Martin Henry
PUBLIC OPINION, which Garvey scholar Rupert Lewis describes as the organ of Jamaica's intelligentsia reflecting the views of the People's National Party, ran an obituary on Marcus Garvey on June 15, 1940, days after his death. That balanced obituary reflects my own more distant assessment of the man.
The newspaper said: "No Jamaican, except perhaps Bustamante, has exercised so astonishing an influence over the masses as the late Marcus Garvey. That influence was not always wisely exercised, and the most superb showmanship could not prevent this from being seen. None the less Garvey never lost his hold. Even when he was 4,000 miles away, his name still had power. With this knack of attracting and holding loyalty, Mr. Garvey combined more solid qualities which were never put to their full use. He remained too much of the adventurer. The political backwardness of the people he wished to help prevented him from ever climbing into that effective power which mellows the adventurer and knocks off the sharp corners of his personality."
WEAKNESSES OF SHOWMANSHIP
Both Garvey and Bustamante suffered from many of the weaknesses of showmanship. Both are now venerated as National Heroes which places them well beyond frank critical analysis. Psychoanalytic studies of both men and of other national leaders, with their feet of clay which Justice Ronald Small said he was unwilling to write about, could yield fascinating and useful insights. While Garvey was scholar and philosopher, a man of broad and deep ideas, Bustamante is remembered for famously snapping, "philosophy can grow yams?"
A few days ago, I heard yet another speaker describing the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union as the country's first trade union as some think the People's National Party is the first political party forgetting Garvey's People's Political Party and his trade union going back to the 1920s.
Garvey himself expressed rather unflattering views on "the political backwardness of the people he wished to help". In Ken Jones' "Marcus Garvey Said..." we read Garvey's damning words: "The Negro has become his greatest enemy. Most of the trouble I have had in advancing the cause of the race has come from Negroes... The Negro fights himself too much. His internal conflicts constitute the puzzle of our age.... Every other day he is smashing up what he has made.... He never permanently constructs."
In 1932 Garvey bitterly wrote: "[The Negro] is not willing to foot his own bills. Politically, he is not willing to pay his price. Anything political must be contributed and paid for by somebody else." Now, clearly, whether true or not, that's not a great way to build a People's Political Party! And no wonder that venture failed like so many of Garvey's schemes.
BURYING UTTERANCES OF CHASTISEMENT
Garvey vindicated his bluntness by declaring, "I have done my duty. I will still continue to do that duty, not by deceiving the Negro but by telling him the truth - the cold, blunt truth, so help me God." How much of Garvey's 'blunt truth' has been learnt is an open question. Sixty-five years after Garvey's death, we have a distinct preference to pick from his copious words that which makes for flattering race pride while burying his utterances of chastisement and shame hurled from "the sharp corners of his personality".
I hope those who want Garvey taught in schools also mean this side of the country's first National Hero and one of the greatest Black philosophers of all times as well.
Garvey thought about almost everything and wrote up his ideas in grand, clear prose - with that blunt edge. A personally fascinating passage, because of my own interests, occurs in his grand 1925 Manifesto for 'A Racial Hierarchy and Empire for Negroes'. In the concluding crescendo Garvey wrote: "Being at present the scientifically weaker race ... in your homes and everywhere possible you must teach the higher development of science to your children; and be sure to develop a race of scientists par excellence, for in science and religion [not one or the other] lies our only hope to withstand the evil designs of modern materialism. Never forget your God." Garvey powerfully understood the importance of technical capacity for advancement, an understanding which found political expression in the 1929 Manifesto of the PPP.
Garvey also wrote extensively on religion, articulating a clear conception of God [essentially the Judaeo-Christian God of the Bible with Black-African attributes] and on the positive role of religion in civilisation and development. But these are matters for another time.
Martin Henry is a communications consultant.
