Dear Editor,
Long after all political rhetoric has ended, the name PJ Patterson will stand tall. A revered Queen's Counsel and nation builder with a legendary memory, more solid and circumspect than flamboyant, more Henry VII than Henry VIII, it is PJ more than any other leader who has built a comprehensive infrastructure for a modern Jamaica.
He led his party to victory in three general elections and would have triumphed in a fourth and perhaps a fifth, had he chosen to go on. He is the greatest political strategist of our time.
His name is indelibly carved in the revolution in tertiary education through the ROSE Programme and the new universities he fostered; the telecommunications and technological leap ushered in under his watch; the housing advances he made by dramatically lowering NHT mortgages to two per cent; the transportation and road-building programme that has changed our physical infrastructural landscape, including the project of the century, Highway 2000, and most profoundly, his renewal and delivery of the sacred trust of our ancestors - land to the landless.
There is a lot to be said about his profound contribution on the world stage through his chairmanship of the ACP Group of Nations and Caricom, but we need not tarry - his work is done. It is only left for us to acknowledge his worth and give due credit. A quote from my book, Operation Pride - the Truth, will suffice:
"Ultimately, despite any misgivings one might have about the detractions of others in respect of his Land Reform Programme, Patterson's achievement in moving a significant number of persons from one social class, the unstable professional and working class, into a secure middle-class future within a decade at Luana, Mount Edgecombe, Norwich, Clover, Fisher Road, Wellington Heights, Karachi and Long Mountain, is a feat not only worthy of society's commendation but a process that should be studied by serious scholars in the Developing World. Elsewhere on PRIDE sites throughout the country, another 29,008 families have been lifted out of actual and near poverty into a new and emerging working class fortified by land capital.
"But the arc of history is long and fully independent, not swayed by political manoeuvrings or sensational headlines; it uncompromisingly cleanses, purifies and elevates facts in the total absence of cynicism, individual biases, schemes or group agendas. It is therefore certain that one day, perhaps not in our time, a grateful nation will come to appreciate and honour the work of the quiet man from Hanover, who unleashed a socio-economic revolution which changed the pattern and status of public infrastructure and land ownership in Jamaica, for generations to come."
Paul Buchanan, MP
West Rural St Andrew
Patterson's achievements
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Long after all political rhetoric has ended, the name PJ Patterson will stand tall. A revered Queen's Counsel and nation builder with a legendary memory, more solid and circumspect than flamboyant, more Henry VII than Henry VIII, it is PJ more than any other leader who has built a comprehensive infrastructure for a modern Jamaica.
He led his party to victory in three general elections and would have triumphed in a fourth and perhaps a fifth, had he chosen to go on. He is the greatest political strategist of our time.
His name is indelibly carved in the revolution in tertiary education through the ROSE Programme and the new universities he fostered; the telecommunications and technological leap ushered in under his watch; the housing advances he made by dramatically lowering NHT mortgages to two per cent; the transportation and road-building programme that has changed our physical infrastructural landscape, including the project of the century, Highway 2000, and most profoundly, his renewal and delivery of the sacred trust of our ancestors - land to the landless.
There is a lot to be said about his profound contribution on the world stage through his chairmanship of the ACP Group of Nations and Caricom, but we need not tarry - his work is done. It is only left for us to acknowledge his worth and give due credit. A quote from my book, Operation Pride - the Truth, will suffice:
"Ultimately, despite any misgivings one might have about the detractions of others in respect of his Land Reform Programme, Patterson's achievement in moving a significant number of persons from one social class, the unstable professional and working class, into a secure middle-class future within a decade at Luana, Mount Edgecombe, Norwich, Clover, Fisher Road, Wellington Heights, Karachi and Long Mountain, is a feat not only worthy of society's commendation but a process that should be studied by serious scholars in the Developing World. Elsewhere on PRIDE sites throughout the country, another 29,008 families have been lifted out of actual and near poverty into a new and emerging working class fortified by land capital.
"But the arc of history is long and fully independent, not swayed by political manoeuvrings or sensational headlines; it uncompromisingly cleanses, purifies and elevates facts in the total absence of cynicism, individual biases, schemes or group agendas. It is therefore certain that one day, perhaps not in our time, a grateful nation will come to appreciate and honour the work of the quiet man from Hanover, who unleashed a socio-economic revolution which changed the pattern and status of public infrastructure and land ownership in Jamaica, for generations to come."
Paul Buchanan, MP
West Rural St Andrew
Patterson's achievements
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