MANDEVILLE, Manchester — People’s National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding says the party needs to recapture the vision of its first president, National Hero Norman Manley, by reinvigorating the basic principles of equality and social justice while being mindful of the changing times.

“The PNP faces a historic task. We must once again create a new political atmosphere inspired by new political thought that is relevant and capable of meeting the existing and emerging challenges of this current era and the very new world in which we live,” said Goding while speaking at a ceremony commemorating the 129th anniversary of Manley’s birth at Roxborough in Manchester on Monday.

“To do this we must draw on the intellectual courage bequeathed to us by Norman Manley as we review our principles and objectives to face the realities after 60 years of political independence in a rapidly changing world,” he told his audience, which consisted of political and civic leaders at the annual pilgrimage to Manley’s birthplace.

Golding, who is also the Member of Parliament for St Andrew Southern, said the PNP must broaden its approach and address inequality in the country.

“Part of our task is to find a way beyond the limits of the current political thinking, where transformational change is seen as not really being possible. In that sense, we have temporarily lost the ground to some of the dominant ideas about politics and society,” said Golding.

“We need to be bold in our visioning – driven by the fact that, by all accounts, neoliberalism has failed. A painful manifestation of that failure is the dramatic growth of inequality in Jamaica. Something which Norman Manley fought tirelessly against,” he added.

The PNP president told the audience that the party must renew its commitment to equality and social justice.

“One of the toxic results of that inequality is the high level of social dysfunction around us, which is accompanied by daily acts of criminal violence and a pervasive sense of hopelessness, cynicism, and despair. Given this reality and returning to the foundational principles of his party, we must renew our political philosophical commitment to equality,” said Golding.

“We do so as a party on the democratic left with a deep commitment to democracy, both within the party and externally in our national governance arrangements. We renew our commitment to education both as a national good and as an instrument of development,” added Golding.

He said there is no politics of equality if the PNP does not focus on women and the disabled community, while stressing that human rights and dignity are fundamental.

“At the core of the principle of equality is an understanding of the dignity of the Jamaican citizen as a member of society with its long history of racial slavery and colonialism. This dignity needs to be effectively expressed through equal rights and social justice,” he said.

“In other words, we add to our political ideas and practice the principles of human rights as expressions of human dignity and social justice.

“Additionally, our party must further extend its conceptions of equality to women and people with disabilities. There is no politics of equality if we do not pay special attention to women and disabled persons and indeed all persons who are marginalised,” added Golding.

He said the renewed PNP must shape itself to grow on democracy and implement reparative justice.

“All of these notions are predicated on practices of democracy and so we must create the broadest forms of democracy within the boundaries of our current political system. This is the rock on which we must build our politics. Finally, in renewing our philosophy, we can draw from a body of Caribbean political thought, which was not available to Norman Manley in his time and others of previous generations,” he said.

“One element of that thought is reparative justice, an idea whose time has come, though the struggle for its recognition and implementation is still incomplete.

“Today… we stand on the shoulders of Norman Manley, but we do so mindful, [as] he would have been, of the need for renewal and new thinking. In standing on his shoulders, we commit ourselves to building a different Jamaica, one in which the country can be better for everyone,” said Golding.