What if? Remembering Michael Manley

Julian 'Jingles' Reynolds, Contributor

Occasionally, I have asked myself, what if I had remained that Friday afternoon in 1967, at the headquarters of the National Workers' Union (NWU) on South Camp Road to meet with Michael Manley, a meeting arranged by my father, after I had walked off my job as a journalist with The Gleaner Company?

It was early in my career at The Gleaner, and transitioning from the sports desk to covering politics and Parliament. A radio report early one morning stated that Prime Minister Hugh Shearer had, in my interpretation, dismissed the relevance of Black Power and threatened police action against those advocating "black awareness" and parity, in Jamaica that was emanating from the University of the West Indies. I wrote an article attacking Mr Shearer's comments, and submitted it to then Gleaner Editor Theodore Sealy, who instructed me to get the transcript of the news item from the radio station that broadcasted it. I did, and quoted from it in the revised article.

However, Mr Sealy and Ulric Simmonds, the political editor, said I was taking Prime Minister Shearer's comments out of context. I was furious, young, impetuous and radical, and promptly resigned. My intention was to go to Cuba. My father, a port worker, had a working relationship with Mr Manley, arising from their trade union work on the ports of Kingston. He was a loyal follower from 1938 of Alexander Bustamante, who headed the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

But by the mid-1960s, things had changed. Bustamante had retired from political life and Shearer had inherited his mantle as head of the union and, eventually, the party.

My father, more a trade unionist than a politician, at personal risk, agreed to co-lead a delegation to meet with Michael Manley, and bring him into the negotiations. In articles 'The Legacy of Bustamante', which appeared in The STAR, February 20 and 21, 1987, and 'Hugh Shearer and Papa', which appeared in The Sunday Gleaner of May 22, 2011, the relationship of my parents with Jamaican politics and trade unionism was reported.

When I walked away from The Gleaner, my parents asked me to meet with Mr Manley. My understanding was that it was almost a sure thing, me being employed at the NWU. However, when I got to his office, he was not there, and after waiting almost two hours, I left and went from the NWU offices at South Camp Road to the Cuban Embassy farther up Camp Road, where I was discouraged by the Cuban official I met with. He advised me to rethink my intentions.

New champion

A few days later, Papa said Mr Manley was still expecting us to meet, but I felt trade unionism was not for me, and didn't meet with him. With the emergence of Michael Manley, cousin to Bustamante, and the new champion of the Jamaican worker, my dad was forced to rethink his allegiance. My parents, initiated by my mother, saw in Manley the intellectual brilliance of his father combined with the courage and charisma of Bustamante; and a force committed to improving the socio-economic lot of the Jamaican working class and peasantry.

I had resumed my association with The Gleaner, with Mr Sealy publishing a couple of my short stories, soon getting assignments, then quickly graduating to writing features and my own columns in The Gleaner and The STAR. However I did not rejoin the staff. In 1970, I and two Gleaner colleagues, Ben Brodie and the late Eric 'Macko' McNish, were approached by members of the PNP, and invited to strategy sessions in preparation for the general elections in 1972. Michael Manley had taken leadership of the party, and we reluctantly went to one session at the home of P.J. Patterson, but were apprehensive.

Although sharing many of the visions for urban and social development with Edward Seaga, I disagreed with the JLP on many issues, one being its refusal to lower the voting age, and had written in favour of the PNP's position. However, I was uncomfortable with journalists overtly identifying with political parties. My political thinking was more radical than the PNP's. Furthermore, Tony Spaulding, an executive of the PNP, was a friend, and I saw too much envy and hypocrisy within its ranks, and chose not to be associated with that.

I also doubted Mr Manley's honesty, brought about by an interview Leslie Thompson, a fellow journalist, and I had done with him one evening at Vauxhall School in Central Kingston. It was in 1967, and Mr Thompson and I were working on the Gleaner sports desk and had the evening round-up assignment. On this evening, Mr Manley was making a presentation of some footballs to youths at Vauxhall. He was not yet in politics, but my colleague and I saw this as a political move, and queried his political intentions. He assured us that he had none and would not go into politics: It was too "dirty, corrupt, compromising and unrewarding".

