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"A country redeemable"
by Cedric Wilson (Contributor) - Jamaica Gleaner

This article was originally published in two parts on Monday 24th and Tuesday 25th ,October 2005 and is
property of the "Jamaica Gleaner" dayly newspaper, Kingston, Jamaica, W.I.

Part .1

On the day Marcus Garvey returned from the United States in December 1927, thousands of people gathered at
the port in downtown Kingston to welcome him home. Then, it was a crowd larger and denser than any other
single gathering witnessed in Jamaica before. The hero of the moment, a deportee - a man who had spent two
years and nine months in the Atlanta Federal Prison convicted for a dubious misdemeanour.

Garvey was an outspoken and uncompromising advocate for the transformation of the condition of black people
worldwide. And that, in fact, was his real crime - an idea which both white America and the ruling class in
colonial Jamaica found subversive and dangerous.

FOUNDER OF UNIA

Some 13 years earlier, after travelling to Latin America and England, Garvey returned to Jamaica and
founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). But the UNIA did not really become a veritable
mass organisation with global reach until he migrated to New York in 1916.
The black America that Garvey found was one that was languishing for a different kind of leadership.
There was a growing contradiction within the society; Negroes in the northern cities were making some
measure of economic progress but still felt excluded.
On the other hand, Negroes in the south were experiencing increasing racial violence and deepening
segregation. In Alabama alone, between 1885 and 1918 some 250 black people were lynched. In addition,
the notion of black inferiority was turned upside down when Jack Johnson became the world heavyweight
champion in 1908. For seven years Johnson reigned supreme as champion clobbering, flooring and jeering
many a Great White Hope. Afro-Americans, who had served in World War I and who had returned expecting to
find respect and acknowledgement, which Booker T Washington had preached about, were disillusioned. The
mood had changed and the passive, gradualist doctrine embraced by the some black leaders was increasingly
becoming unpalatable to many black Americans. The factors that shaped the black slavery experience in
America were fundamentally different from those in the British West Indies. Most important among these was
the fact that in America, blacks were slaves but they were also a minority. In the British West Indies,
blacks were slaves but they were a majority.

AGGRESSIVE LEADERSHIP

Indeed, it was in this leadership vacuum that Marcus Garvey, the mesmerising orator and tireless organiser,
stepped. The leadership he provided was militant and assertive; his message - propellant and visionary. It
was a leadership that repudiated the spineless "hat-in-hand" image of the Negro and emphasised black pride,
black self-reliance and international black unity. It was, therefore, not surprising that in a few brief
years Garvey had establish 727 chapters and divisions of the UNIA throughout the U.S. and boasted a
membership of three quarters of a million people. At a UNIA convention at Madison Square Garden, New York,
in 1920, 25,000 members were present. At its peak, Garvey's newspaper The Negro World, had a worldwide
circulation of 200,000. Such was the scale and impact of Garvey in the 1920s. Indeed, he gave currency
to the notion of the 'New Negro in America' and provided substance to the Harlem Renaissance. In a sense
he was more than a man - he was a phenomenon. Therefore, when Garvey returned to Jamaica in 1927, he
immediately turned his attention to politics with the hope of improving the lives of his fellow Jamaicans.
In December 1928 he established the People's Political Party (PPP) which participated 13 months later in
the election to the Legislative Council. It is significant to note that although Garvey's outlook was
radical in its orientation, it sought to effect change through existing colonial framework.

A TROUBLE MAKER

The PPP was popular among the masses, but failed miserably at the poll. This was primarily because only
landowners were allowed to vote back then. In addition, the small landowners who represented the majority
of voters threw in their lot with the ruling colonial class because they saw Garvey as a rabble rouser and
trouble maker. And yet, placed in its proper historical context, Marcus Garvey's party manifesto succinctly
represents the most daring and far-sighted set of ideas ever assembled in a single political declaration
in the history of Jamaica. Consequently, it came as no surprise that the three-month sentence Garvey
served in the St. Catherine District Prison was associated with one of the proposals in the manifesto.
Marcus Garvey's PPP manifesto was based on profound understanding of the socio-economic underpinnings
of Jamaica's plantation economy and identified what was required to release the productive energies of
the people. The manifesto recognised that the conditions under which a man worked affected his output.
And as such, a national minimum wage, insurance coverage for workers and an eight-hour work day was
proposed. Another programme put forward in the manifesto called for parish councils, under the direction
of the central government, to be responsible for the building of low-income houses with modern conveniences
and easy payment terms.

Part .2

In keeping with his doctrine of self-reliance, National Hero Marcus Garvey saw that a major obstacle to the
development of a skilled and technically competent labour force was the dependence on foreign expertise. To
remedy the situation, the manifesto conceived of a plan that would make it compulsory for at least 60 per
cent of the labour force in all industrial, agricultural and commercial activities to be Jamaicans. Moreover,
he knew that progressive labour legislation, by itself, was not sufficient to increase the levels of
productivity and accelerate development. Education and training was critical to the process. The manifesto
proposed the establishment of a Jamaican university and polytechnic, as well as free secondary education.
It also recognised the need for the setting up of high schools at night for those who wanted to further
their education.

