Alfred Sangster: A giant Jamaican leader
Dear Editor,
In reflecting on Jamaicans who have made great contributions to our country since Independence but did not become involved in party politics, Alfred Sangster loomed large.
His contributions to building Jamaica are monumental. Three are sufficient to make the point — the impact of any one being outstanding by any criteria:
First, Dr Sangster’s single-minded, Herculean efforts and exemplary leadership at the College of Arts, Science, and Technology (CAST) brought this government tertiary institution to become the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech).
Thousands of Jamaican and Caribbean past students of CAST/UTech have had their life chances put on a positive trajectory because of its courses and credentials. The public rate of return of investment in CAST/UTech to the country is huge by any measure. This refutes arguments which maintain that tertiary education is mainly a private good.
Second, Dr Sangster’s pioneering partnership with the late Dennis Johnson established that Jamaican athletes could achieve excellence while attending local colleges and universities and coached by Jamaicans. This rubbished conventional ‘wisdom’ that athletes had to leave Jamaica to excel. The value of the worldwide recognition this initiative has brought to Jamaica cannot be quantified. The unity this has engendered inside the country is beyond measure. The lesson on emancipation from the mental construct that the performance of Jamaicans is determined by geography is still to be understood and applied in other fields of endeavour.
Third, Dr Sangster was the founding chairman of Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE), established in 1997 after the outcry for international observers of general elections. He accepted leadership of those Jamaicans who could not abide the contradiction of inviting foreign observers of elections, while not doing so ourselves.
CAFFE has become a bedrock of the Jamaican electoral system by consistently observing general elections, local government elections, and by-elections, and in numbers that cannot be matched by outsiders. CAFFE observers have contributed significantly to improvements in the conduct of elections at all levels.
Dr Alfred Sangster did not confine himself to the chemistry lab or to the halls of the academy. He has ventured in all areas of Jamaican life as he lives out his Christian faith.
Let us salute this giant Jamaican leader, whose life challenges all of us, as well as generations to come.
Professor Errol Miller
errol.miller@uwimona.edu.jm
