Wilmot ‘Motty’ Perkins — activist, captain of the thinking man
Wilmot “Motty” Perkins was the consummate newsman. His intellect was piercing. He could smell a good news story from a mile away. He had a knack of asking the right questions in the right order, at the right time. He was fearless in his quest to ferret out truth. And he used scepticism like a surgeon’s scalpel.
Perkins was also one of Jamaica foremost human right activists. Unlike some today who masquerade as human rights activists by merely riding on the misfortune, abuse of, and even the coffins of those who are often treated as ‘other’ by the State, Perkins genuinely hated injustice. His unrelenting condemnation of human rights violations by members of the security forces, for example, earned the ire of many, who often conflated his severe criticisms of atrocities, especially by the police.
He was accused of lacking an understanding of the murderousness of Jamaican society, anti-police crusading, and populist baiting. Nonetheless, this man remained resolute in the face of these and other barbs. He frequently repeated the axiom “the State cannot fight illegal acts by itself committing illegal actions”.
I remember Perkins repeating — day in, day out — the names Agana Barrett, Vassell Brown, and Ian Forbes, along with recounting the horrible circumstances of their deaths. Lest we forget.
Recall, “In 1992, Agana Barrett died at the Constant Spring Police Station whilst being housed in an overcrowded cell. The cell measured 8ft x 7ft and was housing 19 men. He, along with the other men, was inside the cell for several hours between October 22 and 24. It was on the 24th that it was discovered that Barrett and two other men, Vassell Brown and Ian Forbes, had died. Reports published are that the men died from lack of oxygen.”
The men were picked up by the police to see if they were wanted in connection with any crime. Quoting from the case, Fuller (Doris) v Attorney General, presented in the Court of Appeal of Jamaica, the trial judge found that “[It]…was extremely hot due to congestion. There was very little air available and this was only accessible through small holes in a metal door for the cell. The cell had no windows and they were surrounded by a concrete wall. Water dampened the floor and, in order to quench thirst, perspiration and water dripping from the walls had to be used, as no drinking water was made available for them…one man had to drink his own urine in order to quench his thirst…” (2012 IACHR Jamaica Country Report on Human Rights)
I think Perkins’ several decades of nearly unceasing campaign against violations by the security forces influenced to a large degree the eventual establishment of the Independent Commission of Investigation (Indecom) by the Jamaica Labour Party Administration of 2007-11, with then Prime Minister Bruce Golding.
Laughs and gems
Wilmot Perkins had a most infectious laugh. I think his laugh discombobulated many, especially some in high places who often wore credentialism as a clock of intellectual invincibility. It was always a treat to listen to Perkins rip to shreds pseudo-intellectualism with his diligent application of research, critical reasoning and rambunctious dissection.
Many refused to appear on his talk show, doubtless for fear that their intellectual veneer would be exposed. I suspect it is for this and related reasons that he took to recording the utterances of the powers that be and replaying them on his programme when warranted. As a consequence of this tactic, several “gems”, as Perkins termed them, were revealed to a much larger radio public audience — certainly to the chagrin of very powerful individuals.
I will share two of the most astounding and simultaneously memorable gems:
‘Chairman for Life’ of the People’s National Party (PNP) Robert “Bobby” Pickersgill made this revelation on a morning talk back programme: “We believe that it is best for the People’s National Party to form the Government; therefore, anything that will lead or cause us to be in power is best for the PNP and best for the country.”
Then, this gem by Deacon Ronald Thwaites, who also hosted a radio call-in programme on the same station at which Perkins had his popular Perkins On Line at one time, delivered this bombshell in one of his soul-searching moments. “The PNP has presided over the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich since slavery.”
These and other gems were played repeatedly. Most listeners, I suspect, learned many of them by heart. The gems Perkins noted were equivalent to the spewing out of the underbelly of what former Prime Minister P J Patterson described as “a fight for scarce benefits and spoils carried on by hostile tribes that seem to be perpetually at war”.
Fearless
Wilmot Perkins was fearless as he was fiery. He never shied away from challenging the establishment.
At different points of his illustrious career in journalism he was branded as Pro-PNP. At other times he was charged as favouring the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). And still, at other times as strongly leaning towards the now nearly defunct National Democratic Movement (NDM). Some have even typecast Perkins as anti-Government.
I recall Perkins saying it was a good thing that so many people had such diverse categorisation of his political perspectives. “This must be an indication that I am doing a damn good job,” he told me.
Perkins never feared being the lone voice. As an example, when the Gordon “Butch” Stewart Save the Dollar Initiative (a grass roots and private sector action to slow/halt the then runaway devaluation of the Jamaican dollar) had achieved broad national support, Perkins questioned whether poor people were not further impoverishing themselves by involvement in the enterprise which, if memory serves me right, was conceptualised by noted psychologist Dr Leahcim Semaj during the time he hosted the then tremendously popular Night Doctor programme on Radio Jamaica.
Perkins re-christened the project the “BS Initiative”. I am sure discerning readers understand his intentions. For a long time Perkins reined some hefty blows on the project.
