Martin Henry THE HEADLINE leaping from The Star on Monday afternoon jolted me into action - "Shearer is sick!" Ever since Parliament paid glowing tributes to our elder statesman last May, I have been incubating a column on the Right Honourable Hugh Lawson Shearer part tribute, part questions. I bought the paper, and now I write the column.
Mr. Shearer is a national treasure, a man who has been at the forefront of the emergence of an independent Jamaican nation for half a century, a man who has made his contributions with great dignity and great peacefulness. But Mr. Shearer is too quiet and too peaceful. I and the nation long to hear his measured, frank reflections on the past, present and future. I know of no biography on this great labour leader and Prime Minister.
But why not 'Shearer in his own words' as a legacy to this young nation to which he has given his entire life in public service?
Mr. Shearer is among the founding fathers of the nation. An American citizen once remarked to me that Jamaicans don't realise how fortunate we are that several of our founding fathers were still with us. The American founding fathers were 200 years gone. The wisdom of the founders, never perfect but forged by hard experience from the beginning, should be available as a beacon of light to guide us.
The nation has made many wrong turns since Hugh Shearer reported for work at the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) at 18 and since he became the youngest Prime Minister in the Commonwealth on April 11, 1967 at 43. The future potential of this young nation as a safe, productive, prosperous and peaceful place, a goal to which Hugh Shearer devoted his life, hangs in the balance.
Mr. Shearer marks his 79th birthday on May 18. He has been out of active politics since the general election of 1993 when he was trounced out of his safe South East Clarendon seat, inherited from the Chief, Sir Alexander Bustamante and held continuously since 1967, by the stripling Peter Bunting. Mr. Shearer will die a Labourite and a BITU man, but his hands are largely free to be Jamaica's wise elder statesman which age, experience, character and intellect pre-eminently qualifies him to be. Perhaps only Sir Howard Cooke, who now occupies the office of Governor-General, is in a similar position.
Alexander Bustamante was chosen by the Jamaican people, at times when 'free and fair and free from fear' elections were not even matters of consideration much more of worrying concern, to lead the country into Internal Self-Government in 1944 and into Independence in 1962. A less than worshipful examination of Bustamante as trade union boss and political leader will reveal many flaws and wrong turns. But one of Bustamante's strengths was to gather around him bright, loyal young men and let them run. One of them was Hugh Lawson Shearer; in the BITU from his teens, in the pre-Independence House of Representatives and later the Senate as a youth.
He was elected MP and given the international image-making, diplomacy-building and trade-building portfolio of External Affairs in the Independence Government at 39; then Prime Minister over his elders at 43, at the sudden passing of Sir Donald Sangster, an appointment almost certainly with the anointing of the retired Chief.
Shearer was a close confidante of Chief. He wrote an extensive, glowing tribute to Sir Alexander at his passing which has been published. But so far Hugh Lawson has not committed a word to paper or to public utterance about his own considerable influence on Sir Alexander and on policy and governance in the Independence Government when Chief ruled but his advisors crafted government. In 1962, Alexander Bustamante was already nearly as old as Hugh Shearer is now. The inside story of those heady first days of Independence needs to be told, and Hugh Shearer knows that story better than any other living person except Edward Seaga who is still hampered by active service.
Shearer was our first voice at the United Nations, placing Jamaica firmly and articulately on the world stage, a position from which we have never retreated. Mr. Shearer urged an International Year of Human Rights and 1968 was so designated, ironically the same year in which he had to deal with the Walter Rodney Riots at home. In retrospect, what does Mr. Shearer have to say about his handling of the Rodney affair, which many including then Opposition Leader Norman Manley considered to be heavy-handed and abusive of human rights. What does Mr. Shearer think of the state of human rights in Jamaica today?
When the Right Hon. Hugh Lawson Shearer was Prime Minister of the young nation, full of bright hope and actually registering unquestionable economic growth, the JIS published a booklet of quotes from his speeches. The caption under his photograph reads: "I will rely on the self-respect and alertness, the courage and self-discipline of my people, to face and tackle the problems of our country." How does Mr. Shearer see those qualities today and the problems of the country? Those quotes reveal a sharp, disciplined and alert mind, a broad and bold statesmanship, and something which always fascinated me in others, a fine command of language. I shall have to come back to the book of quotes to do justice to this record of Shearer's thoughts.
There remains in some quarters a sense of betrayal that Mr. Shearer gave up in silence the leadership of the JLP in 1974. There followed the long, hard Manley/Seaga years of the politics of confrontation and bitter rivalry which has so shaped and dominated our political culture and obstructed our development. Why did he quit? Was Shearer simply unequal to the challenges of the 'new' politics after the kinder, gentler Bustamante/N.W. Manley era? How does he read the last 28 years of Jamaican politics? Where should we go from here?
What difference would a gentler style and the negotiating skills and stance of a trade unionist dealing with another across the political divide have made? I have never heard Hugh Shearer's name mentioned with political tribalism or violence.
Mr. Shearer completed the campaign of that momentous 1980 general election with a big bandage over one of his brows from a fish gun injury sustained at the hand of an antagonist on the campaign trail. This is my favourite image of Hugh Lawson, and I have often wondered how that bandage affected margins on October 30. It was a powerful political symbol.
Mr. Shearer devoted his life to trade unionism and to politics. I am curious to know his frank retrospective assessment of the link between politics and trade unionism in Jamaica, a link which some of us have good reasons to judge negatively. Where should trade unionism and politics go in the future to achieve those dreams of development of Prime Minister Shearer?
The nation, and certainly myself, wish for the Right Honourable Hugh Lawson Shearer, a speedy recovery and more active years. Please bless us and posterity with your experience and wisdom.
Martin Henry is a communications consultant.
