I get it that political theatre is standard operating practice in politics. I get it that political parties often rile up their base with fluff, diversions, and gimmickry. I get it that, on the political hustings, sensible people invariably don paraphernalia belonging to the circus. It is often par for the course, I get it.

What I will never accept is the continued fixation by some with political gamesmanship and the perpetration of these as alternatives for substance. No self-respecting people, in 2023, should accept and or give refuge to those who hoist political theatre as substance; guff as practical and fundable policies and programmes; or semiotics (cultural messaging) as practical alternatives to well-thought-out and workable approaches and remedies to long-standing problems in critical areas like education, crime, social decline, and economic growth and development.

We have to change established thinking patterns and switch into a creative state of mind to solve our problems, said Einstein. I agree.

Fixation on fool’s gold

Thorough and sensible discussion of issues and ideas which affect the lives and livelihoods of especially ordinary people has, by and large, been relegated to the periphery during political campaigns for decades. We need to dispense with that tragic approach.

Why tragic? Examine the hugely preventable economic and social retardation of the potentials of the people of this country and it will reveal clear evidence of how Jamaica has, for too long, focused on shiny political objects, especially in the run-up to national elections, which invariably turn out to be nothing but fool’s gold.

Leading up to the general election of 1972, thousands were fixated on Michael Manley’s “rod of correction”. It was noised far and wide in Jamaica that Manley had got the supposed magical and mystical walking stick from Emperor Haile Selassie I when he visited the African emperor. Credible research shows, however, that Manley more than likely got the piece of stick from the President of Kenya Jomo Kenyatta.

Why the elaborate hoax by the People’s National Party (PNP)?

Manley and the PNP were tapping in the rapidly growing and powerful Rastafari movement specifically, and popular culture more generally. It was not uncommon to see a Rasta man “ah trod” with a rod back then. The rod, as I understand it, was not a crutch, but more so a cudgel to help beat down (symbolically) ‘Babylon’.

Manley was an inept national economic manager, but he was no novice when it came to political tactics.

Rastafarians were staunch critics of the Hugh Shearer Administration, capitalism, and in fact anything that was seen as oppressive to the advancement of the majority Black population. Rastafari’s visceral dislike for the status quo was a political gold mine for Manley and democratic socialism. Democratic socialism was marketed by the PNP as a vehicle that would transport the dispossessed and downtrodden out of their misery.

Manley vigorously waved the rod at meetings. Party faithfuls would thereafter descend into a frenzied state. Manley’s frequent references to himself with the biblical nickname Joshua, and the use of biblical allusions was, of course, mere political theatre to the discerning. His natural charisma was the real McCoy, though.

Some time ago I heard a discussion on radio in which a panellist recounted that Manley, at a meeting in Central Kingston, told a gathering that people had broken into his house to steal the rod. Manley said a celestial being appeared to him in a dream and warned him not to allow the rod out of his sight. He then held the rod aloft and the crowd erupted.

Fanciful fib or visitation by a representative of God? I think the former is true.

Manley made sure to diligently fan the aura that there was some special power in the rod of correction. His acolytes convinced hundreds that this ‘special power’, by process of political osmosis and/or diffusion, would circulate to the majority black population.

Vote “bettah muss come”, the PNP trumpeted, and the fat of the land shall be yours. I have outlined here previously, with copious and incontrovertible evidence, that, by 1975, Jamaica — one of the fastest-growing economies in Latin American and Caribbean up to 1972 — was bought to her knees by Manley and his inept political policies which focused on blinkered populism to the detriment of basic economic common sense. We are still paying for Manley’s errors.

Doubtless some are going to howl, “Higgins, hindsight is 20/20.”

They are not wrong. So now that we know the high cost a fixation on political theatre, it begs the $64,000 question. What are we going to do to prevent an awful recurrence of its consequences?

Straightaway, some are going to bellow, “Higgins, why bring up this stuff at all, the past is dead and gone.”

Really?!

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” said philosopher George Santayana.

I agree.

Avoiding the craziness

President of the PNP Mark Golding has been on the political hustings for many, many months. The reportage I have seen on social and traditional media predominantly show him skipping, jumping, and prancing to the latest dancehall tunes. That is lovely. I have nothing against Golding and others in the PNP gyrating and frolicking on stage. Of course, I don’t expect Golding and his followers to sing only Christians hymns and read scriptures at political meetings in 2023.

