There is an African proverb that states, “Unless the lion is able to read and to write, the only story of the hunt we will know comes from the mind and the pen of the hunter.” I say this against a background of observation of how some people generate and use information, specifically Jamaica Observer columnist Garfield Higgins, and I draw attention to his column published by the Observer in The Agenda this past Sunday entitled, ‘The PNP, Michael Manley and democratic socialism wrecked Jamaica…Learn that Peter Phillips”.

None of us need be reminded that Jamaica has been struggling socially and economically for the better part of the last four and a half decades, that we have been unable to provide any sustained economic growth rates for the entire period, and that among the many consequences of this has been the rampant criminality and deepening social decadence. By Higgins’ account, these consequences are the manifestations of the political choices made by Jamaicans when the country elected the Michael Manley-led People’s National Party (PNP) to power in 1972.

Higgins, like the rest of us, is entitled to his opinion, but unlike the rest of us Higgins occupies a different plane, as his background as an educator places him in a slightly different category, where his opinion can easily be presented and consumed as fact in an environment where most people’s academic deficiencies combined with their mental laziness steer them away from doing any kind of personal research.

Any attempt at proffering an opinion on the economic and political fortunes of Jamaica between 1962 and 1989 must be conducted against a background of the geo-political influences that were in operation at the time. In fact, no attempt at dissecting Jamaica’s political and economic fortunes during this 1972-1980 period can ever be made without providing a full account of the role that the United States of America played in destabilising the country politically and economically as part of its persecution of national political leadership that was unprepared to operate under the dictates of Washington, DC.

Central to such a discussion is the fact that the success of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 was an embarrassment to Washington which had dedicated countless resources to thwart the global spread of communism after the end of the Second World War. That is a fact of history, that and the fact that, in Jamaica, Washington had significant internal help from Edward Seaga at the time to discourage potential foreign direct investment into the island in his own bid to win political power at any and all costs. The records will show that such investments declined from US$28 million in 1977-78 to less than US$4 million per year. When combined with the leaps in Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ oil prices at the time the consequences for the Jamaican economy were staggering and the ensuing interchange of political ideological rhetoric between Manley and Seaga fuelled an internecine war that ravaged what was left of the country, setting us back for decades.

Observer columnist Hugh Dunbar, in a kind of response to Higgins’ piece, wrote: “It is easy to say that Michael Manley destroyed Jamaica, but Jamaicans voted for him at that time for very good reason, that of social injustice…so in referring to a person like Manley, I will credit him with the awakening of the masses in Jamaica who, up to that time, were relegated to hewing wood and carrying water.” This point being made by Dunbar is significant, especially for those who have limited knowledge of the economic and political landscape at the time. Jamaica was largely a plantation economy and, although politically independent of Great Britain, the majority of Jamaicans had neither say nor stake in the operations of the country.

For my part, I have no intention of trying to canonise Michael Manley, as to my way of thinking his work is there to speak for itself. My objective is to hold Jamaicans to taking responsibility for their utterances and to properly account for the steps taken along our developmental journey. Higgins clearly is comfortable in parlaying whatever integrity he may have had for political gains, even at the expense of distorting the history of this great little country of ours and in the process sow seeds of political divisiveness and discord especially sullying any legacy that the PNP has. That is his wont, and it is up to the PNP scribes to provide more robust pushback on the related issues. My old-school background and personal developmental path tells me though that “to him who much is given, even more is expected”. We have a responsibility as a people to invest in telling our stories, and to tell them truthfully.

It may be self-serving to attempt to sanitise history, but it does nothing to the receiving generation as far as national consciousness is concerned when we deliberately eschew swaths of our history, regardless of the purpose. It only succeeds in making our people dumber.

Richard Hugh Blackford is a self-taught artist, writer and social commentator. He shares his time between Coral Springs, Florida, and Kingston, Jamaica. www.yardabraawd.com Send comments to the Observer orrichardhblackford@gmail.com.