Trade unionism was his calling, he stressed. However, within a few months, he was announced as the PNP representative for Central Kingston. Did he not know? It was later rumoured that he acquiesced to his father's request, and entered politics reluctantly. Possibly so, but I believe that he should not have given us the impression that under no circumstances would he enter politics.

untapped potential

The Michael Manley-led PNP won the 1972 election, to my satisfaction, but not with my vote. Over the years of living in America, I attended several functions at which he spoke, but never discussed with him who I was in relation to my father.

Michael Manley, I believe, did not realise his full potential as a leader of Jamaica. There were many serious obstacles he faced internally and externally from those opposed to the socio-economic changes he tried to implement. He appeared to have been too hesitant, and reluctant to make certain hard leadership decisions. Some, like my mother, said he was "a decent gentleman", and refused making the brutal, dirty decisions to maintain power.

A friend, a leader of the unofficial 'street forces' defending the gains and territory of the PNP, told me of furious arguments he had with Mr Manley about allowing "his forces" not to be contained by the police in confronting the street forces of the opposing JLP, and restraining his forces from exerting their dominance over other street forces allied to other PNP executives. Mr Manley, he said, drew a line: For him, there was a limit to the pursuit of power.There was a hard-core set within the PNP ranks prepared to extend and expand upon the brutalities leading up to the 1980 election, documented as one of the cruelest and bloodiest periods in Jamaica's history. Mr Manley, I am informed, said no. The PNP lost.

Indelible contribution

It is irrefutable that he made an indelible mark on modern political thought, both in respect to his 'radical' democratic socialism introduced to the Jamaica body politic, as well as his consistently firm international posture against apartheid, unbridled capitalism and imperialism. He expressed an acute sensitivity to the demands of the emerging masses requiring more of the economic pie that they were mostly responsible for producing. At the same time, he was able to dialogue with and solicit the assistance of the ruling elite, the maintainers of the status quo.

Michael Manley's legacy is to have opened the floodgates of self-reliance and self-confidence for the majority of the people of a poor, small country, and let Jamaicans at the lower socio-economic stratum believe that they also could own property, operate their own business, and rise from servants of capital, to the owners of the means of production.

His other great contribution is to have constitutionally legitimised the status of children born out of wedlock in Jamaica. His weakness, I believe, was in his failure to select and manage those chosen to administer his policies and vision.

Jamaica continues to have very serious challenges, threatening its social stability. The trade deficit continues to widen, with rising importation and decreasing productivity. Thousands of young people idle their lives away unemployed or underemployed. In the closing paragraphs of his book, The Politics of Change - A Jamaican Testament, Manley wrote: "As we embark upon this adventure, one comes to recognise how much in politics rests upon both common sense and compassion, how much rests upon clarity of vision and purpose, and how much rests, finally, upon sheer will.

"It takes great common sense to know that the hopes which are released by the early promise of the politics of change must be justified by subsequent performance. Equally, it takes great common sense to know that the private sector has a vital part to play in that performance and must be given the confidence to make the contribution of which it is capable. It takes great compassion to understand the past pain to which new policies seem to hold the answer and to determine that the causes of that pain must be removed in tomorrow's social order.

"Equally, it takes great compassion to understand the fears of a man who has worked hard for what he has, who has a lot and now fears that he might lose it. He must be made to understand that our mission is creative, and not destructive, and that we wish others to experience his sense of accomplishment by opening the doors of opportunity and not by pushing him back down into the obscurity from which he has climbed."

Michael Manley was surely an outstanding son of Jamaica.

Julian 'Jingles' Reynolds is a writer, filmmaker and entrepreneur, celebrating 45 years of association with The Gleaner. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.