As the new year unfolds it is important to conduct root cause analyses of the barriers to a better life for the mass of the Jamaican people who have been silently living in extreme poverty.

This punishing state of existence is nothing new for these people but was made more severe during the COVID-19 crisis and the effects of the Russia-Ukrainian conflict.

These adverse conditions, however, are not restricted to Jamaica, they have been prevalent in many post-colonial countries, but they are not taking their suffering silently. It raises the question: Why are the people in Jamaica suffering in silence? It is clear that both the Government and the Opposition subscribe to the economic and political thinking associated with the deepening of inequality, which is linked to poverty and crime.

As we enter a new year, I ask: Who will lead change in Jamaica? Will there be new and independent forces that will lead the people in the struggle for real change in this country?

History of tribalism

The masses in Jamaica have been struggling for a better life in Jamaica since 1838. There have been many forms of resistance advocating a better life for the masses, especially in the years between 1865 and the Paul Bogle uprising and 1938. What is evident is that the calls and fight for a better life in Jamaica were led mainly by black people but joined by some Jamaican nationalists after the militant 1930s. That unity across plantations, established by Dr Robert Love, Marcus Garvey, and Leonard P Howell, along with a few others, was destroyed by the emergence of tribal politics that surfaced after 1942.

In 1938 the Peoples’ National Party (PNP) was launched to fight for a better life for the masses, and in 1943 the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) was formed with an outlook that defended the social and political elites and an undying allegiance to the West. Against this background the PNP was labelled socialist and bombarded by anti-communism propaganda during elections. This negative propaganda became barriers to the PNP rising to political power in the 1940s, 1950s, and in the 1980 General Election. The rich and affluent in Jamaica, historically, did not provide election finance to the PNP because this powerful minority saw the principles and objectives of the party as a threat to their power.

Michael Manley

During the 1970s Michael Manley unleashed a barrage of social, economic, cultural, and political reforms in Jamaica that changed the balance of power in the country in favour of the black masses. His policies involved State-controlled economy, new educational policies, and unprecedented land reforms. I witnessed serious anti-communist propaganda, use of violence, and destablisation of the Manley regime by internal and external forces.

All the far-reaching reforms were discontinued by the Edward Seaga regime of the 1980s.

Seaga was a pawn of the US and promised the people deliverance from communism into a state of prosperity. Seaga’s policies were influenced by the new liberal democratic order as well as deregulation and liberalisation. His policies, in spite of the promise of massive US assistance to rescue Jamaica from the so-called communists and make-believe economic disorders, brought Jamaica to the brink of bankruptcy and major social and political upheaval. By the late 1980s he fell out with his American handler and by 1989 the people of Jamaica expressed their eagerness to remove him from power. They could not wait to see his back and Manley was returned to power in 1989 with overwhelming support from registered voters.

After 1989 Manley probably said to himself that he needed to embrace the political thinking of the day, and after his post-election trip to the US he announced his collaboration with America to “build democracy in the Caribbean”. He reduced his relationship with Cuba — that was devastating. His new thrust was an apparent right turn to compensate for the suffering of the Jamaican people arising from the violence and destablising activities of the 1970s.

I recall a letter to the editor in the late 1980s from a man who castigated Manley for changing from bush jacket/Kariba to jacket and tie. The writer insisted that he would not follow Manley in this new style of dress because his actions were aimed at pleasing his imperialist masters. Manley brought the country to a state of normality, especially crime, violence, and drug running, and those policies were continued by the P J Patterson regime, which returned to some of the 1970s policies, particularly in the areas of foreign affairs and land reform.

The JLP’s rise to power in 2007

The JLP was led by Bruce Golding and at-the-time General Secretary Karl Samuda in 2007. I recall the latter speaking at Mona School of Business and Management after the 2007 victory, where he boasted that the JLP defeated the PNP at its own game.

The JLP, after its victory in 2016 under Andrew Holness, reverted to its policies of the 1960s and deepened its adherence to neoliberalism in this age of globalisation, liberalisation, and deregulation.

A recent newspaper article informed that a list of properties for sale will be made available to foreigners. I must, therefore, ask: Prime Minister Holness, is Jamaica reverting to the old plantation system when big businessmen and foreigners not only controlled the economy but constituted a powerful political group of absentee landowners?

Holness is also a confident disciple of the US. So what we have today is a case of the two major political parties singing the same song, advocating the same social, economic, and political policies. The masses in Jamaica, while they are deprived of a better quality of life, have this herd-like relationship with their political parties. They prefer, it appears, to suffer in silence rather than uniting as a critical mass to advocate actions that will secure profound changes to their harsh living conditions.

Lessons from history

The lessons offered by Dr Love, Garvey, and Howell have been brushed aside by the status quo. The common theme from these three leaders is that race consciousness is a critical component in guiding the black masses to developing new awareness of self and embracing new ideas of self-reliance in order to create a better life for the suffering. One of the axioms of National Hero Marcus Garvey reminds us that, “A people without knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.” Much of our problems in society are rooted in this absence of ruins and mass ignorance of the past, grounded in the lack of consciousness of self.

The masses must desist from seeing themselves as exclusively PNP and JLP and embrace African consciousness as a precondition to resist for meaningful change. There will be no change in Jamaica until the masses form this critical mass that will permit a force that will make demands on their political parties or form a new movement capable of transforming the system and the harsh conditions of existence faced by the majority of Jamaican people.

Louis E A Moyston, PhD, is a consultant and radio talk show presenter. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or thearchives01@yahoo.com.