IMPACT OF ELECTRICITY

In his travels throughout the U.S., Garvey had seen the impact of electricity on production and how it had
influenced the use of new technology. The manifesto called for Government's involvement in expanding the
supply of cheap electricity to growing economic centres throughout the island.
It is also evident that Garvey understood the connection between savings and investment, and was aware of
the fact that the low savings rate might not have been adequate to spur the kind of capital injection
necessary for the sustained growth required to rapidly improve the standard of living of the average
Jamaican. The manifesto ambitiously called for the Government to secure a loan of at least three million
pounds from the imperial government to put idle crown lands into agricultural production and aggressively
market the output overseas. This, according to the manifesto, would address the unemployment problem the
country faced. Although the manifesto did not elaborate the idea, it was obvious that Garvey believed that
land reform was important in order to improve the quality of life and raise the level of output of the
rural peasants. Marcus Garvey's vision was bold and awe-inspiring, yet he was a John the Baptist, a voice
crying in a harsh colonial wilderness. After the January 1930 electoral defeat, Garvey's PPP went out of
existence, yet there remained the memory of what could have been.
The genius of Marcus Garvey, the persecution he suffered and the unrelenting struggles he faced never
completely left the Jamaican psyche. When the Rastafarian faith took root in Jamaica, Garvey was installed
as the chief prophet. Actually, he may be considered the equivalent of Prophet Isaiah in the Christian
faith. In the same way Isaiah, through his words, is deemed to have prophesied the advent of the Christ,
Rastafarians believe that Garvey was the one that pointed them to the black Messiah - Emperor Haile
Selassie. Marcus Garvey's electoral defeat has passed into legend and has left lingering cultural images
of betrayal and the politics of empty stomachs on the cultural landscape. The notion of a political
sellout conjures images of the masses trading votes for a bellyful of rice and peas; political betrayal
is still associated with an enigmatic Judas-like figure called Bag-a-wire who wandered the streets,
insane and forever twisting a large coil of wire after acting as a colonial informer on Garvey.

PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE

However, it was in the 1970s that Garvey's idea achieved practical significance. After Michael Manley's
People's National Party was swept into power on a massive tide of popular support under the slogan 'Better
Must Come', the administration embarked upon a programme of social change. Indeed, the regime took upon itself
the task of implementing many of the ideas from Garvey's manifesto. A National Minimum Wage was established,
free secondary education introduced, a literacy campaign based on volunteer teachers and night classes (JAMAL)
was launched, and the National Housing Trust was set up to build affordable houses for Jamaicans.
An attempt was made to develop agriculture with an emphasis on land reform and local marketing. It was in this
regard that the Agricultural Marketing Association was formed to move agricultural produce from the farm gate
to urban centres. While many urban centres already had electricity, Garvey's proposal for the expansion of
electricity was refashioned as something desirable in remote rural areas. Out of this, the Rural
Electrification Programme was born. The Manley administration of the 1970s adapted aspects of Garvey's
ideas and created the instructional framework within which they could be implemented.
The impact of Marcus Garvey was not entirely restricted to politics in the 1970s. Jamaica saw a cultural
renaissance in the ideas of Garvey in the middle of the decade. Songs such as Marcus Garvey's Word Come
to Pass by Burning Spear and When the Right Time Come by the Mighty Diamonds both reflected and influenced
a consciousness and appreciation for Garvey and his centrality to black pride and black identity.
In retrospect, the PNP regime of the 1970s is often reviled for its failure to maintain the growth path
the country was on during the 1960s. Some have argued that it was because of the inward-looking economic
strategies that it pursued. Others say that it was the regime's inability to cope with the exogenous shock
created by oil crisis in the middle of the decade. Indeed, a range of other hypotheses exist ranging from
sabotage to socialism, but nobody will deny that the 1970s represents a crucial turning point in
Jamaica's socio-economic development.

REDISTRIBUTION OF INCOME

Many of the social-economic policies introduced by the Manley regime were audacious and they were directed
at the redistribution of income. It is in this regard that any serious study of Garvey's contribution to Jamaica
would be lacking without an analysis of the politics of Michael Manley. By virtue of the programmes implemented
and the rhetoric voiced during the 1970s, historically, both men are inextricably linked.
Today, we live in a time when the parochial and myopic nature of political leadership appears to be without
parallel since independence and the monster of ghetto violence seem intractable, to say the least. It is a time
when some Jamaicans wonder if there is a future. It is in this context that it is important to understand the
depth of poverty and scope of the desperation against which Marcus Garvey delivered his message of hope and
pride. There is need for a new vision and a new Jamaica. There are some, who have looked back into the past
and are full of lamentation, and others who have looked to the future and are full of gloom. But, today, we
should not merely think of Jamaica as a place that could have been perfected, but like Garvey, it must be seen
as a country that can be redeemed.