Horace Levy’s book launch stirs up partisan sentiments

It was an evening of claims and refutations, agreements and disagreements, reflections and desires, and at points it got emotional and passionate. It could not be any other way, for it was the launch of long-standing social advocate Horace Levy’s new book, Jamaica: Fractured Nation Vibrant People, on Saturday, June 11 at Hope Fellowship Church in St Andrew.

The launch was expected to be “as much a celebration of the publication, as it is a celebration of Horace Levy’s powerful, profound and enduring contribution to national development, through [Levy’s] invaluable social advocacy, and scholarship”.

ROLES AND IMPACT

Yet, it was more than that; it reignited and resurrected positive and negative sentiments for our prime ministers and our two major political parties, their ideologies, style of governance, policies, successes and failures, the roles they played and the impact of such. In his opening address, Levy was quick to state emphatically that the book was not “a gimmick for promoting the PNP”, but he was in fact “promoting civil society”.

Levy also said the book “is a journey of discovery”, and he hoped it would be “a journey of discovery for all”. It focuses on two critical periods of Jamaica’s social history. The first period ran from 1920 to 1980, and the second period, from 1981 to the present. “The careful reader will perceive that critical hope is placed less in the parties than in civil society broadly understood,” a section of the media notes read.

In the scheme of things, the role of civil society, comprising community and other organisations, is critical, the book is espousing. Its essence, Levy said, is that Jamaica is divided by politics, culture and class. Fundamentally, it is asking: where are we from, and where might we be heading, after 101 years? For, we “have ended up with an absence of the sense of community in Jamaica”. “We are not one community, we are fractured, very badly,” he noted.

He then went on to say who had engendered the disunity, how it was created, and its negative impact on the country. Yet, there are positives, such as an outstanding health service, judiciary, media and freedom of the press, and vibrant people in sports and culture who are “bringing it together”.

“We can’t rely on the political parties to do it. We have to turn to civil society,” he declared, while at the same time admitting that civil society itself is “divided”. “The drift of my book is not to come down on either side, but is to urge on civil society the task of bridging the divide,” Levy said, while suggesting in no uncertain terms that social democracy rather than socialism and capitalism is the way to go.

Former prime minister, Bruce Golding, was the first to respond to Levy, and gave him credit for adding value to “the existing literature”. He commended Levy on his “conscientious effort to be fair and to be objective”. Yet, he said the book has “factual inaccuracies”, but “these inaccuracies, wherever they appear, they do not distract from the essential points that Horace has sort to make”. He also said he was disappointed that while Levy was placing blame for the disunity on the political parties, he painted the JLP as the “aggressors” and the PNP as the “defenders”. Among other things, he said while he supports Levy’s advocacy for civil society, he was also “disappointed with some of the assumptions and conclusion”, but “understands the prism through which they are derived”.

Attorney-at-law Howard Mitchell, former president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, took issues with Levy and Golding from the very start of his presentation. He said it did not matter who started the political disunity, because both parties “provide much of the agenda for the violence”. In criticising both major political parties, he said we have allowed them to “consume too much of our society” and that “it is time to push back”. In response to Levy’s claim that “capitalism is on its way out”, Mitchell said, “Capitalism has morphed, and is still morphing, changing in a way that some of the socialism that he spoke about cannot change, too rigid, and because it is too rigid it will not survive.”

Dr Nadiya Figueroa, civil society advocate, was the third discussant. In her introduction, she said she wanted to look at the civil society elite, “for what I want to say is that, looking at the way that Horace has broken down the story that we are coming from, you see that there is a way in which we pursue power, relate to each other, and develop our institutions and systems that [have] certain traits and characteristics that the politicians alone are not guilty of. In looking at civil society and the future, I want to say we have a lot to learn because we are not innocent … and civil society is a whole plethora of actors.”

She had earlier prefaced that by saying she wanted to respond to Howard Mitchell, in much the same way Golding had responded to Levy, and Mitchell to Golding. It was a conversation they were having, with Carol Narcisse being the moderator/commentator.