Bruce, gangs and power brokers

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."  - Thomas Jefferson

It is the duty of a responsible and free press to harass governments about their obligations to good governance, accountability and transparency and to hold their feet to the fire, as it were. If the Fourth Estate becomes the propaganda arm of any government, the people's interests would be sacrificed and corruption magnetised.

Last weekend, Prime Minister Bruce Golding complained, "There is a sustained effort being made by the power brokers of North Street to harass the Government." That is not necessarily a bad thing for the Jamaican people, Prime Minister. It only becomes a bad thing if The Gleaner unfairly, unjustly and maliciously distorts its news coverage against the Government and manifestly blocks access to views favourable to the Government, while consistently delivering adverse editorial commentary. No objective content analysis of The Gleaner would yield any such confirmation.

The Gleaner has only one weekly columnist who is predictably and consistently pro-People's National Party (PNP) and anti-Jamaica Labour Party, and none of us, I am sure, is told, however subtly, by any power broker at North Street what to write about or what line to take. That columnist is exercising his own right to his partisanship. Certainly, I can attest that in all the many years I have been a columnist for The Gleaner, no editor or "power broker" has ever even given the slightest hint that I should take a particular line or be part of any conspiracy to further any sinister agenda.

The prime minister went on to state that the North Street power brokers see it as "not just their right, but their duty to assist parties to form government and to take parties out of government". That is also a legitimate role of the press, Prime Minister. A newspaper could decide that a government is so corrupt and has so lost the credibility of the people that it has an obligation to empower and arm them with information which would lead them to vote out that government and form another.

But I suspect what the prime minister was saying: He was saying that there are certain powerful people in this country who, serving their own narrow sectional interests, arrogate to themselves the right to set up and dispose of governments, manipulating the people in the process, and cynically masquerading their motives as being in the public interest. But there are times when people's narrow selfish interests coincide with the public interest.

The power brokers of North Street might well have nefarious reasons for partnering with WikiLeaks to publish classified information, but if its contents jolt us to action against corruption, criminality, crony capitalism and garrison politics, that would be objectively good. If people are shamed into finally tackling some of the problems which have kept us back as a country and condemned our people to poverty, marginalisation and slavery in our garrisons, then that would be a good thing and Jamaica's interests would be served.

Grappling for crumbs

It's, after all, about our interests - not the interests of our politicians, who have played star roles in the sorry drama of our lives. Indeed, often in history, the masses only benefit when there is an internecine war among the ruling classes and among the power elite. When things are going well among the power brokers in the capitalist class and in the political class, the oppression on the backs of the masses remains and our rights are trampled.

When they fall out and begin to fight, some crumbs fall our way. It's all part of the dialectics. There was a time when Bruce Golding was the darling of these same power brokers of North Street (and elsewhere); when they ditched the "unelectable Edward Seaga" unceremoniously after he had served their interests and rescued them from Michael Manley. Now, they are courting a different set of lovers - in both political parties - and the spurned, expectedly, are singing the blues. It's all in the game - the game called, not love, but power.

The Gleaner's gangs of Gordon House thesis, as indelicate, obnoxious, prejudicial and unbalanced as it is, is one of the most important campaigns to have been run by any media house in Jamaica. It's important for what it signals and what it means in a deeply partisan, tribalistic, politically balkanised society. Yes, the thesis distorts our history, is unforgivably ungrateful for the palpable, undeniable, empirically robust gains made by the political class over these decades. It is not true that our politicians have been simply corrupt and criminal and that we have little to show for their rule over these years.

They have squandered many opportunities and could show much more, but the Jamaican people have benefited from the work of our politicians.

That notwithstanding, the political class has done much evil and has left a legacy - a stubborn legacy - of tribalism, partisanship, corruption and criminality that is hard to erase. There are still too many good people in this country who have mortgaged their souls to our two main political parties; whose consciences are seared with a hot iron, to use a biblical phrase, and whose intellectual corruption is as sickening as other forms of corruption. We hear and read people in media who are mindlessly cultic and slavishly devoted to their political parties. Intellectual corruption, in my view, is one of the worst forms of corruption.

