Orville Taylor | We need Garvey’s vision to build Jamaica

Imagine addressing a state of public emergency (SOPE), dreadlocks in schools, COVID-19, and a general election all at the same time. Therefore, one might easily forget that tomorrow, we celebrate the 133rd earth day of the second greatest black man who walked the Earth (Jesus being the first). Registered ‘Malcus’ by error or lack of erudition, Marcus Mosiah Garvey had a vision for Jamaica which today’s politicians need to keep close to their hearts. Nomination day is the following day, and the nation gears up for the 18th general election since universal adult suffrage in 1944.

Both major parties have on their election footwear, and each is predicting victory. Of course, politicians lie. Thus, you can choose to believe whichever you wish. Indeed, one should take the neophyte Jamaica Progressive Party (JPP) seriously given that many women took Steve Harvey’s Act like a Lady; Think Like a Man as credible advice. However, please don’t have him announce the winner on September 3, 2020.

Opinion polls are usually instructive and some more accurate than others. Most pollsters got it wrong in 2016 although Don Anderson had it within the margin of error. In my first voting experience, 150,000 strong got it wrong as my former teacher, sociologist of blessed memory Derek Gordon, came out on the wrong side in a battle with his University of the West Indies (UWI) colleague, the legendary Carl Stone. If the polls hold, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) will retain its lien on Parliament as most surveys indicate it to be around 13 to 19 percentage points ahead. But stranger things have happened.

NAVIGATE THE DISCOURSE

Yet, as a black Garvey-influenced blackademic and blacktivist, I am still trying to navigate the overall discourse surrounding our governance. My comments regarding the issue of dreadlocks in schools were made last week. However, Garvey had some clear prescriptions as to how we should govern this little piece of rock in the Caribbean Sea. More than 90 years after we convicted him for criticising judges in his 1929 manifesto, we excoriate local black judges, with some soliciting violence against them. Ironically, what he sought was penalties for judges who ignored the Constitution and laws and passed unfair and corrupt judgments. He was spot on. Yet, today, no one is criticising the judges along those lines. Rather, it seems as if they wanted them to do precisely what Garvey intended them not to. By the way, was his expungement complete as promised?

Garvey would still be sad that there are allegations of vote buying and intimidation, which he militated against in his manifesto. He would be vilified that although he proposed in his manifesto, our independence is conditional, with Her Majesty still being our head of state. Indeed, I personally feel a sense of collective shame that just a few years ago, some of my senior colleagues were speaking as if my plantation was a special creature, being created by royal charter. Thankfully, our Visitor is no longer the Queen, but a regional jurist. Nevertheless, we have some distance to go as we, hopefully, purge the prestigious foreign titles in which we wrap our egos, making a mockery of our national and regional pride.

Nonetheless, he would have been proud that we have one of the most robust black majority democracies in the world.

It is moot as to which of the two parties he would prefer because neither gave him the respect he deserved in his lifetime or in the early years after his death. But what will the results look like?

ONE SEPTEMBER ELECTION

There has only been one September parliamentary election in Jamaica’s history, and that was 2007, when the JLP won against an overconfident incumbent Peoples’ National Party (PNP). This was an election after an SOPE and after the country was grappling with the impact of another natural ‘disaster’, Hurricane Dean. Garvey said, “Look for me in the whirlwind!” and perhaps we should. It is not science, but although ‘mi neva born during ‘51 storm’, my recollection is that the ruling JLP lost the next election in 1955. It also lost the 1972 contest after the 1968 Hong Kong flu pandemic. Interestingly, Hurricane Flora came in 1963 as well.

Hurricane Allen was truly a post-Independence storm as he touched all and sundry and blew the PNP out of office. And then came the most famous 1988 Hurricane Gilbert, who, despite the skillful way in which all came together under the ‘One Don’, sent him and the JLP into a political wilderness that lasted from 1989 to 2007.

Right now, the polls suggest that corruption is not a big issue for the electorate, and that would have really bothered Garvey, but that is the nature of democracy.

Whatever happens, though, make sure you vote. If we had suffrage in 1929, Garvey could have been our first premier.

Dr Orville Taylor is head of the Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.