Elde-mired in controversy

Orville Taylor

Mayor of Montego Bay, my friend Glendon Harris, seems to be a special case. And he appears to be always afflicted by a bad case of 'misunderstooditis'. Based on events of the past year, whenever he comes to public light, there is always a red flag raised - well, not necessarily red, but any other colour except green.

The issue of the proposed renaming of the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) after former Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) politician Herbert Eldemire has become an embarrassment to the Government, the Montegonians and the Eldemire family. Occupying the position from 1962 to 1972, Eldemire was our first minister of health of independent Jamaica.

Whether he is deserving of the honour or not is really unimportant. Many public places in this country are affixed with the nomenclature of persons who are only remotely, if at all, connected with them. For example, was Washington Boulevard named after the middle title of Norman Manley or the American President George Washington, who owned black people as slaves?

For all his greatness as a symbol, Nelson Mandela did nothing in our nation-building struggle to merit us naming the park in Half-Way Tree as a monument to him. Indeed, the asphalting of his name along the Ferry to Spanish Town strip is something that he ought not to have had.

UNHERALDED HERO

In the 1980s, the Trinidadian government constructed what at the time was the most impressive corridor in the Anglophone Caribbean. Whose name it bears is Uriah 'Buzz' Butler. During the 1930s, he led the labour movement from the grass roots. Like our own St William Grant, who was the one at the helm of the worker struggles in 1938, he handed the glory to a local white, Captain Cipriani. The difference is, Alexander Bustamante got all of the recognition and Grant is so underappreciated that only a poorly maintained park has any vestige of his memory.

To rub salt in his grave, the two architects of division of the Jamaican working class, Bustamante and Norman Manley, have statues to the north and south of the park. So unkind has history been to Grant that many of my media colleagues, up to recently, called him Sir William Grant.

Indeed, given that it was the leadership of Jamaica that was pivotal in the anti-apartheid struggles during the 1970s, the South African government should have given us a Michael Manley park or highway.

More locally, is there any reason why the hospital in St Thomas is not named Bogle?

RENAMING IN LIMBO

Sometimes the controversy is quiet, and though potentially divisive is neatly dispensed with. In 2006, the Trade Union Education Institute at the University of the West Indies was renamed, interestingly, in memory of Eldemire's close friend, mentor, political colleague, boss and finally, son-in-law, Hugh Lawson Shearer. There are many other unionists who could justifiably be so lauded. Yet, it was done with such dispatch that the director of the institute herself was surprised when the decision was made.

As regards the current impasse, it is moot whether or not Eldemire is the best candidate for his name to be pasted on the CRH. There had been another hospital, named the Eldemire Hospital, where he spent a large part of his professional life and which was located in the same city.

Nevertheless, the parish council had made a decision in 2010 that the institution be rechristened after Eldemire. Although it was a Jamaica Labour Party-dominated council and, thus, a Labourite decision, such is the nature of a democracy, where the majority elected a small set of leaders to act on the behalf of all.

Barring a subsequent discovery that the decision of a parish council is contrary to law, nothing can properly be done to subvert it, however repugnant the verdict was. Moreover, two years ago, the move was gazetted, meaning that the official legislative instruments were published. As far as any objections were to go, the only challenge to that decision should be in a court of law, not the court of public opinion, or worse, the private behest of the mayor.

TIME FOR DISSENSION GONE

True, Harris was a dissenting voice in the 2010 decision when he was a minority councillor. However, his time for challenging the process has long past. He might have been right in 2010 that the matter should have been sent to the public for consultation, because consensus is always desirable.

However, it is reported that the current Cabinet, headed by his Comrade leader and boss of his boss, Prime Minister (PM) Portia Simpson Miller, endorsed the move. Somehow, Harris didn't seem to get it, and persisted in arguing, "What should have happened was that there should have been a public consultation before it was approved by the Cabinet, so the process, to me, was flawed; there should have been public consultations."

He might be right in his personal opinion, but for him to do anything outside of what the council agreed or the prime minister sanctioned is plain out of order and reminiscent of the organic fertiliser used in the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) of which he is a pillar.

He might not like the green, although it is the main colour of the JAS and a sign of agriculture itself, but he is both a servant of the people and an underofficer of the PM. Here is where she should have acted decisively - in the same way that she was resolute that she was not going to address the press over the misconduct of Junior Minister Richard Azan or act until all the necessary inquiries were complete.

Once the hint of dissent arose, the message should have been sent to him, in no uncertain language, that the boss ruled and he should act or form his own party. Having waited until it fermented on the compost heap along with the green cloth which was excluded from Harris' swearing-in ceremony last year, Simpson Miller spent her leadership capital and now comes across as a supplicant, begging the Eldemires to accept the decision and honour. On principle, the family decided to not accept the honour because the furore had muddied his name.

Local Government Minister Noel 'Butch' Arscott, a long week after the story broke, sought to explain on behalf of the mayor that he was misunderstood. Rather than trying to block the renaming, as was reported, Harris intended to have a meeting with the dissenting voices to explain the inevitability of the change, Arscott said.

If that is so, clearly, there is a major communication impediment that he possesses, because everybody misread him. And if he has such a difficulty explaining himself so that trained reporters could comprehend unambiguously, he certainly will not be understood by those who oppose the move, unless he is speaking for them.

Whichever way, the matter should not have been allowed to reach these proportions. When it began, it was just a suckling calf; right now, it is just a lot of bull.

Dr Orville Taylor is senior lecturer in sociology at the UWI and a radio talk-show host. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.