THE EDITOR, Madam:
THIS IS a letter to Norman Manley.
Dear Mr. Manley:
I am writing this letter to you from a sense of shame, and sorrow. I am even more ashamed to remind you that I am a Jamaica College Old Boy and can remember the times you used to visit and in particular the time you came by invitation and gave us a talk on the choosing of a career. You were our role model. You made us feel that whatever the Englishman could do we could do also.
Oh how we studied hard for those excellent marks we got in our examinations to qualify ourselves to take over when the time came, and to run our civil service with the same dignity and decorum that the Englishman did. And how proud we felt when Inde-pendence came knowing that we had won it, not at the point of a gun as some others had done but at the point of a pen, by education and scholarship and culture. And the transition was so great and smooth, no enmity, no malice, just that feeling of self-confidence that we were their equal that we even made their last Governor our first Governor-General.
And the first few years were great. How can we forget our "christening and presentation to the nations of the world, three months after we were born when Hugh Lawson Shearer stood up in the United Nations Assembly and spoke of human rights and proposed that a geophysical year be named when all the nations of the world should focus on this vital matter". How proud we were when some time later a special year was so named and we left our mark on history.
As I said, I am writing this with shame and sorrow because even though I am an old man now I never in this world envisaged that a time would come when we would make you turn in your grave and I am writing this with a hope and a prayer that a new generation will soon arise that will make you turn back over.
And this saddest part of it all is that those that have caused you to turn are using as some front the very name of the organisation you started and which gave us such hope and pride. I believe some of them may even have rubbed shoulders with you.
I am sending a copy of this letter to The Gleaner so that our young generation who may read it will know that things were not always like this and that they may take heart and hope that out of the rot and social decay that have caused you to turn, a new phoenix will arise that will make you turn again.
Believe me I am really ashamed to be part of the generation that has done this to you and all I can ask is for your forgiveness.
I am, etc.,
RONALD G. LAMPART
14 Miramar Drive
Morant Bay
