BALTIMORE, Maryland — Former Jamaica Prime Minister PJ Patterson has scoffed at the “self-serving” concept of democracy practised by some western nations where the litmus test is whether a leader, “chosen in free and fair elections, is acceptable to western eyes or subscribes to the precepts of a capitalist state”.

Delivering the keynote address at the opening of the four-day State of the Black World conference at Baltimore Convention centre in Maryland on April 19, Patterson said the Western scorecard would allow the perpetrators of the most reprehensible atrocities to colt the game rather than permit a full examination of the past to be used in creating a realistic understanding of the huge obstacles which African, Caribbean, and Latin American people must remove to exercise full sovereignty in the only planet which all mankind must share.

In a wide-ranging address, Patterson told the more than 300 delegates from Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, Canada, and the United States, that “Sound judgment is based on what you practice, not by what you preach.”

“Where is the firm commitment to democracy by the powers that proclaim it, when Patrice Lumumba in the Congo or Salvador Allende in Chile, freely elected by their citizens, is assassinated by covert intelligence and replaced by brutal dictators who immediately gain endorsement and material support from the metropolitan powers?” Patterson asked.

In a clear reference to the efforts by Republican controlled legislatures in the United States to deprive black people of the right to vote, Patterson said, “We find it incompatible with the assertion that in a true democracy every vote should have equal weight when legislatures in the southern States of the USA. which still control their separate electoral systems, distort the popular will by the delineation of boundaries and the configuration of the voting process to effectively disenfranchise or disempower huge swathes of the population based on race, colour and class.”

“Democracy cannot thrive where the rule of law does not exist,” Patterson declared.

“We are bewildered by the confusing signals on the rule of law and the independence of judges within the separation of powers, when we observe the exercise of the right to appoint judges to the Supreme Court and Federal Courts of Appeal, drawn exclusively from an ideological list compiled by an avowedly partisan group,” argued Patterson, an internationally recognised statesman.

“So one president, during a single term, can appoint a majority to the Supreme Court and reverse decisions hallowed by precedent, while his predecessor is blocked by the Senate from exercising the right to fill vacancies during his tenure?” Patterson argued.

“We all regard the protection of fundamental human rights as sacred to any democracy. We do not, however, concede that any country elsewhere can arrogate the right to unilaterally index their application within our domestic borders in order to use its considerable voting power within international lending agencies to approve loans or funding projects for our development,” he said.

Insisting that police brutality and murders can never be justified, the former head of Government said it came as “somewhat of a seismic shock” to read that Jamaica’s rating was being reviewed because of the numerous reports of arbitrary and unlawful killings and complaints of abuse by the police.

“So what of the United States?” he asked.

While he was “deeply perturbed” at the development, Patterson suggested that instead of pontifications, the United States should “help us, instead, to prevent this”.

“Gun violence is now a public health crisis which breeds gangs and organised crime that threaten the security of the nation state itself,” he said.

He pointed out that Africa cannot remain silent or indifferent whenever there is a threat to the democratic process for its children or any impediment to their full development, no matter where they reside — on the continent, in the Caribbean, the United States, or Brazil.

“The 54 countries which comprise the African Union and the 14 nations in Caricom have had their fill of the arrogant sermons that others know better what is good for us,” Patterson said.

“Global Africa must entail the full inclusion of the diaspora and evoke the call of Marcus Garvey in 1920 to organise as one for the anti-colonial and civil rights struggles we face, no matter where we reside. That is what this conference is all about,” he said.

“For as the legendary Peter Tosh reminded us, ‘Anywhere you come from, as long as you’re a black man, you are an African,” Patterson said.

Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Dr Julius Garvey, son of Jamaica’s first National Hero Marcus Garvey were scheduled to address the conference.

On Saturday night, Patterson, Mottley, Congresswomen Shirley Jackson Lee and Barbara Lee, as well as Jamaican-born former state senator from Maryland Shirley Nathan Pulliam were among nine people who received the organisation’s Legacy Award.