An irate 'Farmer Joe'

A.J. Nicholson, Gleaner Writer

Farmer Joe had a lot on his mind: neither Harry nor I could get in a word edgewise. He was irate, livid. Who will ever forget Farmer Joe, with cellular phone at his ear, among his cultivation in the massive Jamaica Labour Party advertising campaign during the last general election campaign, advising Sista P: "A nuh mi seh suh?"

It will also be recalled that I had been introduced to him by Harry, a long-time friend to both of us, at a shindig in the hills of Trelawny, shortly after the change of government. Harry and his family were now on vacation from the United States, and Farmer Joe had gone to see them at their hotel in Negril.

He and Harry had decided to drive over to the district of Reach, beyond Port Antonio, to visit a family friend who had settled there upon his retirement from the same firm where Harry was employed. They had telephoned to tell me of their plans in that regard, and suggested that I could meet them somewhere in St Mary, since I had not seen Harry in the longest while.

So, here I was in Oracabessa, in the company of two men for whom I had come to have the highest regard - Farmer Joe, the independent-minded philosopher, who was not afraid to call a spade a spade; and Harry, a wily, knowledgeable personality, who I had known from school days.

You guessed it: the fare was steamed fish and Red Stripe beer. Harry began to tell me how impressed he was in having driven from Negril without encountering any potholes and, of course, I could not miss the opportunity to remind him of P.J. Patterson's visionary highway initiative, and to assure him that the remainder of their journey to Port Antonio would be equally pleasant.

Unusual manoeuvrings

But, Farmer Joe was not in any congratulatory mood, even though he confessed that he had never dreamt the day would come when he could traverse Jamaica's entire north coast, with such ease and relaxation. But, he had other things on his mind, as Harry confirmed, for both of them had been following the tragicomedy being played out at the Jamaica Conference Centre on prime-time television and radio.

According to Farmer Joe, the revelations coming out of the commission of inquiry had set his mind contemplating so many things. And those contemplations made him angry. He felt that there should be an enquiry into the awkward and unusual manoeuvrings of the entire administration, since September 2007. So, both Harry and I were scarcely allowed a word.

He was pleased that the former governor of the Bank of Jamaica was fighting back. He had never forgotten how his daughter, the teacher, had come home for the weekend, worrying and fretting over the prime minister's reference to the members of her profession as extortionists.

He was satisfied that Mr Latibeaudiere's fight was not to be seen as a fight on his own behalf to the exclusion of others, but it was a fight against all that the present administration had done to compromise public institutions in Jamaica and to besmirch so many public servants. He recalled that, at the very highest level, King's House was not spared, in the prime minister's machinations in trying to get even with Professor Stephen Vasciannie.

Farmer Joe said that he shared the concern of the opposition leader as to whether the institution of the Public Service Commission will ever be able to regain its pride of place in our governance system, should the present method for their appointment and removal remain subjected to the whims of a prime minister.

So, Harry enquired as to the other institutions that he felt had been compromised. Without a pause, he suggested that a thick, dark cloud continued to hang over the Office of the Attorney General to the extent that the public could hardly trust any advice coming out of that department. And, according to him, it was the first time since Independence that the position of solicitor general had been so shamefully placed into the glaring spotlight of public inquiry.

National disgrace

He wondered how the struggle and sacrifice of so many, such as Herbert McDonald, Herb McKenley and Mike Fennell in the field of sports, could have led us down the road to Jamaica's disgrace in our inability to provide proper playing fields for a regional soccer tournament. And, he questioned whether matters had yet settled down at Petrojam. For him, it was an utter disgrace that the entire Government side of Jamaica's Upper House, the Senate, has not apologised for sanctioning the sins of a prime minister, who had publicly confessed his wrongdoing.

The usually calm Farmer Joe was livid; he was really worked up. He was deeply concerned that the prime minister continued to turn his back on all those indiscretions in much the same way as he stubbornly refuses to face his colleagues across the floor, and continues to turn his back to the speaker whenever he addresses the House of Representatives. That, he said, sent a strong signal concerning the respect that the head of government has for our public institutions - a picture and actions speaking louder than a thousand words.

Harry informed him that he should not believe that Jamaicans in the diaspora did not have serious concerns about what was taking place in the governance of the country of their birth. He said that Jamaicans who live in his neck of the woods in the United States continued to marvel at the level of indiscipline, including at the highest levels of the society. But, he was personally pleased that there was more than a hint coming from certain influential quarters lamenting the debunking, by some of those very voices, of the Values and Attitudes project that was initiated by former Prime Minister Patterson.

Farmer Joe cut him off at the pass, interjecting that civil society, including the powerful private sector, should insist that a Values and Attitudes, or some such, programme be pursued with urgency. That, he said, was one of the conditions that they should have imposed on an embattled Bruce Golding for him to continue as prime minister.

He was not against the extraction of a promise to have certain laws passed, even though he had not been impressed by some poorly thought-out pieces of proposed legislation that they had introduced in the Parliament in supposed fulfilment of that promise. But, he was sure that the war to remove the intolerable amount of criminal activity and corrupt practices that looms so large on our radar could not be won by legislative measures alone. Strong, positive attitudes and sound moral values must surely have a place at that table.

Harry got in a punch. Imagine, he said, in Egypt, a country of 80 million, some 300 persons died, as the people rose up and made certain demands. The demands caused Egypt's government to fall. In Jamaica, a country of some 2.7 million, the handling by the Government of a request for a person to be extradited for supposed cross-border drug trafficking and gunrunning caused the deaths of at least 73 persons, and the Government remains in place.

Farmer Joe's studied reply was that Egypt is Egypt and Jamaica is Jamaica. He said that there had been the demand for a commission of enquiry into the stain that was left on our shores, and that he wished to repeat that he was of the view that an enquiry should take place into the conduct of this entire Government since 2007, so that our people would never forget.

He had a word of advice for the Government and the Opposition. The in-depth poverty that he had been witnessing across Jamaica could not be ignored. The crushing poverty that had descended on so many was not a matter for the Government alone; it was a circumstance that all Jamaicans must contemplate. There was no time to lose, he thought: the political leadership in the country was duty-bound to contemplate that circumstance and galvanise the society to confront it.

He was concerned that, with a general election on the horizon, the poverty of the people should not be exploited by those who would seek to compromise the integrity of the voting system by the use of monetary bribes. He said that he had heard a lot of talk that the practice was very much in evidence the last time round, including even the mechanism that was employed on voting day.

So, Farmer Joe admitted that he was deeply troubled. Harry, as usual, wanted to lighten up our encounter before we parted company, and proceeded to ask Farmer Joe whether he still pursued the acting that he loved so much. Whereupon, Farmer Joe confided that, he had been following the action at the conference centre with keen interest, and that when the film 'Web of Deception' comes to be made, he wished Sista P to know that he wanted to play the role of her lawyer, 'K.D.' Well, is Farmer Joe "seh so".

A.J. Nicholson is an attorney-at-law and leader of opposition business in the Senate.