EDITORIAL - Sir Howard's greater quality

The death, a week of ago, at 98, of Sir Howard Cooke, is worthy of note for two very significant and related reasons, the first of which is quite obvious: that he was an important political figure.

Indeed, Sir Howard served in the Parliament of the short-lived West Indies Federation and as well as in both chambers of the Jamaican legislature, including as president of the Senate, representing the People's National Party (PNP). He held ministerial appointments in PNP administrations. For a decade and a half, up to 2006, he was the island's governor general. Moreover, three-quarters of a century ago, Sir Howard was a founding member of the PNP and was the last survivor of the group that helped Norman Manley launch the movement that was to play a critical role in Jamaica's evolution as a democracy and national development.

On these bases alone, Howard Cooke has, and deserves, a treasured place in Jamaica's history. Yet, there is something else, perhaps less quantitative than an itemising of specific achievements, that burnishes his seat in that pantheon - that is, the quality of his service and the manner in which he served.

Given his lifelong membership of the PNP, there could never be any question where Sir Howard's immediate political loyalties lay. But his was not a hard partisanship. Rather, Howard Cooke was a Jamaican nationalist, not in the sense of a bigoted exceptionalism, but having faith in the abiding decency of Jamaicans, their capacity to achieve anything to which they applied their minds and efforts, and an unqualified love of country.

Sir Howard displayed these qualities throughout his long life: as a teacher who, inspired by Manley's vision of resting Jamaica's development on the uplift of communities, preferred to use his talents in rural Jamaica; as a social worker who offered his skills to churches and youth groups; as a politician who differed with others but eschewed divisiveness; and as a head of state who embraced all.

In that sense, Howard Cooke was one of those rare individuals who appear not to have been led into service, but was born to it. Jamaica is the better for it.

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