And his callers, the majority of them, landed some serious body blows on Perkins. Many of them described him as being unpatriotic and pathologically negative.
I remember the tug of war very well. At the time I was completing my final year at The Mico Teachers’ College. I remember many students, me included, were glued to our radio during lunchtime, listening keenly to the face-off between Perkins and his listeners. I remember, too, that Perkins did not faint nor falter.
The year was 1992, and the legendary Gordon “Butch” Stewart decided to invest more than one million dollars per week into the foreign exchange market. It did work for a while. The dollar did revalue nominally, and our economy did temporarily receive a significant boost as a consequence. The initiative did stop a gap, as we say in local parlance — a crucial one at that too.
Hindsight is 20/20, but I do believe Perkins got his sums awfully wrong regarding the utilitarian value of the initiative.
He loved a good argument, and was acutely unafraid of controversy, always inviting robust interrogation against the background of his own strongly held political beliefs.
He was a tenacious defender of free speech. I recall, though, that he did say once on air in the 1990s that he would be prepared to give up free speech for guaranteed personal security resembling that achieved by Singapore, if that were the only way to halt the abnormal rate of murders in Jamaica.
Perkins greatly admired Lee Kuan Yew, the late and venerated first prime minister of Singapore who transformed a poor and mosquito-invested island just about the size our St Thomas parish into a First World country in just under 35 years.
Perkins frequently espoused the view that a fundamental failing of our political leaders since Independence was that “successive governments have never understood the huge and untapped potentials of the Jamaican people, and, therefore, do not know how to release it”. “This is a major hindrance,” he opined.
He argued that Lee Kuan Yew found a unique way to release the potential of his people and that was the secret of his great success in Singapore.
No friend of socialism
Wilmot Perkins was not a friend of socialism. He was not an admirer of socialism’s chief lieutenant in the Caribbean either. In an article titled ‘Dr Duncan and his collaborators’, in The Daily Gleaner of October 4, 1977, Perkins began with this stinging criticism: “Mr Michael Manley is the kind of man that ought never to have been entrusted with political power in a democratic society, for there is no way of telling what he will do with it, and it may well be that this country has been fortunate in that mismanagement of the economy, coupled with failure to find a sponsor for policies he might have liked to pursue, have had a restraining effect upon some of the prime minister’s still secret impulses.”
In numerous articles in the mentioned newspaper Perkins, and his colleague columnists David D’Costa, John Hearn, and others, faithfully chronicled the atrocities of the Manley regime of the 1970s.
These colossi of journalism kept the sanitising heat of sunlight on the Manley Administration of the 70s, which brought our economy to its knees and plunged us into the ignominious category of the Caribbean’s poor man.
Perkins detested irrationality and charisma obsession in politics; these he said were incapable of sustained results to better the conditions of the pockets of people and/or considerably increase the nutritional value of the servings on their dinner tables.
He hated the fact that Manley’s democratic socialism trumped economics and placed a politics of foolish redistribution minus wealth creation at the centre.
Consider this insightful snippet from a Perkins column in The Daily Gleaner on September 4, 1981:
“Mr Seaga should not be worrying about a loss of popularity; if it is indeed true that he has lost popularity. He doesn’t need popularity for another four years and more. What he needs, in the interim, are results. If he gets the results, whatever polls say between now and that time, any popularity lost will return with profit.
“The thing he wants most to avoid is the pernicious notion that devitalised the Manley Government and, ultimately, defeated it with ignominy: that Government was to be conducted as if elections were always two weeks away; that incessant public adoration of the leader was its object.
Heavy price
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 70s. He was fired and, for a time, took up farming. “Farming is the hardest job known to man,” he told me.
He also told me that in the 1970s political thugs in relay-like fashion would ride pass his place of abode shouting threats which I cannot repeat in a family |newspaper.
Interests closely aligned to certain political interests also tried their best to ‘stop his food’, as we say in the streets today. Recall the radio serial Dulcimina, which was written and produced by Elaine Perkins, a superb dramatist and the late wife of Wilmot Perkins. There are some who can still reel off the names of the major characters — Presser Foot, Cyclops, Miss Pinny, Daisy Deepsea, Ramgeet, Roxy, and Miss Needle — at the drop off a hat. Dulcimina 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, Perkins told me, after certain political interests realised that he was benefiting economically from its production.
This was a temporary setback for Perkins who had developed a characteristic toughness from growing up in Portland and his years at Calabar High School. This toughness came into full maturity during his years on radio. Recall he began his career in radio in 1960, hosting the programme What’s Your Grouse?‘ on RJR.
Motty loathed ceremony. He did not mind not being invited to the latest social event. Awards, whether national or professional, did not ‘frighten’ him, as we say in local parlance. His award was being the champion of the thousands here and abroad who tuned in to his programme.
Perkins was captain of the “thinking man’s talk show”. His passengers relished their skipper’s memorable laughter and flavoursome mocking of especially public figures. Perkins’ recognition was helping those who could not defend themselves against the powers that be.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Garfield Higgins is an educator, journalist and a senior advisor to the minister of education & youth. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com.