When individuals desperate for State power empty the bad contents of their minds and the awful innards of their consciences onto the public pavement, it is not just irresponsible, it is politically, socially, and economically suicidal not to take serious notice and take action to protect self and country as necessary.

History has shown us time and time again that people who fail to heed the warnings signs and ignore the frightening utterances of those with “a lean and hungry look” (Shakespeare) plastered all over their faces, and bitterness riveted and oozing from their words, invariably suffer very terrible consequences.

Jamaicans in the 1970s and 1990s did not heed critical warnings signs from Michael Manley and P J Patterson. Believe it, high-ups in the People’s National Party (PNP) did warn Jamaica of the damage they would inflict. Too many did not listen. Our collective lapses in critical consciousness resulted in our country being flung into turmoil for many years.

The PNP is revealing the horrendous innards of its minds, again, today. I believe the PNP’s warnings. Commons sense and years of experience demand it.

BUNTING’S BROADSIDE

Consider this: “Comrades, we are in strange times in Jamaica. We are living in strange times. Strange times because interesting behaviour is rewarded. So, for example, if you are a police officer, and you have ambition, and you want turn a senior superintendent of police (SSP). You would think those who out deh, a face-down bad man, the dog-hearted gunman dem, and criminal, they would be rewarded with promotion. You think is those who are investigating crime, putting tight cases together, and putting criminals behind bars, who would be rewarded? But, it seems the fastest way to tun SSP is to work with a friendly media house for a few years, get transferred to the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), and you catapulted from district constable to senior superintendent in a couple years.”

Peter Bunting said these words at a PNP rally in St Elizabeth recently. He is a former Member of Parliament (MP) for Manchester Central and former national security minister. He is now a senator and head of Opposition business in the Senate.

I have not seen any reportage that Bunting was under the influence of any mind-altering substance when he spoke in St Elizabeth. He has not said he was, either. I can only assume, therefore, that when he spoke he was in full control of his faculties.

It is likely that if the PNP were to win a future general election Bunting would get a senior post in the Cabinet, quite likely the national security portfolio, and maybe even deputy prime minister, given his very close relationship with Mark Golding.

The blatant attack on Dennis Brooks, the senior communications strategist at the JCF, was a low point in our politics. It was reminiscent of a time when politicians on the hustings would use the political stump to attack, vilify, and taint individuals and/or entities that they did not like, for one reason or another.

This period was one of the darkest in our modern political history. It should frighten all well-thinking Jamaicans that some who are seeking high public office in this country are trying hard to resurrect the ghosts of a most ghastly period. We who believe that Jamaica is capable of a better and brighter future must reject Bunting’s backwardness.

DANGEROUS DISPLAYS

For many months I have been warning in this space about those who are heavily invested in resurrecting an unusable past for this country. Decrepit thinking from the 70s and 90s has some new faces today. These merchants of deflection have repackaged some of the pernicious narratives which were used to reduce this country to social, economic, and political rubble in the 70s and 90s. However, they cannot disguise all the crumpled pages of their old play book. For example, bitter and vicious attacks on media personnel are nearly identical to 50 years ago.

Consider this: The Gleaner story, entitled ‘PNP raps RJR, Gleaner’. The story said, inter alia: “The local media came in for strong criticism yesterday at the PNP Central Kingston constituency annual conference being labelled as a force of oppression against the masses. The strongest attack came from Health and Environment Control Minister Dr Kenneth McNeill, who concentrated his criticism on The Gleaner and RJR.

“Dr McNeill said The Gleaner was ‘one of the greatest forces of oppression, operating against the people of Jamaica’. And challenged the owners of the newspaper to put 51 per cent of its shares on the public market and allow the Government to buy it on behalf of the Jamaican people ‘as the company was now owned, he said, by one family’.

“How can The Gleaner be free when its former chairman was a Government senator? When Hector Wynter, who writes for them, is a former minister of state? When Morris Cargill, who writes under the name of Thomas Wright, is a foremost member of the local plantocracy, Dr McNeill said.”

Senator Arnold Bertram, parliamentary secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister, said: “The mass media were misleading the people.”

The media, particularly The Gleaner were “misrepresenting the PNP and its leader as people who were talking off the tops of their brains”.

Senator Dudley Thompson said the PNP believed in freedom of the press, but newspapers should be responsible. Journalists were using “snide phrases” to point arrows at the party. He attacked a “cartoonist with a foreign name”, who was drawing some damaging cartoons. This person, he said, “would soon move on and join his ancestors”. (The Gleaner, July 28, 1975)

The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) is not blameless. Recall the march on this newspaper some years ago by JLP supporters because they did not like cartoons by Clovis and articles by veteran columnist Mark Wignall, which were critical of then Opposition Leader Edward Seaga and the JLP.

