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Criticisms of the PNP's Agenda were expected
MARK WIGNALL
Thursday, August 25, 2011
LEE Qwan Yew, prime minister of Singapore from 1965 to 1990, has alluded to a country's culture as the number one reason for its socio-economic success.
At Independence, Lee's understanding of his country's culture brought about his selective manipulation of it, its laws and its institutions in his firm belief that that was the price to pay in his socio-economic vision of taking the country from backwoods status to first-world in the short period of less than a generation.
So at the outset, so firm was he in the conviction that his people had seen sufficient pain in the past to place a high value on the dream he was selling and follow him, he neutered the media and the trade unions to ensure unfettered passage of his long-term plans and the absence of impediments as he strode towards the future.
Not only did Lee have an acute understanding of his country's culture, he knew what that culture would allow him to get away with politically. And because he was allowed so much power by his people, he and his leadership became an integral part of the culture even as he added to it and used it to advance the cause of his people and the nation he so dearly loves. In plain language, the people gambled on him, his "benevolent autocracy" and his outsized dream, and they won big time.
A Lee Qwan Yew would last one political term in Jamaica, two at the most, and then there would be civil war.
This country has never fought for anything beyond the odd vicarious kick we get whenever our specific pick of national hero and martyr is invoked once per year. Sufficiently large numbers of us have not yet developed the sophistication which comes from appreciating individual effort and space but piecing it together for the common good. Too many of us who abhor education and embrace sloth, do so through two generations, then claim that some not too hidden hand is "fighting against us".
Singapore saw wars, subjugation, bloodshed, pain in the period leading up to and including World War 2, just 20 years before gaining its Independence. What do we have as our pain of the past to ensure that we place supreme value on what we now have? The names of some heroes whose noble deeds are buried in the pages of boring textbooks.
Invoked in the PNP's Progressive Agenda is its near-national hero, Michael Manley. The last time Jamaica gambled big time on a political leader, Manley was the man of the moment, the oracle. But what was his understanding of our culture and how it could be skilfully crafted to create a better people and a wealthier Jamaica?
Under the heading Situation Analysis, on page seven of the Agenda is stated, "Individualism characterises the attitude and behaviour of many Jamaicans, which presents great challenges to the "old" way of accomplishing objectives through groups".' On that the Agenda is dead right.
On page 11, under the "I/We" heading is another pertinent observation. "Progressive individualism cannot by itself lead to sustainable development of a society but can play an essential role in developing a progressive whole, embracing all Jamaicans."
If Michael Manley had really understood Jamaica's culture of individualism, and bright man that he was, the geopolitical realities vis-à-vis the powerful United States of America in the Cold War era, why did he toy with this nation with his "democratic socialism", a concept and political practice which required individual sacrifice for the common good, when by all sociological and cultural readings it was doomed to failure?
I have mentioned Manley because the Agenda, while noble in its intentions, has seen it fit to burnish the past performances of its leaders through their policy achievements without once making mention of the glaring ideological missteps and policy management failures of those very leaders that have contributed to Jamaica marching in one place for much too long.
As a document which purports to initiate the PNP's broad mission statement, I like the Agenda, but a document is only as good as the ability of the political establishment to bring about those changes and properly manage them. As the PNP is no virgin on prom night, it needed to have provided an honest assessment of its past as a prelude to where it wants to take us.
That burden is on the PNP much more than the JLP because it held power between February 1989 and September 2007, a period of 18 1/2 years during which the majority of countries in the region marched past us and left us in their dust.
The Agenda needed to have purged the soul of the PNP by yielding to the truth on garrison and gun politics and clientelism which has debilitated our country and debased our culture, making it extremely difficult for the people to trust any government and move in synch with it as we strike out on our future.
If the Agenda is the brainchild of the committee which formulated it, what guarantee do we have that the PNP's present leader Portia Simpson (whose short run as PM indicates that she is prone to redistributionist policies as a first priority) will be fully on board as a true 21st century leader?
Where the Agenda states on page 38 under the heading The Youth, "The Progressive Agenda must be seen as a vehicle that will ultimately allow for freedom of exit and entry of the human resource to avenues of choice and the efficient use of youthful human resource", it needed to have addressed the truth on the 40 per cent of the Jamaican working-age population that is unemployed.
Our future is going to be made difficult due to the fact that much of what was seen as undesirable sub-cultural blips on the radar 40 years ago is now fully assimilated into mainstream Jamaican culture. Lee Kwan Yew would understand that, but were he here attempting to proscribe the more undesirable elements of that culture, we would string him up because too many of us place too high a value on the worst traits inside of us and around us.
The PNP and the JLP have been afraid to address this real 40 per cent unemployment rate because there are no easy answers. The last time we had a leader who could have got away with many excesses of political leadership a la Lee Kwan Yew, he, Michael Manley, muffed it by a misreading of our culture and socio-political experimentation.
The Agenda is a noble document, but for now, in this period of political mistrust, it is mere pretty paper.
