The evident craving of Mark Golding, president of the People’s National Party (PNP), to be the reincarnation of former Prime Minister Michael Manley should alarm all well-thinking Jamaicans. Golding’s constant channelling of this Manley, who died 27 years ago, should be obvious to all by now.

An audio clip of Michael Manley, saying, “We must inspire by examples and, above all, we must have integrity,” was played early in Golding’s speech at the 86th annual conference of the PNP. Manley’s words were apparently intended to be interpreted as the foundational thread of Golding’s presentation.

Like Manley did, Golding has stamped himself Mr Accountability, Transparency and Integrity. I believe Golding’s aping of Manley is an ominous pall.

As happened under Manley’s leadership, a dangerous type of political schizophrenia has overtaken the PNP. This most frightening deterioration, as I see it, will have grave implication for democracy in this country. I believe all well-thinking Jamaicans need to be very, very concerned.

Manley was hugely charismatic and he had a noticeable proclivity for being “double-tongued”. Golding is not charismatic by any stretch of the imagination. Golding is jading, but, has some Manley-isms.

In the rural parts, by double-mouthed rural folks mean a person who say one thing with his/her mouth and then performs the opposite action. Any person seeking and/or holding high-elected and or -selected public office in Jamaica, who say one thing with their mouths and then perform the opposite action, ought to raise the antennae of all who truly love Jamaica and want her to realise her full potentials.

On the subject of realising Jamaica’s full potential, I believe we are today faced with a generational choice. Either we choose a kind of leadership which is effectively a return button to a horrendous past which will again plunge this county into a runaway and frightful state of social and economic recession, or we remain on the current pathway of sustained debt reduction, low inflation, crime reduction, and high employment.

DANGER AHEAD!

I listened keenly to the address of Golding at the 86th annual conference of Norman Manley’s party and he predictably made a mountain of promises. These were mere regurgitations from a crumpled PNP playbook.

Golding also made some utterances which were alarmingly frightening. I passionately believe that all well-thinking Jamaicans need to be especially alert, take notice of, and employ all democratic steps to ensure that Golding is quickly held accountable. Those of us who have the knowledge must not sit idly and simply watch helplessly as an awful monster on the horizon, slouches towards Jamaica expecting to be born.

Here I am, of course, taking slight liberties with the work of WB Yeats, specifically his seminal poem The Second Coming. In past times too many Jamaicans with a duty to warn of impending danger and dire consequences have kept silent. The results were near-disastrous.

Recall that, trumpeting the slogan, “Betta Muss Come”, Manley took the keys to Jamaica House in 1972. Manley inherited an economy that was growing by leap and bounds. When Manley was booted from office by Edward Seaga and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), in a landslide defeat on October 30, 1980, the Jamaican economy was on life support at -5.7 per cent.

Jamaica was massively indebted. We could not buy many critical goods and services. Most international suppliers were unwilling to give Jamaica credit considerations as was the norm in the 1960s. While the bellies of hundreds of especially ordinary Jamaicans were filled with socialist diatribe, crucial everyday needs were severely neglected.

Violence and related social decay were rampant. Migration of especially skilled and qualified Jamaicans was put on steroids. Small shops and supermarkets did not have supplies of crucial items which most householders needed. Our physical infrastructure was in near-ruin. Unemployment rose to near-crippling levels. Critical democratic institutions were severely underfunded.

The civil service was a shell of what it was in the 60s. It was stuffed with party faithfuls. Public utilities were appallingly unreliable, and there was great uneasiness throughout the country.

Jamaica was a significantly more divided country, than when Manley took charge in 1972, hate of those who owned especially large businesses was promoted as a virtue.

Dependency on the State from the cradle to the grave was sold as the salvation of the poor and downtrodden. It was on Manley’s watch that the ‘Wi ah sufferrah,’ mindset was glamourised and romanticised.

Jamaica was gutted under Michael Manley.

Today, Golding channels him.

We need to be scared. We need to be very scared.

OMINOUS CLOUDS

Manley, like Golding, promised a premiership undergirded by unshakeable integrity and principled decisions-making. Jamaica received the opposite.

Of course, Manley had good intentions at the start. His words bear evidence to that, but his actions — the proof of the pudding — were opposite realties. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” someone said. I believe Manley’s good intentions, in large measure, were hijacked by men and several women who wanted Jamaica to become something which I believe is alien to our very nature. This hijacking does not, of course, exonerate Manley from ultimate culpability. He was prime minister.

Consistent with far-left fanaticism, the civil service was packed with individuals whose sole competency was socialist propaganda: “The minister of national mobilisation, D K Duncan, declared in Parliament, in 1976, several years before Delano was born, “in a Ministry of National Mobilisation in a socialist Government, it is very difficult to employ somebody who is not a socialist. I make no apology. Every single employee in the Ministry of National Mobilisation, his (sic) credentials as a democratic socialist are clear and pure.” (The Gleaner, June 26, 2011)

Consider this, too, from the mentioned newspaper piece: “Following the 1976 election victory, the PNP created a party accreditation committee. The Pickersgill Committee of Political Purity, as it was dubbed, evidently had the task of screening candidates to ensure that appointees were of impeccable political purity.”

