Laura TannaSPEAKING WITH Sir Howard Cooke on November 13, 2001, I asked him what he thought of HRH Queen Elizabeth II having selected Jamaica, along with Australia, New Zealand and Canada, as one of only four countries she will visit during her Golden Jubilee anniversary. The Governor-General replied: "For me, I regard it as an achievement because it means that despite everything, people have a respect for us. I have pride in this. When the Royal Family comes here, we treat them as our own. We don't treat them as superior, but as belonging. For instance, when the Prince came, I took him into some of the worst situations depressing. When I saw how he reacted, I felt that he was ready to be a KING! Of Jamaica! I don't know if people realise how many members of the Royal family have been visiting Jamaica. All of the princes have been here. The Duke himself came back. Princess Margaret came. She was surprised that I did without my car so that she could have it while she was here! Because I tell you something. I love them. They are so down to earth.
"I went to visit the Queen once, my wife and I, when the tabloids were giving the Royal family, you know, grief. When I was going in, I said: 'My gosh, what shall I say to this gracious lady?' And when I got in, she was so GRACIOUS! She made me feel almost that I was her brother. My wife and I felt comfortable. We sat. We talked about West Indian cricket, that sort of thing. She talked about being at Kings House here and looking out on the mountains. I felt, whereas I was going in with some sort of trepidation, I was so at ease that I didn't have to mention anything because she was saying to me: 'All is well.' It is that sort of feeling when you meet people, that's how I regard people as being gracious."
Sir Howard continued: "I feel that they feel comfortable here. Because, despite the noise some people are talking about abolition of monarchy and so on if it were true, the politicians would have carried it out already! You have never thought of that? You don't even hear anything about it."
When I told him that some people say: "Why should we worry about Kings House, it's a colonial relic." He responded: "I ask a question and nobody gives me an answer. When you remove the idea of Governor General, how are you going to ensure that there is an impartial approach? Because of the experience that I've seen in Central America, people have become so partisan that when their party's in power, the President talks along party lines. Since we're here, at least there is one person who can afford to be totally impartial. I have tried! And when I go out, and the Member of Parliament is doing well, I say so!"
He comments on another of his most important contributions as Governor. General: "Since I'm here [in Kings House], I've spent a lot of time going around to the various villages. They don't report it. It doesn't worry me. I'm concerned with what's happening there. Sometimes in a month I'd go to three or four places and speak on what they should be doing in educational facilities and growth. I speak to the clubs. I go sometimes to a simple rally in the church but I select that time to talk to them about community building. My effort is to achieve what Norman Manley wanted to achieve in community building. And we are failing now. Instead of trying to build communities to contribute, in some instances we are building communities to fight one another for scarce benefits. I think that God has so blessed us and endowed us, that we have enough for all, but it is the distribution. How do we get that distribution?"
When I suggested that in his position he could encourage fairness in the distribution of benefits and that I'd been reading that two particular contractors had received a disproportionate amount of work, he agreed that he too had heard that and said: "You know, we have a Contractor General, who is supposed to look after that. When I was talking to him, I made him to understand that he has a serious responsibility and he must treat it as such. So if anything goes awry, he has to give an answer, because his job is to make sure that there is fair distribution. Another thing you must bear in mind too, however, that not all contractors are able. I know that nobody could ever accuse me, when I was a Minister of Government, in my own area, I called everybody together one community and the other. I made sure that people got work according to their capacity to produce. Believe me, there are instances that you don't give it to a person because you know he's not going to produce. It's not only partisan, it's the truth."
On Kings House and the role of the Governor. General, Sir Howard reiterated: "I want really to tell you how important this must be. It is part of our heritage, part of the great things that have happened, the social upward mobility, because the final authority always comes from here. No matter what legislation, if the Governor didn't sign it here, it wouldn't come into being."
Sir Howard knows that his rise to the position of Head of State at Kings House provides a significant role model for young Jamaicans and says: "I want the place to be OPEN!" In fact, The Kings House Foundation intends to organise conducted tours for the public and to establish a museum housing Jamaican artifacts, including items of former Governors General. Sir Howard confides: "I came here when I was seventeen-plus, as a scout. I wanted to come into this place. They wouldn't allow me to look at it.
"I've never forgotten that! One of the satisfactions that I've had is that I was denied entry, and every group comes now, I speak with them. Children come here often. I speak to them, telling them much about the real history of the black people, because they don't know. Some of them are still under the impression that black people were born to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. I have a special police officer who takes them around to let them see and I am of the mind that at least once a year, we should open the place complete. We should be telling them about our heritage and the great things that have happened in Jamaica. You notice I mentioned about the co-mingling of the people? We have something to tell the world that we're not telling: how the whites, the blacks, the Indians, the Syrians, Lebanese, that we live together!"
We can't afford to buy the kind of publicity that will be created by the large contingent of foreign press which always accompanies the Queen. Let's hope that from February 18-20, and for long after, that Jamaica generates the kind of news which is economically beneficial to the entire nation.
