IN THE tradition of the United States to establish presidential libraries to house the papers and memorabilia of former presidents and as centres for research and study of the life and work of the former president and his times, the University of the West Indies, Mona, is to establish a research and study centre in honour of former Prime Minister Michael Manley.
According to outgoing Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, the Michael Manley Centre for Global Dialogue is to be located within the Institute of Caribbean Studies. Michael Manley was not just Prime Minister of a small Caribbean state, he was a major player and spokesman on the world stage on behalf of developing countries. Few Jamaicans are better known than he is internationally.
While there were many disagreements with particular aspects of Michael Manley's thought and action (and this newspaper was once an object of his misguided wrath), his impact on the local and international scene is deserving of special preservation and study. There are several study centres overseas housing the documents and memorabilia and researching the life and work of another great son of Jamaica and the country's first National Hero, Marcus Garvey, but precious little at home.
Manley as a champion of democratic socialism at home and of the New International Economic Order and of South-South cooperation abroad, and the articulate spokesman for the Group of 77 in the highly polarised '70s is deserving of honest, objective assessment. The issues of poverty and of fair trade, of human rights and development for which Michael Manley fought from his own ideological and political positions are still very much with us today. His failures and successes can offer valuable lessons to the country he led in the turbulent '70s and to the rest of the world and are worthy of deep scholarly analysis not circumscribed by undue reverence.
On a broader front, the work of the prime movers and shakers in Jamaican history and culture stand in need of far greater efforts at preservation and careful study. The culture itself is in need of greater scholarly analysis. We would hope that these are the kinds of tasks that a university Institute of Caribbean Study would be undertaking, with a unit for the study of Michael Manley, a fitting addition. But scholarship need not reside exclusively in the setting of a university. The country needs many more centres of research and thought and not necessarily affiliated to universities.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