Golding’s exhibition of familiarity with the latest dancehall moves, however, cannot be a treated as sufficient qualification for becoming prime minister of Jamaica. Therefore, well-thinking Jamaicans have a duty to continue to ask Golding and the PNP, where is the beef? He must reveal to us, his and the PNP’s new and better ideas to remedy the long-standing problems in education, crime, social decline, and economic growth and development.

Anyone who follows the swirling of the political tea leaves would have noticed that in recent days Prime Minister Andrew Holness has been much more active on the ground. One does not need a degree in political science to realise that he is spearheading a reconnection process with voters given recent scientific poll findings which show that the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) is slipping in popular support.

I am glad Holness has not gone the route of mass meetings, like Golding. As I see it, Holness’s approach of reconnecting with small groups and talking with ordinary folks, in especially rural communities, instead of being mounted on a big stage, is a good look, as we say in the streets.

Don’t get me wrong, mass meetings are an important part of political campaigning, and I suspect will be so for a long time to come. But I believe folks, especially in the rural parts, want back that personal touchy-feely type of engagement from their political leaders, which was made largely impossible due to the passage of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

There was a time when small, community-type meetings, gatherings in church halls and youth clubs occupied premium space in how we treated with voters in especially the rustic parts. I am glad Prime Minister Holness has started to reconnect first with that segment of voters who have largely been relegated to the sidelines since electronic means of communication started to become all the rage in the early 2000s.

Too many among us tend to forget that there is still a sizeable portion of Jamaica which is yet to join the information super-highway, notwithstanding great leaps forward, especially in the last 15 years. It is great to tweet it, threads it, Instagram, Tik Tok, and Telegram it, but it is critical too to remember that gaining political support is first a matter of the heart and then the head. Social media is yet to figure how to recreate real human sincerity and empathy. I think Holness is onto something.

The rural workhorse

On the matter of being onto something, last week Prime Minister Holness journeyed into St Elizabeth, the breadbasket of the country, to hand over a house to a resident under the Government’s Housing, Opportunity, Production, and Employment (HOPE) programme. A farmer took the opportunity of seeing him to ask for help to buy a donkey.

A news item in this newspaper noted that: “During the exchange between the female farmer and the prime minister, part of which was captured on video, it was noted that a donkey was a viable alternative to the exorbitant costs associated with other forms of transportation; primarily driven by the poor road conditions in the area.

In speaking with the woman, Holness enquired as to where donkeys were sold and the cost. The woman shared that they were available in the community at a cost of approximately $100,000.

“There is nothing wrong with asking for a donkey. The donkey has been a constant feature of our agriculture from day one — that has been the beast of burden — and it is quite good at it. So nobody should look down on your request. Your request is taken seriously by me and your MP [Member of Parliament]. I am going to make a contribution to it. And your MP, I am volunteering him to make a contribution. So you will get your donkey,” said Holness. “You are going to get it. I am going to make sure you get it,” he added.” (Jamaica Observer, July 16, 2023)

Some took to social media to castigate the lady for requesting help to secure what she sees as important to her. “Why she never did ask for better roads and then a car,” some hollered.

“She nuh have nuh ambition, only a donkey she want, OMG,” others shouted.

Even those with only a modicum of political sense know the real motivations behind these sorts of comments. The owners are the types who frequently pray for the prime minister to slip on a ripe/rotten banana peel and hurt himself. They are satiated with ‘bad mind’ and political colic.

The donkey is the main workhorse for dozens of rural farmers. The realities of Jamaica’s mountainous topography and economic limitations simply do not allow for roads everywhere at this time. Doubtless, the farmer mentioned did the mathematics long before she made her request to the prime minister. She is smart. Certainly, much smarter than, many who are shouting, “But she fool, fool, ehh; only that she want.”

Some years ago the Government had a programme through which a farmer was given a heifer when she had a calf; the farmer kept the calf and gave the cow to another farmer. My late grandfather was a beneficiary of this programme. Some time ago I read that donkeys were in short supply globally. Donkeys, I gather, are being massively hunted and slaughtered in countries like Kenya and then sent elsewhere where they are used medicines. Maybe it is time to introduce a revolving programme for farmers who need donkeys. Incidentally, when a heifer has her first calf, she is then called a cow.

Tormenting heat

According to Genesis 1: 26: “And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.’ “

Dominion presupposes that we use our brains, not to abuse the very environment which sustain us, but more so to establish a harmonious relationship. Some of those who want to chop down every tree and dig out every hillside to make asphalted roads would do well to read the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis. Then they might begin to, among other things, understand why Mother Nature is now defending herself against our systematic abuse. Some scientists say the tormenting heat globally is a mere dress rehearsal. We best wake to reality.