Portia Simpson Miller, leader of the PNP, has been the most "shielded" political leader in this country. Many speak for her. We need to hear her flesh it out.
observemark@gmail.com
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1W5Sscs6k
MARK WIGNALL
Thursday, August 25, 2011
LEE Qwan Yew, prime minister of Singapore from 1965 to 1990, has alluded to a country's culture as the number one reason for its socio-economic success.
At Independence, Lee's understanding of his country's culture brought about his selective manipulation of it, its laws and its institutions in his firm belief that that was the price to pay in his socio-economic vision of taking the country from backwoods status to first-world in the short period of less than a generation.
So at the outset, so firm was he in the conviction that his people had seen sufficient pain in the past to place a high value on the dream he was selling and follow him, he neutered the media and the trade unions to ensure unfettered passage of his long-term plans and the absence of impediments as he strode towards the future.
Not only did Lee have an acute understanding of his country's culture, he knew what that culture would allow him to get away with politically. And because he was allowed so much power by his people, he and his leadership became an integral part of the culture even as he added to it and used it to advance the cause of his people and the nation he so dearly loves. In plain language, the people gambled on him, his "benevolent autocracy" and his outsized dream, and they won big time.
A Lee Qwan Yew would last one political term in Jamaica, two at the most, and then there would be civil war.
This country has never fought for anything beyond the odd vicarious kick we get whenever our specific pick of national hero and martyr is invoked once per year. Sufficiently large numbers of us have not yet developed the sophistication which comes from appreciating individual effort and space but piecing it together for the common good. Too many of us who abhor education and embrace sloth, do so through two generations, then claim that some not too hidden hand is "fighting against us".
Singapore saw wars, subjugation, bloodshed, pain in the period leading up to and including World War 2, just 20 years before gaining its Independence. What do we have as our pain of the past to ensure that we place supreme value on what we now have? The names of some heroes whose noble deeds are buried in the pages of boring textbooks.
Invoked in the PNP's Progressive Agenda is its near-national hero, Michael Manley. The last time Jamaica gambled big time on a political leader, Manley was the man of the moment, the oracle. But what was his understanding of our culture and how it could be skilfully crafted to create a better people and a wealthier Jamaica?
Under the heading Situation Analysis, on page seven of the Agenda is stated, "Individualism characterises the attitude and behaviour of many Jamaicans, which presents great challenges to the "old" way of accomplishing objectives through groups".' On that the Agenda is dead right.
On page 11, under the "I/We" heading is another pertinent observation. "Progressive individualism cannot by itself lead to sustainable development of a society but can play an essential role in developing a progressive whole, embracing all Jamaicans."
If Michael Manley had really understood Jamaica's culture of individualism, and bright man that he was, the geopolitical realities vis-à-vis the powerful United States of America in the Cold War era, why did he toy with this nation with his "democratic socialism", a concept and political practice which required individual sacrifice for the common good, when by all sociological and cultural readings it was doomed to failure?
I have mentioned Manley because the Agenda, while noble in its intentions, has seen it fit to burnish the past performances of its leaders through their policy achievements without once making mention of the glaring ideological missteps and policy management failures of those very leaders that have contributed to Jamaica marching in one place for much too long.
As a document which purports to initiate the PNP's broad mission statement, I like the Agenda, but a document is only as good as the ability of the political establishment to bring about those changes and properly manage them. As the PNP is no virgin on prom night, it needed to have provided an honest assessment of its past as a prelude to where it wants to take us.
That burden is on the PNP much more than the JLP because it held power between February 1989 and September 2007, a period of 18 1/2 years during which the majority of countries in the region marched past us and left us in their dust.
The Agenda needed to have purged the soul of the PNP by yielding to the truth on garrison and gun politics and clientelism which has debilitated our country and debased our culture, making it extremely difficult for the people to trust any government and move in synch with it as we strike out on our future.
If the Agenda is the brainchild of the committee which formulated it, what guarantee do we have that the PNP's present leader Portia Simpson (whose short run as PM indicates that she is prone to redistributionist policies as a first priority) will be fully on board as a true 21st century leader?
Where the Agenda states on page 38 under the heading The Youth, "The Progressive Agenda must be seen as a vehicle that will ultimately allow for freedom of exit and entry of the human resource to avenues of choice and the efficient use of youthful human resource", it needed to have addressed the truth on the 40 per cent of the Jamaican working-age population that is unemployed.
Our future is going to be made difficult due to the fact that much of what was seen as undesirable sub-cultural blips on the radar 40 years ago is now fully assimilated into mainstream Jamaican culture. Lee Kwan Yew would understand that, but were he here attempting to proscribe the more undesirable elements of that culture, we would string him up because too many of us place too high a value on the worst traits inside of us and around us.
The PNP and the JLP have been afraid to address this real 40 per cent unemployment rate because there are no easy answers. The last time we had a leader who could have got away with many excesses of political leadership a la Lee Kwan Yew, he, Michael Manley, muffed it by a misreading of our culture and socio-political experimentation.
The Agenda is a noble document, but for now, in this period of political mistrust, it is mere pretty paper.
Portia Simpson Miller, leader of the PNP, has been the most "shielded" political leader in this country. Many speak for her. We need to hear her flesh it out.
observemark@gmail.com
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1W5Sscs6k
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