When you subsidise poverty and failure, you get more of both. — James Dale Davidson

The responses to my article last week, ‘A hero no less…’, could be largely placed in two categories: Those who solidly condemned it and, alternatively, those who were overwhelmingly supportive. The majority were in agreement with my position that former Prime Minister Edward Seaga should be honoured as a national hero. Only a few vacillated.

I did an informal content analysis of the e-mail responses (59 up to the time of writing) and found, generally, four recurrent questions/misgivings/assertions from those who vehemently opposed my recommendation.

Why was Seaga disliked so much, notwithstanding his many achievements, they asked? There was a strong suggestion that Seaga made himself into a magnet for hate. There was even a stronger suggestion that Eddie Seaga was Eddie Seaga’s biggest problem.

“It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry,” said Thomas Paine. Some have subliminally bought into the idea the Seaga was the devil, some consciously, others unconsciously.

Admittedly, former Prime Minister Edward Seaga was not the most loved — or even liked — prime minister since Independence. Why? By and large we are a people who believe in form over substance; announcements over achievements; ostentatiousness over pragmatism; and pretence over functionality.

There is a raft of evidence that Seaga was a victim of deliberate demonisation by the local media. That he often provided cannon fodder for his enemies is axiomatic. Racist motivations, deep-seated resentment for Seaga’s achievements, and groupthink are among the major reasons he has been unfairly disliked.

But there is another explanation. World-renowned psephologist and academician, the late Professor Carl Stone, of the University of the West Indies, Mona, said: “Seaga’s dominance of the JLP is generally misunderstood. He is a difficult man to get along with and he is very demanding. In a low intensity work culture in which most people operate at 30 per cent of their capacity, Seaga puts out 100 per cent, which is the main reason why he is disliked by many of his colleagues.”

“He believes in tight party discipline and a strong chain of command that runs the party more like a military structure than a democratic organ. He has sacrificed democracy for organisational discipline. He gets away with it because he is better able to get things done than any other politician in the country.”

“We may not like him, but we are forced to acknowledge that his methods work in a country wracked by indiscipline, irresponsible behaviour and laziness.”

“Seaga’s dominance of the JLP [Jamaica Labour Party] is not just a reflection of his personality or leadership style. Seaga has revolutionised the JLP from being a ‘rag tag’, populist party with no clear ideological direction into an ‘ideas party’, that challenged PNP [People’s National Party] socialism in the 70s with a strong liberal-capitalist ideological and intellectual offensive. Under Bustamante, the JLP was no intellectual match for the ideas party that the PNP was under Norman Manley. The ideas that drive the current JLP are the thoughts of Edward Seaga, and this gives him a level of intellectual dominance in the current JLP that has no parallel in the PNP or the earlier JLP.”

I agree.

“Seaga single-handedly won the ideological battle with Michael Manley and the PNP to the point where Manley and the PNP are now echoing and articulating Seaga’s liberal-capitalist ideology. Any objective analysis of politics in this country over the last two decades has to acknowledge that Seaga, not Manley, has been the political personality who has had the most decisive influence on our country’s policy and ideological direction.” (The Gleaner, October 22, 1990)

Secondly, those who rabidly disliked my proposition that Seaga should become accorded the title national hero argue, and quite erroneously, that Seaga never walked the walk and talked the talk of the Jamaican people. Seaga, they argue, never loved Jamaica and Jamaicans as did Michael Manley. For me, love is as love does. Love is action, not words.

“It was Seaga, who transformed the country’s worst slum, Back-o-wall,” into a modern, low- income residential community, renamed Tivoli Gardens. Tivoli Gardens had a full range of cultural and social amenities for all groups, and successful urban community development. The development pioneered the use of high-rise buildings as a solution to re-housing the densely populated inner slums which succeeded in changing the face of the West Kingston area by not taking a man out of the slum but the slum out of the man.” (Profile of Edward Seaga, p 5)

Seaga was not born in Jamaica. He gave up his American citizenship voluntarily and committed his life to this country. He immersed himself in Jamaican culture, starting with his research Buxton Town, St Catherine.

It is a matter of public record that it was Seaga who started the ‘Food Aid Programme’ locally in 1983. Under the programme, schoolchildren received a high-protein lunch daily; pregnant, nursing mothers and the indigent got food stamps to assist with some of their dietary needs.

“It was Seaga, who launched the concept of the Golden Age Home locally in the 1960s. A prototype home was built in 1985, a second was constructed in an inner-city community in 1988.” (Profile of Edward Seaga, p 5)

Last week, among other things, I agreed with Delano Franklyn, attorney-at-law and senior advisor to former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, that Manley’s achievements included: “The start of the Portmore housing scheme; and finally, the building of more houses than at any other time in the history of Jamaica.” (Sunday Observer, December 14, 2014). I have since received new information which checks out.

Here I give full credit to Bernard Rodriques, a local community historian who responded inter alia:

“I have read your article in the Sunday Observer ‘A hero no less’ on the achievements of both Michael Manley and Edward Seaga. However, I must disagree with the section that said it was Michael Manley who was responsible for the start of housing schemes in Portmore. It was the JLP.

“When the plan to build Portmore was conceived, Norman Manley strongly opposed it. He laughed and asked if they were planning to drown people in the swamps of Portmore.

“The Portmore Land Development Ltd was created, the blueprint was formalised, and preparatory works began in 1968. The Causeway was built to ‘stop’ the waters from the Rio Cobre whenever it rains, as well as 12 miles of roadway connecting Portmore with Newport West. Ninety-five acres of shoreline was developed and other infrastructural work was completed by 1969. Then construction began.

