Stanley Redwood’s latest and Jamaica at a crossroads
STANLEY Redwood, former President of the Senate, has written a very provocative and thought-provoking 89-page book, divided into eight chapters, with the title – Change Without Chaos: A Case for the Transformation of Jamaica’s Constitutional Framework.
As Stanley explains in the preface of the book:
“This book has been expanded from an original research presented in the summer of 2012 as part of the requirement for my law degree from the University of Technology.” (p.ix)
The title of the book, ‘Change Without Chaos’ does not reveal what type of change the author is alluding to. However, Dr Grace Virtue who wrote the Foreword puts that question to rest. According to her:
“This work makes a compelling case for revolutionary transformation of the Jamaican socio-economic landscape, grounded first and foremost in comprehensive reform
of the country’s constitution.”(p.vii)
Whether or not revolutionary transformation can take place without chaos is worthy of debate.
Stanley’s revolutionary left ideological analysis of national issues is the only such type of analysis by any person involved in the party political process that we have had in recent years. Members of the left in our politics seem to have, in recent years, retreated from the political and national landscape.
Leaders of all persuasions and from all sectors in the society seem to have fallen in line with the neo-liberal thinking that currently drives national politics and dominates national discussions.
In fact, Stanley himself expressed in the book his awareness of the challenges, which would face any form of ‘revolutionary outlook at this time’, as he observed on page 65:
“Radicalism has been rendered outmoded and radicals are often kept in check by their more powerful, influential and conservative, autocratic, and neo-colonial political overlords.”
Entities and organisations which a few years ago brought a radical analysis to developments in Jamaica, seems to have changed course.
Who can recall the proactive voice of the church, which produced such stalwart leaders as Dr Horace Russell, the Rt Rev Neville deSouza, Ernle Gordon, Oliver Daley and others?
These persons were never afraid to engage in public dialogue and debate with the objective of creating a national ideology that put the majority of our people at the centre of development.
Who can forget the voices in academia, such as those of Rex Nettleford, Carl Stone, George Beckford and Norman Girvan?
What we hear today
are largely economistic arguments bereft of any developmental or philosophical context. Members of academia, for example, need to explain to us what will make the current IMF Agreement bring us economic salvation, when the others before did not.
Where is the voice of labour on national issues? Apart from the call by leaders of unions and associations for increased pay packages for their members, where are those who articulate the position of the workers, in relation to the challenges faced by the country? The role of our workers in the growth and development of Jamaica must be put in a context where their role is seen as paramount and not peripheral.
Where is the voice of the youth? They are the ones who will be entrusted with national positions in years to come. When are we going to get past the infantile partisan political squabbles, among sections of our youth, which from time to time, pass for debates and comments on national issues.
The book by Stanley can in no way be described as simplistic, but Stanley’s theory is simple. According to him, Jamaica’s social, economic, and political dilemma require a radical solution.
He is not an alarmist, but his investigation and research provide us with alarming developmental indices, which he sets out on page 11:
* Jamaica’s public debt surpassed the J$2 trillion mark in 2014;
* Jamaica’s debt to GDP is ranked at number 176 out of 179 countries;
* Jamaica’s exchange rate was over J$114 to US$1 at the end of 2014;
* Jamaica has the second worst income disparity in the Caribbean region;
*Jamaica’s Income Disparity Index slipped from 45.4 in 2004 to 59.9 in 2010;
* Jamaica rank a low 38 out of 100 on Transparency International Corruption Index;
* Jamaica is perceived to be the most corrupt country in the Americas;
* Jamaica has about one-fifth of its population living in squatter settlements;
* Jamaica is the second most poverty-stricken nation in the Caribbean;
* Jamaica has the second highest unemployment rate in the Caribbean; and
* Jamaica had a net negative growth between 2008 and 2014.
Nothing stated here by Stanley is new, but when all are put in one composite table, as he has done, the reality becomes stark.
These findings led Stanley to state:
“The sad reality is that Jamaica is literally subsisting on borrowed existence, on borrowed time with borrowed money. The Jamaican society is in fact a ticking time bomb.” (p.23)
In light of this position, Stanley comes down very hard on past and current leaders. According to Stanley:
“The current administration is far too focused on the blind pursuit of macro-economic fix. The concomitant and dogmatic structural adjustments and austerity measures, with the ‘debt-repayment first growth-later policy’ have left very little scope for social or economic investments… there is no quick fix for decades of humongous high-interest debt or for structural adjustments. There is no quick economic ‘fix’ either, and the government should have pursued a more gradual and less painful process.” (p.24)
I wish to make five points in relation to Stanley’s observation.
(1) IMF policies have had a dismal record over the years in leading developing countries to economic recovery and sustained growth. The IMF and other leading international financial institutions have never taken responsibility for policy prescriptions that do not work. As we strive to bring the national debt down, and create the basis for renewed confidence in the country’s economy, we cannot afford for our economic condition to get worse after this Agreement. If it does, it will be a serious indictment against all of us, especially with the sacrifice our people are being asked to make.