These are the fruits of Manley, who Golding is fervently channeling. We need to be afraid!

The signs are already clear that Golding’s political fruits, like Manley’s, do not match with his words. Recall Golding’s “Time to get wicked pon dem,” tirade. What brand of integrity and principled decision-making was Golding embracing when he made this frightening utterance? At the same time, Golding says he abhors any form of violence.

Recall, too, his seeming embrace of voter fraud at a political rally. This was a most shameful episode for which I believe he needed to have tendered his resignation. After 41 days of indecision, Golding was seemingly forced to renounce his British citizenship. What principle is this? Golding should have renounced “without hesitation”, think P J Patterson. Yet, Golding mouths that he is a diehard supporter of “full decolonisation now; not a piecemeal approach”. His consistent double-speaking is tremendously frightening. We need to be afraid!

George Orwell, in his seminal work 1984, warned us decades ago about the great danger of double-speak in politics. “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength, and 2+2= 5,” are four examples of doublethink used throughout 1984. Closing our eyes to the obvious double-speak of Golding is the equivalent of consensual manipulation. Steve Biko, who fought for black liberation and the overthrow of the Apartheid [governance] in South Africa, famously said: “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” I agree!

The Donald Trump-like deteriorations taking set in Norman Manley’s party, which include failure to concede when the party loses, castigations of civil servants, the vicious spread of fake news, the seeming embrace of voter fraud and ‘badmanism’ or violence cannot be ignored. Jamaica must never go back to the awful time when misleaders caused us to take up arms against each other.

“With little bits of it,” in reference to the most recent Integrity Commission Report “being selectively leaked to JLP-allied media”. These utterances by Golding at the 86th annual conference were to me one of the most shocking. What principle is this? We need to open our eyes wide.

Press freedom is the oxygen of democracy. Manley promised strict adherence to press freedom prior to taking office in 1972. Shortly after he took power, journalists like Wilmot “Motty” Perkins, Morris Cargill, David D’Costa, John Herne, cartoonist Leandro, and a few others were vilified and hunted relentlessly. Why? They did not drink the political kool-aid of Manley and the PNP.

Press freedom must be protected at all costs. Recall: “The brutal attack that took place during the state of emergency when the JLP’s candidate for South West St Andrew, Pearnel Charles, had been thrown in detention camp, and Joseph McPherson, editor of
The Voice, was entered as a last-minute opponent of Portia Simpson. Shortly after the nomination, McPherson and his paper were made the subject of several attacks, and once he had to be rescued by a helicopter. The Maxfield Avenue office was put under siege, invaded, and a number of employees tortured and otherwise brutalised.” (
The Gleaner, November 5, 2006)

These attacks culminated in the torching of the building that housed The Voice. Recall also the murder of Earl Woodburn, an employee, who “…had been abducted at Pretoria Road and then his savagely mutilated body was found on St Joseph Road, then a serious garrison area of the People’s National Party”. (The Gleaner, November 5, 2006)

The PNP’s media economic starvation hammer was used to mercilessly bludgeon media thought to be “allied to the JLP”

“The Administration of the 70s went further. They withheld government advertising from The Gleaner and diverted business to the Daily News. In addition, government ministries and departments were instructed not to buy Gleaner publications. So tight was the squeeze that, in July 1978, The Gleaner [Comnpany] had to seek financial support by offering to the public $4 million of debenture to help deal with its obligations.” (The Gleaner, November 5, 2006)

Fast-forward to more recent times and consider this: “Further in May 2023, the the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) took note of a verbal attack to which a journalist was allegedly subjected at the People’s National Party headquarters. It says, according to available information, a member of the party reportedly threatened to rape a Radio Jamaica reporter while she was covering a protest against the party’s decision on its choice of standard-bearer for South East St Catherine. In addition, both organisations reported that the party’s deputy secretary general criticised the journalists present for wearing the coloured clothing of political opponents and demanded that they leave the premises to prevent them from questioning the PNP vice-president. Later, in September that year, IACHR says it was informed of a shooting at the headquarters of
Nationwide News in Kingston. According to the information reported by the media, a gunman on a motorcycle shot at its headquarters, located on Bradley Avenue, in the afternoon hours. It says preliminary investigations indicate that at least four bullets were fired, shattering the windows of a vehicle next to the door of the radio station’s building. The IACHR says the armed attack on Nationwide Radio reportedly came days after the PNP general secretary referred to the radio station as an “incubator for the Jamaica Labour Party”. (Nationwide News Network, September 9, 2024) Golding’s channelling of Michael Manley is an ominous cloud.

Garfield Higgins is an educator, journalist, and a senior advisor to the minister of education and youth. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com.

A section of the massive crowd which turned out for the public session of the PNP’s 86th annual conference (Photo: Garfield Robinson)

Former PNP Comrade Leader Michael Manley

Garfield Higgins