“Independence City was first built with 1,260 homes, given the name because it was the first community built after Independence. Edgewater followed in 1970, then Ensom City in 1971.

“Bridgeport (Phases 1 and 2) – 1972-1974

Passagefort – 1974

Waterford – 1975

Bridgeport phase 3 – 1976

Portsmouth/Southborough – 1979

Cumberland, Westchester, Westbay, etc

Bridgeview, Greater Portmore – 1990s

Westmeade – 2010, etc

“The blueprint with all the development of Portmore was initiated by the JLP and that continued into the 1970s and 1990s under the PNP.”

Father of political violence?

Those who got ague [paroxysms of chills, fever, and sweating that recur at regular intervals] when they read last week’s instalment, argue that Seaga is the father of violence in local politics and garrison politics in Jamaica. This is far from the truth.

Credible scholarship says political violence started to take shape and form in the 1940s. Initially with unfriendly banter, then nasty epithets and vitriol which graduated into stone-throwing and later distribution of assorted weapons, inclusive of Molotov cocktails, also known as a petrol bombs or poor man’s grenades and, thereafter, guns.

The key player in the infancy of political violence in Jamaican was a clandestine gang called Group 69. It was hatched in Western Kingston. Its major objective was the cleansing of Western Kingston of JLP supporters and, in particular, Alexander Bustamante.

Here are snippets of the mushrooming of political violence in Jamaica.

Bustamante was a member of parliament for Kingston Western up to 1949, but had to flee the area because of the level of violence that was unleashed on him and JLP supporters by miscreants, strongmen and criminal members of Group 69 in particular. (

The Gleaner, September 20, 2011)

In 1947, in the run-up to the parochial election in Kingston Western, Hugh Lawson Shearer was attacked by PNP thugs there. His car was burnt. He was beaten and his life threatened. (

The Gleaner, September 20, 2012)

Former Mayor of Kingston Ralph Brown described Group 69 as “defenders of the party” and “companeros of the garrisons”.

It is against this background that political violence germinated and graduated. Gunmen, ginnigogs, and quasi guerrilla groupings were schooled in the unleashing of gargantuan force on one another and the wider ‘supportership’, particularly at election time.

It is a known fact that both political parties had deep-rooted associations with variant dons, notable among them ‘Burryboy’ [Michael Manley attended his funeral], ‘Fedamop’, ‘Buckie Marshall’, and ‘Claudius Massop’. PNP and JLP Russian roulette-type rivalry culminated in 1980.

Shearer was attacked in the 1980s. His motorcade came under fish gun and ‘grung gad’ [stones] ‘fire’ in Falmouth. He wore the scars of that attack for the rest of his life.

“After nine months of violence [February to October 1980, effectively the longest general election campaign in Jamaica], 844 [police official statistics] Jamaicans were killed on account of politics. Shockingly, almost 35 per cent of those killed were slaughtered in the constituency of St Andrew West Central, which had the JLP’s Ferdinand Yap and the PNP’s Carl ‘Russian’ Thompson as candidates.” (Jamaica Observer, October 30, 2012).

Just before Manley announced the election date [1980], pollster and University of the West Indies lecturer Dr Carl Stone predicted in The Gleaner that the JLP would win as many as 40 seats. Going into election day, there were several tragic and eventful incidents. Among them:

* Michael Manley’s motorcade was fired on in May Pen: Manley was shaken but not stirred and did not suffer any bruises. (

The Gleaner, August 29, 2006)

* Tough-talking PNP candidate of St Andrew East Rural Roy McGann and his policeman bodyguard, Acting Corporal Errol White, were killed by policemen in Gordon Town Square a day before nominations opened. (Jamaica Observer, October 30, 2012).

Can Seaga be assigned paternity for garrison politics and political violence? And why does the PNP have twice as many garrisons if Seaga is the author and finisher of garrison politics? The sums, as country people say, don’t add up.

Thirdly, some say Seaga does not fit the bill to be a national hero because the JLP, and Seaga in particular, were anti-Caricom, anti-Caribbean, and silent on apartheid in South Africa. Such a view might well be as a consequence of ignorance.

“It was Seaga, who founded the Caribbean Democratic Union (CDU) of the International Democratic Union [IDU], the international body of Christian Democratic political parties. He was president of the CDU and vice-president of the IDU until he retired from these positions.” (Profile of Edward Seaga, p 21)

Seaga addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1985 and made the memorable call for an intensified attack on the South African rand to reduce its value. In October 1987, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Vancouver, he demonstrated statistically that sanctions were working against South Africa and successfully pressed for continued Commonwealth support.” (Profile of Edward Seaga, p 21)

Dr Kenneth D Kaunda, former President of the Republic of Zambia, in commenting on Seaga’s resoluteness against apartheid in South Africa, said: “ I have listened to you contribute to the discussions at our summits. Each time you have left me impressed indeed. Your contributions on sanctions against South Africa was simply superb. Jamaica should be proud to have you as its prime minister.”

Fourthly, those who say Seaga is not qualified for the status of national hero point to his electoral defeats. If winning election was an adequate consideration for being a national hero some of the world’s worst despots would be at the front the line.

Professor Carl Stone, when asked to name those who have contributed most to Jamaica’s development since Independence, said of Seaga: “ I don’t think there is any other in the post-war Caribbean who has built and left as monuments for posterity, so many institutions and so many beginnings and so many ideas in the sphere of public management. I see him as a sort of Lee Kuan Yew. I think history will record him as the most significant influence.”

Men are failures not because they are stupid, but because they are not sufficiently impassioned. — Struthers Burt

Garfield Higgins in an educator, journalist, and advisor to the minister of education, youth and information. Send comments to the Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com.