The Politics of Love and the Politics of Spite

Common Sense
John Maxwell

People who did not know Portia Simpson Miller were stunned by her performance in the Budget Debate on Tuesday. Watching on television it was clear that among those who didn't really know her were some of her close colleagues as well as her parliamentary opponents, who, apart from a brief, ill-considered bout of heckling, appeared transfixed as the country's first woman Prime Minister outlined her plans for the first year. It is clear that she is a master of the House.

It was a remarkable performance, not least because she was operating under the policy overhang from the previous administration. When PJ Patterson retired, he left not only the budget but also a host of pending actions which would have been accepted 'whole hog' by any of the other contenders for the leadership of the PNP and the government.

That she has managed to put her stamp on some important initiatives in the short time available to her is perhaps the most significant sign of Portia Simpson resolve, her persuasiveness and her ability to get more work out of people than they thought themselves capable.

While the Prime Minister managed to make the budget do some of what she wanted it to do, clearly she has not had the time to rework it to deliver the concrete results of the vision she outlined in Parliament.

Portia spoke from her head and her heart, the first time I've heard a Jamaican PM do that since Michael Manley was in his 'ackee'. She made it clear that she has a fully formed vision of what she intends to do and the rationale behind it.

As she said, her position is not simply political but philosophical; it is a vision of Jamaica as it can be and a preliminary sketch of the roadmap to get there.

The well-being of any society depends on the well-being of all its people. The measure of a good society, therefore, is how it treats the poor, the aged, those with disabilities and our women and children.

She recognises that if we are to achieve a good society we need to remove the negative impacts of violence, corruption, natural disasters and other unplanned events. In other words, a good society can only be achieved by promoting a good environment, social, cultural, political and ecological.

As simple as this mix sounds, it is the first time I have heard a Jamaican politician attempt to connect them and to view them as a whole, requiring attention in a comprehensive campaign against disfranchisement, disempowerment, poverty, misery and squalor.

"We must remind ourselves that people are the ultimate end, and not means to the political and personal ambitions of others. If Portia manages to get this one concept across to her fellow Jamaicans, she will have changed the grammar of our politics.

Her vision begins as it should with the mundane: universal literacy, and rapidly moves toward a Jamaica of first-class human beings able to compete anywhere with anyone on at least equal terms. Her Jamaica which "fully allows the release of the potential of a powerful people".

Up front, she sees the main obstacle as disunity and she intends to break down the partisan and sectarian walls which constrain our progress: "It is time to break down those walls" to produce a community in which all will participate in the national decision making, in which citizens take responsibility for the management of their economic, health, educational, cultural and recreational needs supported and facilitated by the government.

She spoke boldly of the ultimate aim being the elimination of poverty and the elevation of the welfare of ordinary people to the centre of our concerns and development policy.

Those who are old enough will hear in these words, echoes of the original vision of the PNP as expressed by Norman Manley and his colleagues. Then, the vision was blasted by the shallow partisanship of those who preached that socialism meant the forcible seizure and distribution of real and personal property, and did not understand that it was really about the equitable distribution of power and rights.

We must acknowledge that how we manage presently leaves far too many of our people out of the process, disconnecting them from power, alienated from each other and the wider society.

Portia Simpson Miller has been Prime Minister since February 26, slightly more than six weeks. In that short time she has electrified the hopes of the poorest and most helpless Jamaicans and ignited in all classes of Jamaicans the idea that real change is not only possible but likely.

It is not going to be business as usual.

The Prime Minister needs to seize the time now to begin recruiting her army for change from all sectors of the society. The most powerful and the most wealthy have to understand that if this country is going to be worth inhabiting, fundamental changes are necessary.

It is probably too much to ask of many people that, for instance, they should be content with smaller returns from their bonds, that crime and violence flow out of usury and extortionate interest rates, that competitive consumption provokes envy, greed and criminal behaviour at all levels of the society.

Gates and burglar bars may protect you from burglars and housebreakers, but they cannot protect your bank account or guarantee the interests of your children.

I believe I know Portia Simpson Miller well enough to say that I believe that when she speaks of 'unity' she speaks not simply of an end to internecine partisan conflict, but of a society which recognises that its private interests and the public interest must be harmonised and that we all need to work together to achieve a good and just society. In Jamaica there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of well-off people who are already contributing to the welfare of the "less fortunate" but largely, their contribution is sporadic and limited.

To judge from some of the feedback I have got, there must be thousands of others who are waiting to be asked to make the kind of intelligent sacrifices which can help to rescue Jamaica from stagnation and strife and put the nation once more on course to maximising the safety and prosperity and happiness of all.

Michael Manley had the same opportunity in 1972, when an exhausted country, scared and at its wits' end, waited to be asked to make the sacrifices which might have put us firmly on track to the good society. He told me then that to ask Jamaicans to undergo programmed sacrifice, as I suggested, was unthinkable after the people had so overwhelmingly put their trust in the PNP.

I argued that what I heard from all levels was the wish to be asked to work for Jamaica, to sacrifice advantage for community peace and security, to volunteer to help in any way they could, teaching literacy classes, cleaning up garbage in communities, whatever.

The time is ripe for Portia to begin to organise her forces for the good society, to spell out in greater detail how she proposes to harvest the community knowledge, to discover what needs to be fixed, to organise community analysis, community discovery, community planning, community decision making and community self-government. The earlier she begins to ask for help in this process is the greater the response will be. Perhaps National Labour Day, just 10 days away, would be a good platform for that.

Speaking of Labour Day, I remember how successful that first working Labour Day turned out to be. I was one of those who organised a hugely successful drive to collect books for people in prison. I am thinking this year that I will ask a pastor friend of mine (there are such people) and my fellow journalists to organise the collection of school books for distribution to children in need.

Three decades ago Munn's Yellow Cab Company helped us by collecting the books and delivering them to our central collection point. Perhaps other people might volunteer to help in the collection this time. SUVs would be very useful although any vehicle would be welcome. Cell phones would simplify the logistics. If you have any ideas, email me or call me on Disclosure (Hot 102) next Wednesday.

Finally, the PM mentioned in her speech that the government will be developing Winnifred Beach and Reach Falls in Portland. I think she should be advised to look closely at the proposals for these inherited schemes.

Winnifred Beach at Fairy Hill is part of the former administration's programme to take away public beaches from the public and to chase away the people who make their living there. If our community tourism is to mean anything it must mean that our few public beaches must remain public.

While nobody can be more than 25 miles from the sea anywhere in Jamaica, Jamaicans are increasingly being walled off from their recreational heritage. Most have never been to a beach!

The Politics of Spite

As I forecast last week, Mr John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN has come a cropper in his attempt to bully the Iranian government into giving up its nuclear power research programme.

Mr Bolton cannot be convinced that the Iranians are speaking the truth when they say that they are not interested in nuclear weaponry, just as he and others in the Bush administration could not be convinced that Iraq was speaking the truth before the disastrous decision to invade.

Fortunately, wiser counsel has prevailed and the question is to be returned to the International Atomic Energy Authority, where - as the Iranians contended - it belonged all along. The US press has refrained from pointing out the facts of the case, behaving instead like the Soviet press of a few decades back.

Mr Bolton's pratfall must be shielded from public view as must the sheer fatuity of the president who said last week that the Iranian president's letter to him was "missing the point . it looks like it did not answer the main question that the world is asking and that is, "When will you get rid of your nuclear programme?"

Of course, Mr Bush is probably blissfully unaware that a 'nukular' weapons programme is not the same as a nuclear power generation project. If the US decides that you have weapons of mass destruction then, ergo, you must have weapons of mass destruction.

The 'Civilised World' - the US, Britain, Israel and the international banking system have quietly decided that spite and malice are not sound bases for foreign policy.

This week, faced with the ignominious failure of what I call the 'Haitian Starvation Model' in Palestine, there has been a frantic reworking of the policy. As I reported last week, Mr James Wolfensohn, a Jew, resigned in disgust at the policy he had been asked to navigate in Palestine. He has become a hero to the Palestinians.

Wolfensohn's departure has precipitated a rethink, aided of course by reports from Palestine that the 'Haitian Model' was causing a humanitarian catastrophe. Israel's withholding Palestinian taxes and its barring of fuel supplies to Palestine was bringing the native Bantustans to the verge of chaos.

There was no fuel for ambulances and other essential vehicles, hospital supplies ran out; four patients apparently perished because their dialysis treatments had to be rationed. Cancer patients have had their chemotherapy treatments curtailed.

The Israeli NGO, Physicians for Human Rights - IPHR - warned on Tuesday that the Palestinian health services were near collapse. IPHR called for an end to the starvation policy; for Israel to stop preventing Palestinians from reaching hospitals in East Jerusalem and to stop curbing the activities of international organisations attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestine health ministry.

The World Bank has warned that the crisis in Palestine is worse than it had imagined and could render the West Bank and Gaza ungovernable. The US position is simple. It regards Hamas as a terrorist organisation and threatens to sanction banks which pass on money from other Arab nations to the Palestinian Authority.

A Washington Post survey of international press comment on the crisis finds that the US press is not carrying the same news as the rest of the world press. President Jimmy Carter said "Innocent Palestinians are being treated like animals" in a piece for the International Herald Tribune, not carried by its parent the New York Times.

The liberal Israeli daily, Ha'aretz reports some unexpected outcomes of the 'Haiti Model'. Danny Rubenstein, Haaretz' veteran West bank correspondent says "The Bush policy to starve Hamas financially is tacitly supported by unelected Arab regimes resisting Bush's calls for democratisation.

"In their view, the successful functioning of the Hamas government sends a message of encouragement to opposition groups in their countries, proof that an Islamic government can rule." Rubenstein doubts that the US-European aid cut-off will persuade Palestinians to abandon Hamas.

"It is clear to everyone now that whatever Fatah, Israel, the Arab states and the entire world do to undermine the Hamas government will not work," he writes. "The Palestinian public is loyal to it. So it is best to look for a way to live with it."