The official naming of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade headquarters as The Hugh Lawson Shearer Building is a welcome honour for a man whose biography describes him as “A voice for the people.” Those who knew the late prime minister as trade unionist, journalist, statesman, and politician would remember him as “a man for all seasons” who never sought honours for himself but was pressed into national service at the nation’s highest levels without his doing or contrivance.

It was Shearer’s modesty that led him to avoid recognition and dubious letters behind his name. His biographer, Hartley Neita, tells us that it was Sir Alexander Bustamante, his career mentor, who taught him to accept high honours with humility and to shed them when the time came with dignity. He told his confidants on more than one occasion that they should not name any street, town, building or institution after him.

His “Most Honourable” was awarded in later life when he and all former prime ministers were conferred with the Order of the Nation as a rite of passage.

If Shearer, who as prime minister presided over an economy that grew every year during his five-year term 1967 to 1971, has been forgotten, it must largely be from the short memory syndrome of successive governments, and even his own party, to mark his record of service with appropriate and significant recognition.

For example, to the best of my knowledge, no monument has yet been erected in National Heroes’ Park dedicated to Shearer, where past prime ministers are so recognised. His face, however, handsomely adorns the $5,000 note referred to as a “Shearer”, but still considered almost as an afterthought following the nation’s familiarisation with the faces on other notes.

Unfortunately, the $5,000 note does not guarantee instant recall as people do still ask, Shearer who? The Hugh Shearer Building, therefore, is appropriately and most properly named.

Prior to Independence in 1962 Jamaica had no official foreign policy; such was laid down for us by the British Colonial Government. It came as a shock and surprise to many when Prime Minister Sir Alexander Bustamante, in naming his Cabinet, handed over the external affairs arm of his ministry to the young minister without portfolio, Senator Hugh Shearer. But, for those in the know, it was no secret that Shearer was regarded by Bustamante as his right hand man, a boy who had grown up with the “Chief” from early Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) days, and had grown into manhood as the union’s island supervisor, Leader of Opposition Business in the pre-Independence Legislative Council, and later for Government Business in the Senate, and favoured by Bustamante to be his successor as prime minister.

There was more to come. Following the excitement of the Independence celebrations in August 1962, Jamaica was now lining up to make its voice heard on the world stage at the United Nations General Assembly meeting on October 8. It was Jamaica’ inaugural venture into international politics and, according to Neita, it was important that this first Jamaican policy statement establish the new nation’s identity on the world stage. Against that background, Bustamante again produced a shock when he assigned young Shearer to make the speech that would deliver Jamaica’s first policy statement to the world. This did not go down well with some of the elder statesmen, who had already been jealous of Shearer’s meteoric rise to power, as well as the social elites — who tut-tutted as they did over the choice of Jamaica’s first native-born governor general —who thought that Jamaica would be better represented by a white or a brown man at such a prestigious forum.

Indeed, it was even considered scandalous by naysayers in the press, who believed they had more experience and pedigree than a man who they described as “this half-educated product of a private secondary school”, the legendary St Simon’s College, if you please.

But Shearer had the advantage of a backup team of distinguished civil servants and diplomats who, in those days, were appointed by both governments for their professionalism and wisdom, rather than their political party faithfulness.

Consider Sir Neville Ashenheim, first ambassador of Jamaica to the USA; Sir Egerton Richardson, Jamaica’s permanent representative to the UN and a former Bank of Jamaica governor; Vincent McFarlane, a former permanent secretary in Norman Manley’s office; Lloyd Barnett, career diplomat; Keith Johnson, career diplomat; Louis Booth, James Lloyd, Ashton Wright, and Gordon Wells, future permanent secretaries when permanent secretaries meant permanent. All were members of the high-powered team who briefed Shearer for his presentation and helped to shape the foreign policy of young upstart nation, Jamaica.

As he quietly awaited his turn at the podium, Hugh Shearer must have been aware of the awesome responsibility he had taken on to represent his young nation in this grand auditorium of the world’s top national leaders and diplomats.

When Jamaica’s name was called, these delegates must have sat there expecting another boring introductory speech from a nervous foreign affairs Third World minister. Instead, what they saw made them take a second look. For striding towards the stage, with a confident smile, was this bold, black, handsome, and immaculately dressed young man. His very demeanour hinting at something more than the ordinary. And, as Shearer, in turn, looked across at his First World audience, he saw the thousands of faces he had addressed in political and union meetings, strikes, top-level negotiations, cane fields, and portside workers, schoolroom lectures, and private sector luncheons. As far as he was concerned this was just another roomful of people providing another opportunity for him to weave his spell as a practised orator.

Polite clapping greeted him as he opened his innings, but as he approached the climax of his speech, his confidence grew. He knew he had this diverse world audience hanging on to his every word. Keith Johnson, Jamaica’s consul general to New York, recalled that at this point Shearer paused, and his eyes roved from one corner of the auditorium to the next. He was wrapping up:

“One of the great unsolved problems of this age,” he told his now-captive audience, “is the translation into actual practice of the democratic ideal of fundamental concern for human rights and for the basic freedoms which man has been given by the Creator.

“I propose that the United Nations concerns in this area be intensified through an International Year of Human Rights. Surely we can expect that out of a worldwide human rights campaign there might come some equally spectacular gains in man’s relationship to man.”

As he bowed to the president and secretary general and walked from the podium to rejoin the Jamaican delegation, protocol was broken as delegates rushed to congratulate him, media interviewers lined up, and for that day at least, and for years to follow, “the half-educated product of a private secondary school” had gained for Jamaica international respect and the attention of the world on our foreign affairs policies.

Speaking at the naming of the building recently, Prime Minister Andrew Holness described Shearer’s human rights proposal as one of the most acclaimed initiatives presented in a first policy statement to the UN. Shearer was to see the year 1968 declared as the International Year for Human Rights as a follow-up to his initiative. He certainly blazed a trail for foreign affairs. Hence, the naming of the building now brings into sharp focus the policies and performance of Jamaica in this field.

Foreign Affairs is a much more complex subject today than it was in 1962, when it was mostly a question of East vs West, but still we miss the strident “voice of the people” that created international excitement on October 8, 1962 and threw all established protocol at the UN through the window.

The new building will, I hope, bear more than a plaque and will have his name emblazoned in giant letters similar to the Michael Manley National Housing Trust and the Edward Seaga government buildings.