We have to nourish and cherish freedom of the press. Jamaica cannot risk a return to the dark days of press repression that once characterised our media landscape. Some, who do not think beyond the moment, will doubtless laugh at some of the recent attacks on media workers. They may dismiss these menacing attacks as mere political gimmickry and displays of mirth. These attacks are dangerous displays. Those of us who have the knowledge of how ignorance can prove costly and deadly have an obligation to warn and remind this society that democracy without press freedom does not exist. Unwarranted attack on the press severs freedom.

SUSTENANCE CONTROL

On the subject of freedom, control of economic sustenance was one of the primary tools massively used by our politics some years ago to suffocate the free expression of especially individual journalists and press outlets that did not exhibit blind obedience.

It bears repeating, press freedom is the oxygen of democracy.

Let’s not forget that Michael Manley promised strict adherence to press freedom prior to taking office in 1972. The PNP did the opposite.

Lest we forget, shortly after Michael Manley took power journalists, like Wilmot “Motty” Perkins, David D’Costa, John Herne, cartoonist Leandro, and some others were vilified and hunted relentlessly.

Why? They did not mimic Manley’s message.

Perkins and other like-minded columnists at The Gleaner paid a heavy price for the factual representation of the nearly incalculable damage which Manley did to Jamaica in the 1970s. For example, in the 70s political thugs in relay-like fashion would ride pass Perkins’ house shouting threats which cannot be repeated here. Interests closely aligned to certain politicians also tried their best to destroy his family’s economic sustenance, or ‘stop his food’, as we say in the streets today.

Here is an example of their sabotage. The radio serial Dulcimina was written and produced by Elaine Perkins, a very talented dramatist and the late wife of Wilmot Perkins. Some of my readers may remember these names — Presser Foot, Cyclops, Miss Pinny, Daisy Deepsea, Ramgeet, Roxy, and Miss Needle. These were major characters in Dulcimina.

The serial had an audience of over 500,000 listeners. Put another way, at its peak in the 70s, one in four Jamaicans listened. The programme was cancelled after certain political interests realised that Perkins was benefiting economically from its production. Perkins resorted to farming for some years.

Some who are friendly to a worn politics have not buried the tainted strategy of using and/or seeking to exert influence/control over, especially, the economic sustenance of those who they see as past and/or future barriers. We need to be weary, very weary, of these kinds of persons.

Why? Flash back to post-1972 when the politicisation of almost every institution became the order of the day. The Pickersgill Committee of Political Purity, for example, as it was dubbed, was tasked with screening candidates to ensure that appointees were of “impeccable political purity”. 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)

Some today seem to want to resurrect the ghosts of the Pickersgill Committee, or worse. Attempts to resurrect such a malignity must be resisted democratically with every sinew we have.

‘BADMIND’ SPEWING

Badmind, unfortunately, still has great currency in our culture. This malady is not unique to our shores.

“An envious person requires no reason to practise envy,” so goes a Swahili proverb. Some among us peddle and promote badmind because they know it triggers bad vibes, very bad vibes, and it also ruins.

Bunting’s mentioned broadside in St Elizabeth, to me, was a clear attempt to spew badmind and, by so doing, cause bad vibes. We need to reject this infirm kind of politics. It has not benefited this county any.

Consider this: “Head of the constabulary’s administration portfolio, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Richard Stewart has indicated that, as part of the succession planning and development of leaders from within the organisation, the Accelerated Promotion Programme (APP) has been launched to help fill potential managerial gaps.” (JCF, 2020)

Surely, Bunting must have known about this programme at time of his fulmination. Individuals in this programme are required, as I understand it, to earn promotion fair and square and be eminently qualified.

CLEAR DEFLECTION

There is something else in Bunting’s disparagement which should not escape public scrutiny.

Bunting is seeking political power at the highest level in this country. With just under a year before the next general election is due, Bunting should be telling the country what a future Jamaica will look like with a future PNP Administration at the helm. Instead, he used the opportunity to launch unwarranted attacks. This is a great harbinger.

One does not need a degree in politics to realise that when politicians do not have anything developmental to say they resort to the lowest common denominator. In the past, many Jamaicans were tricked by this basal and non-progressive bait. To keep on making the same error is not a mistake. Like noted writer Paulo Coelho, I think, “A mistake repeated more than once is a decision.” Either we alter our decisions or hug the whirlwind.

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.

Wilmot “Motty” Perkins

Michael Manley

Morris Cargil

Garfield Higgins