced free education in 1973, complete with free uniforms and free lunch. But suddenly the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) wanted more for their oil, and it threw the nations dependent on the importation of oil totally out of whack. So the bauxite levy was introduced in 1974 to finance free education.

Which politician in a democratic country, after receiving a tumultuous applause from the populace for promising free education, would say to the populace, after only one school semester of free education, “We have to return to paying school fees next year because we now have to pay more for oil”? If that happened in Jamaica the political Opposition would have had Michael Manley and the PNP for dinner!

Still, the PNP should thank Edward Seaga for reminding the world that it was the PNP that introduced free education — as the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) behaves as if it first introduced it. Who was it that said in the 1950s that “salt fish is better than education”? Is Andrew Holness pleased with such revelations coming from his mentor, Edward Seaga? Talk about ‘foot-in-mouth’ disease.

While a certain amount of inefficiency accompanied attempts to construct a socialist state in the 1970s, the food shortage was not caused by mismanagement. Apart from the very serious oil crisis, was food deliberately removed from the supermarkets and shops to sabotage the Government of the 1970s? Why was at least one supermarket in Liguanea, St Andrew, packed with food on the morning after the 1980 election?

I hold no brief for Michael Manley, but the truth is the truth. I am a Norman Manleyist who knows that the PNP has abandoned its ideological roots. And I am not a member of any political party. While one has to be practical in the implementation of ideology, the PNP has definitely strayed too far from its aims and objectives.

For example, the PNP should be the first to oppose any attempts to lessen the democracy in the co-operatives, since Norman Manley was the one who piloted the Co-operative Act through the House of Representatives in 1950. Fortunately, he negotiated the co-operation of the JLP majority led by (later Sir) Alexander Bustamante.

And by the way, last week in response to my article ‘Co-operatives should reduce stress’, “Jahlas” wrote in the

Jamaica Observer online portal that we must be careful that credit unions do not go outside of the core business. I never suggested in my article last week that we do that, as I long ago realised that it would be very difficult to go through Jamaica to persuade each credit union to elect delegates to the credit union league that would vote in favour of such an idea. I suggested a separate service co-operative, which would be financed by the credit unions, just as how the credit unions finance any other business. But I was suggesting that it be done by voting on the surplus, which can be distributed any way that the general meeting desires by way of voting. And speaking about resurrection, let us hope that the co-operative movement does not die, because it would be very difficult to resurrect it.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com