(2) The macro-economic stability of which Stanley speaks is yet to begin to translate into an improvement in the quality of life of the majority of our people. I know it will take some time, but how much time will it take? We need to put this issue on the national agenda for discussion because our people will not forgive our support of an IMF programme, which in the end brings benefit only to a few.
(3) A number of persons in the country are of the view that the IMF-led programme is more about austerity than growth. The reality is that the IMF has never, and does not, set targets for economic growth. It sets targets for fiscal consolidation. The Government must do everything in its power to correct the view that the desire for economic growth is secondary to economic restraint. The public education to inform our people of the steps being taken to increase economic growth must be improved.
(4) The income disparity in Jamaica is one of the greatest challenges faced by a Government. No amount of economic reform or increased allocation to programmes to assist the most vulnerable in the society, as important as these are, will alter this reality. On the contrary, since Independence in 1962, with all the economic reform and increase in the budget for poverty alleviation programmes, economic disparity has increased. During the periods of economic growth in Jamaica, economic disparity has widened. It is a structural problem, which can only be fixed by state intervention. A market-driven economic model, by itself, will not correct income disparity. In most instances, it widens it. This then gives rise to social disorder, including the possibility of increased corruption.
(5) Over 80% of our tertiary graduates have migrated each year during the last 40 years. Someone needs to do the research to find out what this loss to the country represents in dollar value. Apart from the increase in remittances, which those who migrate contribute, we are deprived of the skills and contribution of this vital sector of our society. The increased migration of our professionals and members of our middle class makes it more difficult to generate economic growth. The depletion of the ranks of our middle and professional classes also affects the quality of our civil service; the quality of our politics; the quality of governance and the quality of our way of life.
Stanley believes that change will only come with radical transformation in how the society is governed. The basis of this transformation lies, he argues, in the reformation of the country’s Westminister-modeled constitution.
He puts forward some of the following recommendations for constitutional change:
* Develop an indigenised republican system of government with partial separation of powers;
* Establish the Prime Minister as the Jamaican head of state;
* Reduce the number of members of parliament to 45;
* Abolish the post of Leader of the Opposition and replace it with Minority/Majority leaders;
* Set term limits for important public offices;
* Establish systems of recall for non-performing elected public officers;
* Establish impeachment mechanisms for semi or public offices;
* Entrench local government with adequate funding and authority;
* Empower parish councils to take charge of local social and economic development;
* Remove the death penalty references in the Charter of Rights;
* De-link the attorney general completely from politics; and
* Establish the Caribbean Court of Justice as Jamaica’s final court”.
Some people will be very skeptical, or even disagree, that radical constitutional reform will solve the economic, social and political problems that Stanley has identified.
Many of us may recall that former Prime Minister Bruce Golding founded the National Democratic Movement (NDM) on the basis that, if elected, it would effect radical constitutional reform as the basis to change the major ills in the society.
On the basis of its ‘reform the constitution’ platform, the NDM failed in its bid to win a seat in the 2002 national elections.
The fact is that constitutional reform has never been seen as a priority during an election campaign or when a government is in office. Stanley himself had his own experience. He observed:
“The findings (of his study/this book) were so distressing that they drove me to initiate a conversation on constitutional reform within the PNP, as chairman of the Policy Commission, and within the government, as President of the Senate. The discussion gained very little traction as the Government was pre-occupied with the pressing challenges and the immediate concerns of finding solutions to the country’s urgent economic problems”. (p14)
Having not being able to secure the support of the PNP to be the national vehicle to give life to his proposals, Stanley did not outline in the book, what method should be used to give effect to his recommendations.
I believe, despite Stanley’s experience, that the PNP has in the past, and still has the capacity to deliver programmes that are transformative. For those who may doubt this, I ask you to draw hope and strength from Norman Manley when he spoke at the Party’s launch in 1938. He said:
“There is a common mass in this country, whose interest must predominate above and beyond all other classes, because no man is democratic, no man is a sincere and honest democrat who does not accept the elementary principle that the object of civilisation is to raise the standard of living and security of the masses of the people. If you do not agree with that principle then you are playing with words when you talk about democratic politics”.
If we truly believe in the democratic politics of which Norman Manley speaks, we should at all times, seek to make the masses the centre of our politics. If the masses are the centre of our politics we ought not to be intimidated by Stanley’s recommendations.
His no-holds-barred analysis is refreshing. Not everyone will agree with the content, but it will give us another perspective on how to approach a number of national issues.
Let’s hope his analysis will give some impetus and life to the purveyors of critical thought, many of whom seem quite comfortable with the ultra-conservative orthodoxy that prevails today.
Delano Franklyn, a former Senator, is an attorney-at-law and special advisor to Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller.