AS ONE WHO complains about the relative paucity of writings on the life and work of Caribbean readers, I was happy to receive an advanced copy of Godfrey Smith’s new book Michael Manley The Biography which Ian Randle Publishers will release shortly.
This is not the first book written by this attorney at law who was schooled at UWI Cave Hill and went on to become a politician before taking an early retirement from this “profession”. It is curious that Smith is Belizean and does not locate his work in the context of any specific meeting or personal association with Manley. Instead he frames this biography as the story of one of the political giants in the Caribbean, which is told from Smith’s safe emotional distance.
This peculiarity is perhaps what sets Smith’s reflection on the life of Manley apart from the half-dozen other publications on his life and work. These other publications are either presentations of Manley’s speeches in his own words or are anchored in the perspective of someone with a vested interest in either his life or his politics which is entirely acceptable. In this instance, however, Smith was invited to write this reflection largely because of the outstanding biography he wrote on the life of the father of the Belizean nation George Price. As is the case with the book on Price, Smith prepared the biography the “old-fashioned way” in that he identified themes and sought out material to support themes which were more or less organised in chronological order.
The reader is therefore not presented with just another book on Manley, but a well-researched perspective centred on particular themes, which adds something distinctive to the body of work on the life of this regional icon.
This emotional distance allows Smith to be refreshingly honest in presenting of all sides of Manley who is also the son of one of Jamaica’s national heroes, Norman Manley. The contradictions that seem to be a peculiarity of all great leaders are presented effortlessly by Smith at various points throughout the book. Initially, one is struck by Smith’s reference to the groundswell of support which brought Manley to power in 1972. Similar levels of popular support are of course not unusual across the region. However, Smith notes that Manley was able to form what he referred to as a “grand coalition around the gravitational pull of his messianic appeal” which is all the more noteworthy because of his privileged origins.
Manley appeared to move effortlessly between the social and intellectual classes in Jamaica and identify with both, an ability that is perhaps also not uncommon in successful Caribbean politicians. There were, however, other interesting contractions mentioned, like the fact that he married a black working-class girl, while taking a white middle-class woman as his mistress. Certainly the arrangement would have been no less peculiar were it the other way around, but perhaps that would have been more consistent with expectations at that time. That affair was symptomatic of Manley’s desire and capacity to straddle the social divide in Jamaica, but Smith also identified it as a symptom of Manley’s “debauchery” which was facilitated by his seductive oratory.
In the realm of the more substantive political matters I was particularly drawn to Smith’s account of the events and indeed Manley’s reflections on his “second coming” (so to speak). In chapters entitled The Reinvention of Michael Manley and Apostle of the Free Market, he reflected on an era that would be the one in which the type of contradiction mentioned earlier would have been manifested. Manley went into office in 1972 as a leader with support from all sectors and social classes and left office in 1980 fully understanding the extent to which support from the middle classes and indeed the United States was a necessary ingredient for political success.
On the home front the economic programme was in fairness influenced by an IMF programme that lingered beyond Edward Seaga’s tenure, but nonetheless Manley pursued privatisation initiatives which were reflective of a newly found comfort with the free market. It is striking that Smith tells this story thoroughly and avoids distracting the reader with his own perhaps intrusive opinions, which I have to admit I was curious about on occasion, especially as he was also himself a politician.
Peter W. Wickham is a political consultant and a director of Caribbean Development Research Services (CADRES). Email: peter.w.wickham@gmail.com