Ronald Thwaites | From Michael to Mia to us…

As Elijah passed the mantle of prophesy to Elisha, so leadership of Caribbean political philosophy has passed from Michael Manley to Mia Mottley. Applying Michael’s book The Politics of Change to the dramatically altered context of current regional realities, the lady prime Minister of Barbados, speaking extemporaneously just as her mentor was wont, plotted for her Jamaican audience last week, a vision of unity, solidarity and advocacy towards a dignified and fulfilling future for Antillean people.

The trouble was that she spoke to a mostly grey-haired crowd of Manley-philes with only a sprinkle of under-fifties in attendance. Troubling, because her message and mood are what can galvanize young people to see their spiritual and material prospects in Jamaica instead of across the waters.

CLIMATE CHANGE THE HOOK

Identifying the climate change emergency as a hook for the concern of all humanity, Mia offered a clear-eyed narrative of its causes and soon-unavoidable consequences and charged us, the repeat victims of the Industrial Revolution, to chart a politics of advocacy and communication even with those (like “the Donald”) with whom we profoundly disagree on ideology or practical policy.

As she spoke, I wondered which of our political, religious and commercial leaders who thrive on disagreeing with each other, would take her on.

Then I thought about the Bill to amend the Constitution, tabled last week too , which everybody knows is going nowhere: why? Because we are drunk on the sour wine of British political culture which makes us reflexively believe that division will keep us free and that pursuit of the common good is a sign of compromise and failure.

So we fight each other, preen our stubbornness, treat criticism as personal insult, while others rape our resources by their usury and pollute our planetary home to the verge of extinction.

VALE ROYAL ‘BRUK-DOWN’

It is unacceptable to the point of treachery that the robust and enduring negotiations as to how, when and in what way to modernize Jamaica’s fundamental law, are yet to take place.

It is a government’s responsibility to instigate and maintain such discourse. They have failed to do so, calcified in their arrogance,, obviously hoping to gain some advantage by pointing-finger at the People’s National Party as being a spoiler when it is they, with our money, who have drawn bad card from the outset.

So we are left with a ramshackle and unfit-for-purpose outcome; a Bill missing the things which the people at every public meeting have said they want changed and scarily resembling the disgraceful and embarrassing bruk-down husk of Vale Royal where, ironically, the deals for radical change should have been brokered.

CHANGING HEARTS

Ms Mottley spoke of Manley’s commitment to equality of opportunity and his understanding that social relations and cultural context are as indispensable as fiscal orderliness in the development of a people.

For example, her call is for a changed mentality towards work in these increasingly hostile times when there is no conscience-striken “boops” around, no monarch to cuss and decreasing exit points for all of us – not just hapless Haitians. Work-an ingredient of dignity, must no longer be a dirty four-letter word.

That new consciousness requires a spirit of solidarity. That’s why she cherry-picked Joshua’s mantra, “The Word is Love” on which to hinge the themes of shared humanity, the common spirituality of the Caribbean people.

RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

What should these delightful, bracing thoughts mean for our polity? In the same week that Mia spoke, the news told of a bright young boy, stricken with a life-threatening ailment, for whom funds to save him have to be begged, years after we have been promised a national health insurance scheme.

His mother pleads, as does the distraught mother of the fourteen year old girl who died, perhaps from less-care, after giving birth. In both instances there is no mention of the fathers of these children. Instinctively we assume that they are “not in the picture”. Neither are they mentioned in the reports of the negligent burning- death of the two little boys in Culloden, Westmoreland. The children are made holocausts and their mothers and most women accept or are pressured into the ultimate “wokish”, personalist position that makes single motherhood the norm rather than the unfortunate exception.

Whoever is in power, under whatever ideology, despite all history, beautiful Jamaica cannot flourish as it should without stable families. We men need to internalize the wrong we do to our own dignity, our intimate partners, to our children and the nation when we have unprotected sex without commitment to parenting.

IS “THE WORD LOVE”?

Mia Mottley reminded us that the freedom and dignity – the agency of independence, denied by the structures of the past and present, require concomitant personal, national and regional responsibility if “the Word is Love” is to have meaning. What must that imply for both national policy, cultural expression and personal behaviour in 2025 Jamaica?

She proposed a life of compassionate engagement instead of detached individualism; her own persona epitomizes the energy, community and satisfaction that comes from the conviction that one’s activity can make a positive contribution, however small, to what she called “the global commons”.

Behaving like owners instead of “tenants on our own land” demands big changes to our mental and political landscape. Given that there is no coherence any longer in a media world where content is everybody’s whim and fancy, our schools become even more pivotal as places to culture humanism and citizenship. The well-intentioned National Standards Curriculum is clearly not fit for this task since it underestimates the social deficit and overstresses academic content and an exam culture.

Our thinkers and policy makers should devote the end of year break to contemplate necessary changes. This coming summer must be spent orienting teachers and students towards new content of teaching, learning and acceptable conduct.

What an exciting and productive prospect that could yield!

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. He is former member of parliament for Kingston Central and was the minister of education. He is the principal of St Michael’s College at The UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com