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Jamaica: Struggle in the Periphery
The former prime minister of Jamaica discusses U.S. involvement in South American affairs, the history and problems of Jamaica, and argues that U.S. worked to destabilize his government
260 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1982
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 17, 2016
Michael Manley was leader of Jamaica’s People’s National Party and the country’s fourth prime minister. He served from 1972 to 1980, then again from 1989 to 1992. He died in 1997. This book was written just after the PNP’s crushing defeat of 1980, and published in Britain in 1982. It is a description and defence of the author’s years in power, and thus has significant historical value.
It is an easy read, because Michael Manley was a good, clear writer, and you come to sympathise with him. Moreover, it has a comprehensive index, and the chapters are informatively headed. As usual with memoirs, though, it is difficult to say how accurate the author’s assessment or even recollection of crucial events is without appeal to a secondary text. And there aren’t that many of those around.
A good example of an omission may be the 1978 Green Bay Massacre, in which – supposedly - five members of his political opposition party, the JLP, were extra judicially executed by the army. For those in Jamaica today who are sceptical of the Manley myth (he remains one of the country’s most popular past prime ministers), the massacre still inspires strong emotions.
A lot pf people nowadays think that Manley’s main failing was simply that he did too much public spending too quickly. He ran out of money for essentials and therefore made the victory of the rightist JLP inevitable. You won’t find too much admission of that in here.
Having said that, Manley undoubtedly faced significant opposition abroad, and his desire to see a strong, truly independent Jamaica didn’t go down too well in Washington. His alliances with Havana and Moscow probably didn’t help him. The former comes across as fairly reasonable, in context; the latter much, much less so.
It is an easy read, because Michael Manley was a good, clear writer, and you come to sympathise with him. Moreover, it has a comprehensive index, and the chapters are informatively headed. As usual with memoirs, though, it is difficult to say how accurate the author’s assessment or even recollection of crucial events is without appeal to a secondary text. And there aren’t that many of those around.
A good example of an omission may be the 1978 Green Bay Massacre, in which – supposedly - five members of his political opposition party, the JLP, were extra judicially executed by the army. For those in Jamaica today who are sceptical of the Manley myth (he remains one of the country’s most popular past prime ministers), the massacre still inspires strong emotions.
A lot pf people nowadays think that Manley’s main failing was simply that he did too much public spending too quickly. He ran out of money for essentials and therefore made the victory of the rightist JLP inevitable. You won’t find too much admission of that in here.
Having said that, Manley undoubtedly faced significant opposition abroad, and his desire to see a strong, truly independent Jamaica didn’t go down too well in Washington. His alliances with Havana and Moscow probably didn’t help him. The former comes across as fairly reasonable, in context; the latter much, much less so.
December 19, 2022
Clearly written and honest account of what happened in Jamaica from the eyes of Michael Manley in the 1970s
December 12, 2024
Manley’s candidness is refreshing.
There is phenomenal sentence in the first arc of the book where he compares the world’s political system to the solar system. Very pleasing to my brain.
There is phenomenal sentence in the first arc of the book where he compares the world’s political system to the solar system. Very pleasing to my brain.
July 2, 2022
What one thinks of this in my opinion sober and clear-eyed work, I believe the only one of its kind, depends on one's opinion of Michael Manley and whether one accepts his account of what happened during his first term as Prime Minister. I never met him but I am fond of him. I find him to be a man of great integrity, rationality, courage and principle on both the personal and political levels and he is considered by many to be one of the Caribbean's most distinguished and respected leaders.
Manley began his term in 1972 with a reasonable and popular program of progressive, democratic social and economic change, as outlined in The Politics of Change but soon ran afoul of the OPEC oil crisis, conservative/reactionary elements in Jamaican society, and the same in the United States. This nasty and extremely difficult trifecta ultimately sullied Manley's democratic socialist agenda, messed with his plans and brought the island to the brink of civil war. A struggle to be sure.
I am not an economist and was (sadly?) not there so I have no way of verifying the veracity of his narrative. Although this seems to be a reliable account, and Manley is not above admitting fault, subjectivity must be taken into account. Things may not have been exactly as he says and he may not be accepting blame for things that were his fault.
Did he make mistakes? Yes, and he would be the first to admit some of them, but probably or perhaps not all. I have a mixed opinion of Castro and I think Manley's visit to Cuba ended up being more of a polemical middle finger to the US than anything that benefited Jamaica in concrete terms. In my opinion what was lost (alarming Washington), was more than what was gained (Cuban schools and doctors). As a film school instructor once opined, this is the essence of a wrong decision.
Read and decide for yourself, but I feel this is a fairly spot on and accurate account of what happened in Jamaica in the 1970s, and a saga of destabilization: What happens when a small country within the US sphere of influence decides there's a third, non-aligned way beyond the Soviet/Cuban/communist or American/Puerto Rican/capitalist models, and defies the US at the UN over the issue of Cuban troops in Angola (another issue where Jamaicans paid the price: this principled stance by Manley cost Jamaica millions of dollars).
It is shocking, depressing and resoundingly unacceptable that 800 people lost their lives in the obscene, heretofore unseen and near civil war political violence that tore Kingston apart in the election of 1980. Was this violence necessary? No (is violence ever necessary?). And what were the forces behind the violence? Who is really to blame? The US and the CIA played an outsize role, and it is conceivable that without their involvement Manley may have survived for a third term (on the evening of the 1980 election he thought they might actually win).
As far as I know this is the only book of its kind and it's (morbidly?) fascinating. It's filled with interesting, even juicy tidbits and details I don't think you'll find anywhere else, such as the reaction to the nationalization of the bauxite industry and the illegal nature of currency transfers as shifty Jamaicans smuggled money out of the country (I hope those people never came back. As The Meditations once sang, "If you're running from Jamaica, I hope it's forever.")
Manley is a brilliant statesman and a skilled and engaging writer. To put it bluntly, it's too bad that everyone didn't just chill the fuck out and go along with what he was reasonably proposing, because I think it could have worked. Despite the harshness of the IMF loans, at the time of the fatal 1980 election in which Manley was ousted from power, the economy was still in his words, "alive and kicking."
When asked what he thought of Manley, Bob Marley once said, surprisingly, "Great, man. Great. I am not a politician but he is the first guy to really try a ting." Well Manley tried a ting. And people both in Jamaica and the US didn't like it.
I still believe in Manley and his vision. A lot of people did not. But people didn't have to die as a result (see: Allende, Chile, 1973 [of which Manley was aware]).
I did not mention the economy, foreign exchange, balance of trade and public expenditure, all of which are of course central to his narrative. Manley studied at the London School of Economics and his command of economics shows. The only other person to have reviewed this title feels he simply spent too much money, and I basically agree.
A must for anyone interested in Jamaica, Jamaican history, Jamaican politics, Michael Manley, the Caribbean/West Indies, Caribbean/West Indian history, anti-imperialism, the struggles of the developing world, etc.
Manley began his term in 1972 with a reasonable and popular program of progressive, democratic social and economic change, as outlined in The Politics of Change but soon ran afoul of the OPEC oil crisis, conservative/reactionary elements in Jamaican society, and the same in the United States. This nasty and extremely difficult trifecta ultimately sullied Manley's democratic socialist agenda, messed with his plans and brought the island to the brink of civil war. A struggle to be sure.
I am not an economist and was (sadly?) not there so I have no way of verifying the veracity of his narrative. Although this seems to be a reliable account, and Manley is not above admitting fault, subjectivity must be taken into account. Things may not have been exactly as he says and he may not be accepting blame for things that were his fault.
Did he make mistakes? Yes, and he would be the first to admit some of them, but probably or perhaps not all. I have a mixed opinion of Castro and I think Manley's visit to Cuba ended up being more of a polemical middle finger to the US than anything that benefited Jamaica in concrete terms. In my opinion what was lost (alarming Washington), was more than what was gained (Cuban schools and doctors). As a film school instructor once opined, this is the essence of a wrong decision.
Read and decide for yourself, but I feel this is a fairly spot on and accurate account of what happened in Jamaica in the 1970s, and a saga of destabilization: What happens when a small country within the US sphere of influence decides there's a third, non-aligned way beyond the Soviet/Cuban/communist or American/Puerto Rican/capitalist models, and defies the US at the UN over the issue of Cuban troops in Angola (another issue where Jamaicans paid the price: this principled stance by Manley cost Jamaica millions of dollars).
It is shocking, depressing and resoundingly unacceptable that 800 people lost their lives in the obscene, heretofore unseen and near civil war political violence that tore Kingston apart in the election of 1980. Was this violence necessary? No (is violence ever necessary?). And what were the forces behind the violence? Who is really to blame? The US and the CIA played an outsize role, and it is conceivable that without their involvement Manley may have survived for a third term (on the evening of the 1980 election he thought they might actually win).
As far as I know this is the only book of its kind and it's (morbidly?) fascinating. It's filled with interesting, even juicy tidbits and details I don't think you'll find anywhere else, such as the reaction to the nationalization of the bauxite industry and the illegal nature of currency transfers as shifty Jamaicans smuggled money out of the country (I hope those people never came back. As The Meditations once sang, "If you're running from Jamaica, I hope it's forever.")
Manley is a brilliant statesman and a skilled and engaging writer. To put it bluntly, it's too bad that everyone didn't just chill the fuck out and go along with what he was reasonably proposing, because I think it could have worked. Despite the harshness of the IMF loans, at the time of the fatal 1980 election in which Manley was ousted from power, the economy was still in his words, "alive and kicking."
When asked what he thought of Manley, Bob Marley once said, surprisingly, "Great, man. Great. I am not a politician but he is the first guy to really try a ting." Well Manley tried a ting. And people both in Jamaica and the US didn't like it.
I still believe in Manley and his vision. A lot of people did not. But people didn't have to die as a result (see: Allende, Chile, 1973 [of which Manley was aware]).
I did not mention the economy, foreign exchange, balance of trade and public expenditure, all of which are of course central to his narrative. Manley studied at the London School of Economics and his command of economics shows. The only other person to have reviewed this title feels he simply spent too much money, and I basically agree.
A must for anyone interested in Jamaica, Jamaican history, Jamaican politics, Michael Manley, the Caribbean/West Indies, Caribbean/West Indian history, anti-imperialism, the struggles of the developing world, etc.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews