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BY KIMONE THOMPSON Senior staff reporter thompsonk@jamaicaobserver.com
Saturday, October 17, 2009
FORMER Prime Minister Edward Seaga on Monday criticised the partisan practice of discontinuing programmes implemented under the leadership of one party when the government changes hands.
He was making specific reference to the Jamaica Festival programme, which he said was sabotaged during the 1990s under the People's National Party government.
"We have a very bad trait in Jamaican politics, that if you start something, I must kill it. That's why we were not moving... The festival was too much identified with me and so it was not to be around. I call it one step forward, two steps backward," Seaga said.
The former prime minister, who in the 1960s introduced the festival as a means of promoting and preserving Jamaican folk music in particular, was addressing the Observer's weekly Monday Exchange meeting. He spoke primarily on matters of Jamaican culture but also touched on economics.
"Left alone, festival wouldn't be around today because it was deliberately sabotaged and in the 90s it reached a stage where it wasn't worthwhile turning on the television to watch it or going to it," Seaga said.
"It wasn't until 2002 that it was resurrected with a lot of money spent on it because there was the need for a feel-good event before the general elections. That was the only time festival was recognised since the '90s," he added.
As minister of welfare and development (1962-1967), Seaga played an integral role in taking the music of ska beyond the shores of the Caribbean. One of his earliest accomplishments in this regard was when he got local acts, including Prince Buster, Roy Willis, Eric Morris, Peter Tosh and Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, to perform at the World Fair in New York.
But his passion for the form had been sown much earlier and in the late 1950s he founded the West Indies Records Limited label which produced the island's first hit single, Manny O.
"One of the first things I did when I entered politics was to introduce Jamaica Festival because my intention, and this was what got me into politics, was to get a platform to be able to promote what I had learnt (from research into areas of Jamaican culture) and I came to the conclusion that politics was the best way to do so," Seaga said.
Describing the festival as the quintessential cradle of preservation and promotion of all forms of Jamaican culture, and highlighting the growing popularity of the local culture abroad, Seaga said he didn't believe that the programme would again suffer discontinuaton.
"I feel a little more hope for the future," he said.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/...SAYS_SEAGA.asp
Saturday, October 17, 2009
FORMER Prime Minister Edward Seaga on Monday criticised the partisan practice of discontinuing programmes implemented under the leadership of one party when the government changes hands.
He was making specific reference to the Jamaica Festival programme, which he said was sabotaged during the 1990s under the People's National Party government.
"We have a very bad trait in Jamaican politics, that if you start something, I must kill it. That's why we were not moving... The festival was too much identified with me and so it was not to be around. I call it one step forward, two steps backward," Seaga said.
The former prime minister, who in the 1960s introduced the festival as a means of promoting and preserving Jamaican folk music in particular, was addressing the Observer's weekly Monday Exchange meeting. He spoke primarily on matters of Jamaican culture but also touched on economics.
"Left alone, festival wouldn't be around today because it was deliberately sabotaged and in the 90s it reached a stage where it wasn't worthwhile turning on the television to watch it or going to it," Seaga said.
"It wasn't until 2002 that it was resurrected with a lot of money spent on it because there was the need for a feel-good event before the general elections. That was the only time festival was recognised since the '90s," he added.
As minister of welfare and development (1962-1967), Seaga played an integral role in taking the music of ska beyond the shores of the Caribbean. One of his earliest accomplishments in this regard was when he got local acts, including Prince Buster, Roy Willis, Eric Morris, Peter Tosh and Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, to perform at the World Fair in New York.
But his passion for the form had been sown much earlier and in the late 1950s he founded the West Indies Records Limited label which produced the island's first hit single, Manny O.
"One of the first things I did when I entered politics was to introduce Jamaica Festival because my intention, and this was what got me into politics, was to get a platform to be able to promote what I had learnt (from research into areas of Jamaican culture) and I came to the conclusion that politics was the best way to do so," Seaga said.
Describing the festival as the quintessential cradle of preservation and promotion of all forms of Jamaican culture, and highlighting the growing popularity of the local culture abroad, Seaga said he didn't believe that the programme would again suffer discontinuaton.
"I feel a little more hope for the future," he said.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/...SAYS_SEAGA.asp