An age of cynicism

Robert Buddan, POLITICS OF OUR TIME

July 4 marks the 118th anniversary of Norman Manley's birth. With all the political controversies going on around us on a daily and weekly basis, we can easily miss the bigger picture, the longer past and the larger future.

There were myriad day-to-day issues to which people devoted their lives back in the 1930s, just as we do today. But Norman Manley and those who invited him to form a political party saw the bigger picture, the longer past and the larger future. This caused them to organise a national movement around the progressive ideas at the time dedicated to the common people to win self-government for them.

But it was a time of great apathy. Popular politics had to be organised out of virtually nothing. Jamaican politics has since moved from an age of apathy to activism, and now to an age of cynicism. The Coke extradition, the Manatt-Coke commission and its report, the Jamaica Development Infrastructure Programme, the dual-citizenship controversies and the series of 'buy-elections', allegations of gifts and hospitality from contractor to prime minister, could only have made Jamaicans more cynical about politics. It also makes cynical Jamaicans wonder about the real motives behind last week's Cabinet reshuffle.

The challenge our leaders face today is to re-energise the national movement at a time of great cynicism. Whereas Manley needed to arouse people from a parochial disconnection from the larger Jamaica and involve them in the pursuit of the country's national destiny, leaders today have to make people believe in the integrity and motives of those very leaders to begin with. Cynicism creates the same result that apathy does: lack of interest and involvement in public affairs.

fragmentation

But there was another problem that Manley and his generation faced. This was fragmentation. There were no really national organisations, except in name. People did not have a common identity, a common view, or common organisations. It was a segregated, fragmented and parochial society of disparate elements.

Manley had to form national organisations like the umbrella civil society, Jamaica Welfare Limited, the People's National Party and labour unions. He had to create a national consciousness. He literally had to create a national movement. Others might have asked him to start a national party, but he realised soon enough that he had to create a national movement. That is what made him more than a political leader. This made him a nation builder.

But today's leaders face an equivalent problem. Just as cynicism has replaced apathy, disillusionment has replaced fragmentation. The old political-trade union-professional-civic alliances have effectively dissolved. Trade unions, professional and civic organisations have become more independent. The media, the market and new forms of networking have given them influence of their own. Significantly, too, a new individualism and careerism have jettisoned older relations of social solidarity, contributing to political withdrawal by younger persons into careers and other self-pursuits.

Global Cynicism

This age of political cynicism and disillusionment is actually global. It is not just Jamaican. Surveys over the past 20 or even 30 years have shown a steady decline of trust in politicians, political parties and governments in Western democracies. The trend continues today.

The old structures of unjust power relations are still embedded. It was different in the 1930s and 1940s. The old structures had collapsed. This opened the way for change despite the age-old apathy. The British and European colonial empires were collapsing. Feudal and plantation systems in the colonies were disintegrating. World War II itself was weakening old authoritarian and military powers. The world economic depression of the 1930s had forced old-style robber-baron capitalism to amend itself to a new form of welfare-market capitalism. Nothing of this sort is happening now. Even the extremely costly world economic recession does not seem to be bringing down anything old and throwing up anything new.

The collapse weakened the old order but there was more. Norman Manley said that many people had been dreaming of a political party before he was invited to form one. But it took a convulsion, that of the islandwide labour riots of 1938, to make it clear that such a party was necessary. And, those labour uprisings did more than expose the failure of the old economy. Manley said they exposed the fact that the leading institutions of the time had failed to inspire confidence and lead public opinion in a proper discussion of the problems of society and the progressive changes that were necessary. By this, I think he meant the press, the business, professional and civic organisations. But nonetheless, a new consciousness was emerging around growing progressive opinion and a maturing spirit of nationhood.

Spirit of Unity

Manley said that it was this spirit of unity that would make Jamaica progress. "All efforts will be wasted," he said, "unless the masses of the people are steadily taken along the path in which they will feel more and more that this place is their home, that it is their destiny. They will then do more for it, work more, more effort, more thinking, more sacrifice, more discipline, and more honesty, than by any other measure you can bring in this country."

Manley believed, in other words, that when we include people and treat them more equally and respectfully, we will get more honest effort out of them. This simple but powerful idea can be thought of as Manley's 'theory' behind low labour productivity, social inequality, psychological alienation and democratic cynicism. No amount of economic good would bring about this unity of spirit and purpose, he said. It had to come through politics. And, you cannot have civilised society without politics, because politics is about justice. The civilised society is the just society.

democratic antidote

In rich countries, for example, there is much anger about the economic recession and millions have marched because they feel that governments are bailing out the rich, not those who were victims of the corrupt corporate classes. They are still marching in Greece and the rest of Europe is on edge. A rich society is not necessarily a just society.

Politicians like Manley believe that democracy is the best antidote to injustice in political, social and economic life. They believe that integrity is the best quality of the democrat. Together, these are the best cure for cynicism. At the launch of the PNP in 1938, Manley warned his colleagues that they would be fought all the way. He warned them against those who were used to running things from behind the scenes. He warned against press sensationalism, and against hypocrisy and dishonesty. He warned against the chameleon "whose colour changes as the wind blows". He warned against all that has brought us to this cynical stage.

Norman Manley's solution to apathy and cynicism was politics first. But it was not politics as we think of it today, that kind where "the word 'politics' should stink in our nostrils". It would be a politics of strictly democratic parties, it would require courage by the members of the party and "it will want a new discipline in what is today the most undisciplined country on God's Earth".

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm.