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Re: It's the Media's Fault
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Yard Guard
Seaga the trailblazer-This is not a debate, please
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Nov 23 03 3:50 PM
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These are the facts I know about Eddie Seaga and then some: These important aspects of the man's service and character are always disregarded. There is no damn politician in Jamaica who compares in any way shape or form.
Seaga, Golding and the PNP
published: Sunday | November 23, 2003
SEAGA and GOLDING
Ian BoyneTODAY, BRUCE Golding steps effortlessly into the position of Chairman of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), with the fire-brand "Mr. Anti-corruption", Audley Shaw, having to clear the way for him.
At the same time, the People's National Party (PNP) meets in its National Executive Council to no doubt ponder the implications for the party of the dramatic developments over the last few weeks.
Now that the euphoria over the electoral whipping of Seaga-loyalists, Olivia 'Babsy' Grange and Edmund Bartlett, is
subsiding and many have settled on the comforting thought that finally we might soon see the back of Edward Seaga, some are regaining composure and are beginning to seriously analyse the situation. Questions like, what do these "reformers" really stand for and how do their ideas actually differ from those of Edward Phillip George Seaga?
Earlier in the week on the Breakfast Club, Professor Don Robotham expressed dissatisfaction with the obsession in the media with personalities when discussing the happenings in the JLP.
We should critically look at ideas and programmes, Robotham counselled, rather than talk blithely about "old guard" , "new guard", "reformers" and "traditionalists".
The Gleaner in an editorial on Thursday titled What Wind of Change? reminds that "change in the Labour Party or any other party has to be more than a change in personnel". The Gleaner then asks an important question: "Where is the evidence that since Bruce Golding's return to the JLP, rank and file Labourites have entertained, let alone embraced the vision he articulated when he was in the National Democratic Movement? Do JLP people within the leadership core (sic) or in the trenches care about such notions as constitutional reform, including separation of powers?"
The Gleaner editorial goes on to say that "the idea that the removal of Eddie Seaga will ipso facto make the JLP winnable or a better party is one that should be treated with detached skepticism".
Perhaps now that some of the emotionalism, visceral reactions and glee over the humiliation of Eddie Seaga are receding, we can have a rational discussion of the issues.
SEAGA'S LEGACY
I believe that Eddie Seaga himself has done the best job of damaging and alienating himself from many Jamaicans over the years.
You can always depend on him to put his foot in his mouth, to make some irascible statement or to do something which could easily be interpreted as mean-spirited, spiteful and vindictive.
Eddie Seaga does not have a public persona that is immediately endearing, warm and likeable. His departure from the party would be welcome by many persons and would bring some traction to the JLP. In my view, these are incontestable facts.
But it is not the entire story. Unfortunately, too many in the media only concentrate on the negative aspects of Eddie Seaga's personality and have not been faithful to our journalistic canons of "nothing but the whole truth".
If the whole truth is told it would be acknowledged that Eddie Seaga has been one of the major voices for political reform in this country and his advocacy has resulted in many decisions, including by the PNP, to loosen the grip of politicians' power over the people. (Besides, the reforms which he has led in his own party have been significant) Seaga's advocacy in the 1970s for an independent Electoral Committee and his unrelenting, vociferous campaign to have an electoral system which would ensure free and fair elections is one of his lasting contributions to the strengthening of Jamaican democracy.
Of course, I would never be naive enough to believe that Mr. Seaga himself or his party was a paragon of virtue in electoral practice.
But at least he campaigned for reforms that would eventually tie his own hands. (The PNP's own commitment to electoral reform should not be glossed over either, and that party's willingness to accommodate the suggestions and demands of the JLP should be noted in the interest of the whole truth).
The establishment of the Office of the Political Ombudsman and the Integrity Commission came during the Seaga administration of the 1980s.
The legislation establishing the Office of the Contractor-General and the Media Commission came in 1985 and 1986. These all stripped away powers which the Prime Minister and Ministers of Government had. It was engineered by this same man commonly portrayed in the media as power-hungry and neurotically authoritarian.
As Seaga himself said in a speech which he gave in 1994: "The amendments to reduce the power of the Prime Minister were initiated by a Parliament in which there was no elected Opposition".
In terms of human rights advocacy, Eddie Seaga has been one of Jamaica's most potent and persistent voices. (Of course, critics can always point to contradictions between his rhetoric and his practice, but which politician is flawless in this regard?)
I personally take strong exceptions to his stridency against the Security Forces and believe his language has been inflammatory against the legitimate forces of this country.
But honesty impels me to say that long before Jamaicans for Justice, the Families Against State Terrorism and long before the human rights lobby in Jamaica gained such legitimacy, that some of the most trenchant human rights rhetoric has come from the lips of Seaga.
Don't forget his Charter of Rights and Freedoms which he put before the Jamaican Parliament, setting out 17 articles of fundamental rights and freedoms which should be inviolable.
It was Seaga, in recognition that "the poor and disadvantaged are mostly defenceless against abuses of their fundamental rights and freedoms", who proposed in the 1992-93 Budget Debate a new constitutional office, an Advocate-General, specifically to prosecute abuses of the rights of the poor and oppressed ghetto people.
Seaga's proposals for the impeachment of politicians and public officials if they fail to carry out their duties is another significant proposal of political reform which would address the issue of the preponderance of power in the Executive and legislature as well as accountability.
Indeed, while many have focused on Golding's proposals for political reform and his advocacy of what has been loosely called the American Presidential system, Seaga's proposals for reforming the Westminster system are creative and intellectually challenging and deserve serious debate.
Indeed, the highly regarded Professor Robotham said on the Breakfast Club this week that Seaga's constitutional reform proposals were far more serious than Golding's, going as far as to say that Golding's were "a joke".
Anyone who under-rated Seaga's intellect he said "would be a fool".
CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM
Now we have come to a crucial issue. It is known that Seaga and Golding don't see eye to eye on constitutional matters and yet it seems clear to political observers that Golding is the man to succeed Seaga.
If there is to be any infighting in the JLP, let it be over ideas. Battle intellectually. Let Golding and Seaga sit down and talk through the issues.
Hold seminars and let each side get people who can best articulate the respective positions. No, Seaga is not finished intellectually. Give him the opportunity to stay on to reason with, even debate, the Goldingites. One never knows: Golding and Seaga might come to an accommodation.
It is not fair to give the impression that, while Golding and the reformers are for the reduction of the power of the Prime Minister and for the empowerment of the masses, Seaga has been opposed to those principles, wanting to hold on to the power which the Westminster system confers.
As Seaga said in 1995, showing clearly he accepts the principle of greater checks and balances to political power: "The existing Westminster Cabinet system is more suitable for Jamaica as it is adaptable to reforms which can more effectively separate the arms of Government for greater checks and balances without impeding the expeditious flow of decisions in the development process".
Golding is an eminently rational man and a serious thinker. If he can be convinced by Seaga, in an atmosphere of serious intellectual exchange, that he should back off from some ideas, I don't see Golding dogmatically and in a Fundamentalist spirit holding on tenaciously to his creed.
Golding and Seaga are not poles apart ideologically, as some Seaga-bashers are making out.
They agree on the opposition to the Caribbean Court of Justice, the Terrorism Prevention Bill (I am not with them) and on a wide range of constitutional and human rights issues.
They agree on the importance of a developmental state and in the rejection of doctrinaire neo-liberalism.
Golding agrees with Seaga's three money bills (again I part company with them.) They agree essentially on economic strategies. So why did he have to leave? And what's different now?
He felt reform was taking place too slowly. And though people don't give him credit for this, Seaga himself has changed over the years though in my view not enough. He has admitted to me in one-to-one conversation that he has learnt some things from the Gang of Five struggles.
SEAGA'S WEAKNESSES
Seaga's major weaknesses are with his personality and leadership style. But as I said two years ago, if he had more emotionally and psychologically astute leaders around him they would know how to relate to him and help him.
In my view he is too intellectually sharp and perceptive, and his historical and sociologically grasp of this society is too profound to just cast him aside now from the leadership of the JLP. (I am not necessarily advocating his staying on for the next general elections.).
Journalists must discipline themselves to put their prejudices and the popular myths aside and try to deal fairly and rigorously, if not objectively, with the facts.
When a senior journalist in this country, the former President of the Press Association of Jamaica, Franklyn McKnight could write in an otherwise insightful article in the Sunday Herald last week that "part of the JLP's problems over the last 10 years is that they have failed to articulate a vision for Jamaica. They have allowed Mr. Seaga to persistently stage a sideshow..." who could want a more comprehensive vision of Jamaica than that contained in the JLP manifesto of 2002?
And before that in budget speeches Seaga has articulately narrated a vision for this country. But with Seaga anybody can kick him around and distort the truth and you can be almost sure no one would come to his defence, for he is not the most likeable man.
I agree with Earl Bartley: "Mr. Seaga is an unrepentant pioneer of the garrison politics that has disfigured this society and undermined national security". Absolutely right. Seaga's contributions have been anything but totally positive. He has a lot to account for. In Jamaica's history books his name will not be lily-white.
THE PNP'S ROLE
In all of this political high drama, don't be quick to write off the PNP. Yes, 'Big Money' is behind Golding and so are the most influential journalists. But the agenda of the PNP's two-day retreat last week shows that that party is not about to roll over.
It has the intellectual strengths, a defensible record of achievements, which have not been fully told by us in media, and some political strategists who are formidable. It also has a party leader with significant leadership strengths and the requisite conciliatory spirit.
The PNP has to seek not only to engage people's minds but primarily their emotions. Strong emotions. Reason is the slave of passion, as philosopher David Hume said.
Your communications strategy, my PNP friends, has to focus not just on solid achievements but on the "solid objections and anger" toward the party. You have to effectively counter that. And you have to offer hope and a vision for Jamaica which rivals the New Guard of the JLP. It's not the Aged Man whom you are fighting anymore.
Our role as journalists will be even more crucial in this period as both the JLP and PNP battle for the minds and hearts of the Jamaican people. Political people will try to intimidate us. But the public will support us when we stand for truth.
www.jamaica-gleaner.com/g...ocus1.html
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