MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica – Former Jamaican Prime Minister, P.J. Patterson, has commended Attorney-at-law, Delano Franklyn, for successfully completing a book entitled, ‘The Politics of Equality’, comprising an assortment of speeches by the late former Prime Minister of Jamaica, Michael Manley.
Speaking at the official launch of the book, at the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry Expo 2009, on June 27, Mr. Patterson said the presentation was “admirable and welcomed” and of “timely importance,” adding that although the book was a compilation of Budget speeches, it still involved diligent research, which was evident in the finished product by the author.
“In the book, ‘The politics of equality’, Delano Franklyn has not only put the actual speeches together, but he has undertaken a scholarly presentation to reflect the title, the theme and the subjects that are covered in each Budget speech. He has also gone further to provide separate internal headings, which facilitate the easy identification of special topics,” Mr. Patterson observed.
He noted that as a people, Jamaicans are more prone to pass their recollection of events and experiences from one generation to another in aural form, through stories or songs.
“With each passing day, I have become increasingly aware how much of our document, records and memorabilia have either disappeared or been destroyed. Such losses will result either in enormous gaps of our collective memory or a falsification of our history,” Mr. Patterson said.
“Michael Manley believed in the inherent dignity of man. He abhorred inequality and exploitation in any form. He had no army to send to the battlefields in Southern Africa, but his loud and persistent denunciation of the evil apartheid regime and his unrelenting support for the liberation struggle in Rhodesia, Mozambique, Namibia and Angola, earned the wrath of powerful forces,” he said.
He noted that not even Michael Manley’s worst detractor could deny the profundity of his intellectual grasp in the entire gamut of international affairs, the persuasive voice and compelling rhetoric by which he articulated the cause of the developing world.
“Michael Manley recognised that changing the world in which we live and trade would neither be quick nor easy, but rather it would be a long, hard process. But he was never daunted by the fear that it could not be completed in his lifetime. However, he lit the spark and others of us have managed to keep the flame alight. It may flicker but it must never die until we construct a global system that provides social equity and economic justice for all mankind,” Mr. Patterson said.
