Ebony interview with Jamaica Prime Minister Michael Manley - interview

Ebony, Feb, 1990 by Hans J. Massaquoi

EBONY INTERVIEW WITH JAMAICA PRIME MINISTER MICHAEL MANLEY

THOSE who believe that history repeats itself found their belief confirmed last February when the people of Jamaica voted to give Michael Manley, the charismatic prime minister who had led them during the '70s, a second chance at the helm. The election presented Jamaicans with a clear choice between the incumbent Edward P. Seaga's pragmatic, "never-let-the-heart-rule-the-head" policies and Manley's humanistic, people-oriented democratic socialism. In the end, the heart won out over the head as people, mindful of how little had trickled down to them from Seaga's big business economic reforms, opted overwhelmingly to throw in their lot with the challenger. Manley's landslide victory gave his People's National Party 44 seats in the island's 60-seat Parliament. It also raised the question--in Jamaica as well as in the United States and elsewhere--whether his return to office meant a return to the leftist policies which some have blamed for Jamaica's grave economic difficulties that led to his ouster in 1980, or whether, and if so, how much, he has changed.

To get some first-hand answers, EBONY Managing Editor Hans J. Massaquoi requested, and was granted, an exclusive interview with the prime minister. Taking an hour from his busy schedule during a stopover in New York City, the prime minister, in his Waldorf-Astoria Hotel suite, talked freely about his disillusionment with some of his failed policies of the past as well as his optimistic outlook for the future. The following are highlights from that interview.

EBONY: Mr. Prime Minister, how does it feel to have your old job back?

PM MANLEY: Very interesting. It's a great challenge. Things have changed so much, at times you wonder whether it's the same job. Things have changed not only for Jamaica but for all developing countries. We really are operating on a much narrower frame of opportunity. Ever since the mid-1970s, we've had tremendous problems of the oil price shock, collapsing commodity prices, "stagflation." Between them all they combined to create the huge foreign exchange problem which we now call the debt trap. It creates a completely different ball game.

EBONY: Looking back to October 1980 when you lost the election to Mr. Seaga, what do you think were the causes of your defeat?

PM MANLEY: Ha! [Laughter] Where to begin? I think part of it was just the passage of time. Jamaica has a sort of ten-year tradition for changing governments, and that would have been a factor. But much more importantly, [our] society had to face enormous difficulties from 1977 onward when the first of the major adjustment programs had to be faced because of the collapse of export prices, the tremendous increase in oil prices and the effect that this had on the economy. And that meant that Jamaica went into a period of painful adjustment that in fact lasted for 11 years. But by the time we faced the 1980 election, the people were for the first time experiencing the weight of that kind of crunch, through 1978 and 1979, and there were falling standards of living, as has been true all over the Third World. And when people experience a falling standard of living, they tend to kick out whichever government is associated with that process. I think that was the main reason.

EBONY: Some of your critics, even those who personally admire you, say that you were taking Jamaica too far to the left, or in any event farther to the left then the Jamaican people were prepared to go. Do you agree?

PM MANLEY: I think that there were many Jamaicans who had that perception, yes. And I think that what was true was, firstly, that we tried to do too much. And that was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made, trying to launch attacks on so many problems at the same time. Secondly, I think we, like many other people in the broad social democratic movement, placed greater reliance at that time on the capacity of the state to be a direct factor in production. Experience showed us that the state is not necessarily a reliable intervener in production. You stretch your managerial capacity and create tensions with the private sector that can be counterproductive. So the second great lesson that we learned is not really to depend on the government as a factor in production but rather to use government as an enabling factor for the private sector. People might have perceived that we are too far to the left whereas we ourselves would feel that we have a more pragmatic view.

EBONY: In the same vein, some people feared that the private sector under your leadership would eventually be nationalized. This perception, they say, drove away foreign investments, especially U.S. investments. Is that a correct assessment?

PM MANLEY: People who believe that have been listening to the wildest propaganda, because it was always very clear that we were thoroughly committed to a mixed economy. That never changed or never entered my mind. In fact, during my years in office we did a tremendous number of things to try to help the private sector, which was itself affected by the foreign exchange.