Patricia Green | Manley’s affordable housing strategies inspire Mottley’s love theme

…”Grandmother, what big ears you have!”

“All the better to hear with, my child.”

“Grandmother, what big eyes you have!”

“All the better to see with, my child.”

“Grandmother, what big teeth you have got!”

“All the better to eat you up with”

…wrote French author Charles Perrault in 1697 in his collection of Tales of Mother Goose. Across the centuries, many varied interpretations have evolved of this allegorical children’s tale Little Red Riding Hood. Who, therefore, was this wolf? Perrault wrote this 42 years after the English captured Jamaica from Spain.

These tales emerged in the wake of European territorial conquest of the Caribbean, subsuming and annihilating Indigenous civilisations, along with warring with other Europeans powers. Wealth on continental Europe was directly tied to Caribbean supremacy and the African slave trade that originated in the Caribbean, thereafter expanding into the wider Americas. Little Red Riding Hood was written five years after the richest and wickedest city in the world, the infamous hub of English enslavement human trafficking, Port Royal, came under the judgement of God through an earthquake and tsunami, when two-thirds of the town sank into the sea.

On December 10, in commemoration of the centenary of Michael Norman Manley, dubbed by the Jamaica Information Service as “the Reformer”, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley delivered the keynote address at the Little Theatre, Kingston, Jamaica, which was historic at various levels.

Recalling that Barbados was conquered by the English 28 years before Jamaica, there remain deep historic connections between both countries that experienced continuously English colonial rule until independence. Many Barbadian colonists left to help settle Jamaica after its conquest. With the founding of The University of the West Indies in 1948, its Barbados campus eventually housed the Faculty of Law, that nurtured minds in the Caribbean identity and birthed regional prime ministers.

Mottley announced in her keynote address that, as a teenager, she was caught at school reading The Politics of Change: a Jamaican Testament (1974) by Manley; teachers and students criticised her for defying their expectation of her reading instead Mills and Boon and Nancy Drew series, declaring them more gender-appropriate books. She shared various occasions since teenage that she was in the company of outstanding Caribbean thinkers alongside Manley during his visits to Barbados, and the pivotal intellectual role he played in shaping her trajectory. Interestingly, Manley attended the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) earning a bachelor’s degree in government (1949), then later Mottley earned a law degree (1986) from the LSE.

Her keynote address titled ‘Love’, Mottley remarked that, fundamentally, it was about “… caring, seeing, hearing and feeling, about resilience, a word that Michael used more, ahead of his time, than most, and love is about transformation …”. Describing Manley as a most consequential Caribbean political leader with a wide range of interests, Mottley added that he was the most loved political leader Jamaica has produced. She continued that, with the benefit of hindsight, he is increasingly being recognised as a visionary leader whose ideas for creating a more fair and just society out of the cauldron of our colonial experience were often before their time.

COLONIAL EXPERIENCE

The Politics of Change is replete on the colonial experience, “… all colonialism involves a process of cultural displacement … the master servant, superior-inferior relationship has taken many forms in history …”. Manley continued that colonialism as a relationship was inherently immoral, “… inevitable that the circumvention of the relationship by fair means or foul, should become the only relevant motive for human action ...”. I therefore suggest here strong direct linkages to Perrault’s wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. Manley further suggested that colonialism had led to the symbol of ‘Anancy’, the spider of folklore who survived by outwitting all those set in authority above him.

Caribbean man, Manley stated, has natural gifts of resilience and pragmatism, demonstrating formidable prowess in the field of economic adaptation and political action. Colonialism left him with positive strength in the areas of political and economic action and in the mastery of the professions. The Caribbean, therefore, is able to serve as a bridge between the more extreme forces of the developed and the developing world.

Mottley, who has been demonstrating such Caribbean prowess globally, continued in her keynote address that Manley did some things that stood out purely because of the majesty of their legislative and social transformation that broke bonds of slavery, which eluded many countries for decades. This included the establishment of the National Housing Trust (NHT), that Mottley remarked has transformed the fate of so many Jamaican citizens.

What would have precipitated the establishment of the NHT in 1976? I would argue that this may lie in Manley’s confession that the best years of his working life were those he spent in the trade-union movement, and that, if you cut him open and looked at his heart you would find engraved on it the word ‘WORKER’.

BOLSTER HOUSING STOCK

Today, we emphasis the cry for an urgent need to bolster the country’s housing stock to promote socio-economic stability being echoed through the Jamaica Developers Association at its webinar held October 31. The Gleaner article ‘Resilient, affordable housing critical for Jamaica’s future development, stakeholders say’ where Dr Wayne Henry, director-general of the Planning Institute of Jamaica, presented that the Housing Policy identified the existence of a severe housing shortage. Henry indicated the need for replacement of obsolete stock and a demand-supply gap that requires the production of at least 15,000 units annually. Although the Housing Quality Index is relatively good, in about 78 per cent, there are pockets of substandard housing across the country, including many located in unplanned communities. Additionally, over 700 communities are classified as vulnerable by the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management. Henry recommended exploring programmes to widen access to subsidies, grants, and low-interest loans for the purchase of resilient housing.

In recognising the Michael Manley centenary, we note that Manley had observed in The Politics of Change that the United States and Russia would commit vast resources to the exploration of outer space while both tolerate extensive ghettos with inadequate housing. Of Jamaica, Manley wrote that this nation permits ‘upper-crust’ housing developments of entirely unrealistic splendour while the ‘shanty towns’ of Kingston and Montego Bay “… mock the very notion of social justice …”. As we enter 2025, what, therefore, will be our collective response to alleviate construction development disparities that seem to obviate adequate provision of affordable housing and social justice? Are we entering 2025 with love?

Patricia Green, PhD, a registered architect and conservationist, is an independent scholar and advocate for the built and natural environment. Send feedback to patgreen2008@gmail.com and columns@gleanerjm.com