The Gleaner's two-gang thesis forcefully and frontally confronts our national idols, strips our emperors of their dirty linen and slays our sacred cows. Forget about the offensiveness and indelicacy of the language and the rewriting of history. Focus on its essential point: Our two parties have been instruments of corruption and criminality; they have consorted with criminals and terrorists and have prostituted Jamaica's interests in the interest of their gangs and tribes.

Supporters of these 'gangs' are, of course, enraged, as should be expected. But that is part of the problem to which The Gleaner, editorially, has been drawing our attention: This reflexive defence of the status quo; this circling of the wagons; this bunker mentality are symptoms of the sickness of the body politic. My own fear is that our foundations for democracy are too weak; that too many, even in civil-society organisations, are themselves slaves of the two tribes, or gangs, as The Gleaner calls them.

Civil-society groups which should be expected to take a firm, principled stand on issues assess those issues in terms of where their tribe (or gang) stands. Those who should speak out on principle do so on the basis of party instead.

Taking a stand

The Gleaner, by taking an incendiary stand against what it calls the 'gangs of Gordon House', is doing this country a favour. There might not be many takers, however, as PNP partisans are likely to read that stand as cowardly and diversionary; an attempt to deflect from the sharp spotlight which should be put on the Golding administration, which has power now. PNP partisans don't like this moral equivalency view, for they see the Golding administration as the incarnation of evil and, therefore, there should be no attempt to lump the two together.

Last Sunday's editorial in The Sunday Gleaner, 'Now that we have spoken to the gangs', should not go unheeded. The demands were clear and should be supported by every Jamaican, including those in the tribes who want reform. (For there are such persons. Let's not broad-brush everyone in these parties.) The editorial calls on civil society to engage "a broader effort at party reform" and for the professional civil service to "throw off uncritical acquiescence to political bosses".

If the civil servants won't learn from recent events, they won't learn at all. They must have the guts to stand up to the political directorate if they are being urged to do anything which is unethical and, if the politicians insist, they should have the integrity to resign. Putting a pay cheque above your conscience is corruption. The civil service must be loyal as long as the political directorate remains ethical. When it crosses the line, the civil servants must not go there. Remember, this contractor general is not afraid to call your name or send it to the director of public prosecutions or the police commissioner!

The Gleaner also calls on the 'gangs of Gordon House' to "admit their dysfunctional and destructive behaviour; throw out the criminal and corrupt; operate with greater transparency and accountability; set clear and verifiable standards for integrity and operate with long-term national goals, rather than short-term gang interests". These are all reasonable demands which all of us must join The Gleaner in urging on our two political parties. We must not let up.

Necessary campaign

Rumours circulating about the reasons for the revocation of James Robertson's visa, along with the damning contractor general's report on the LNG project, plus allegations of corruption on the part of three PNP councillors, reinforce concerns about our two parties. And the necessity for The Gleaner's two-gang campaign.

The prime minister's comments last weekend represented no attack on press freedom. He has a right to express his views. (Though, in my view, it is politically suicidal to take on a powerful institution like The Gleaner.) WikiLeaks is casting a negative light on not just the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) but the PNP - and on prime ministers going back to P.J. Patterson. The PNP can't use the anti-JLP cables as it would like, for it is vulnerable, too.

If I were Golding, I would not fret too much about WikiLeaks, for its power in the hands of the PNP is significantly diminished, as WikiLeaks represents a plague on both their houses - and represents an excellent demonstration of The Gleaner's two-gang thesis.

The Gleaner obviously feels that neither Bruce Golding nor Portia Simpson Miller is desirable for Jamaica House. If I were any of these two leaders, I would work to prove them wrong, rather than fight WikiLeaks or The Gleaner.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and ianboyne1@yahoo.com.