Dear Editor,
Now we know why former prime minister P J Patterson is without doubt the most effective politician that Jamaica has ever had -- he can make his audience believe anything.
The latest manifestation of this is his assertion, according to columnist Clare Forrester, that one of the founders of the People's National Party, OT Fairclough, was a member of the black aristocracy who never claimed to be a socialist. Inherent in that assertion is that being aristocrat and socialist are necessarily incompatible. Even the most cursory look at history, particularly British political history, undermines that assertion.
While Fairclough, a former banker in Haiti who published the PNP-leaning weekly Public Opinion, undoubtedly cut an aristocratic figure in his trademark white suit, polished speech and impeccable manners, the assertion that he was not a socialist comes as more than a mild surprise to someone who sat at his feet during his weekly news staff conferences in the late 1950s to early1960s. He must have surely fooled us!
Okay, let's see. He helped found, and was treasurer till his death, a political party dedicated to socialism; he published a newspaper supporting that party and promoting socialism weekly; among the many talented staffers he hired with a socialist bent, was a lifelong promoter of socialism in Jamaican journalism, the late firebrand John Maxwell. But according to PJ, the man behind all this, OT Fairclough, wasn't a socialist.
We look forward, with more than wry smile, to the next chapter of Jamaica's political history by this master revisionist historian. It will no doubt claim that Norman Manley of Drumblair wasn't a socialist either !
Errol WA Townshend
Scarborough, Ontario
Canada
Wasn't OT Fairclough a socialist?
-->
Now we know why former prime minister P J Patterson is without doubt the most effective politician that Jamaica has ever had -- he can make his audience believe anything.
The latest manifestation of this is his assertion, according to columnist Clare Forrester, that one of the founders of the People's National Party, OT Fairclough, was a member of the black aristocracy who never claimed to be a socialist. Inherent in that assertion is that being aristocrat and socialist are necessarily incompatible. Even the most cursory look at history, particularly British political history, undermines that assertion.
While Fairclough, a former banker in Haiti who published the PNP-leaning weekly Public Opinion, undoubtedly cut an aristocratic figure in his trademark white suit, polished speech and impeccable manners, the assertion that he was not a socialist comes as more than a mild surprise to someone who sat at his feet during his weekly news staff conferences in the late 1950s to early1960s. He must have surely fooled us!
Okay, let's see. He helped found, and was treasurer till his death, a political party dedicated to socialism; he published a newspaper supporting that party and promoting socialism weekly; among the many talented staffers he hired with a socialist bent, was a lifelong promoter of socialism in Jamaican journalism, the late firebrand John Maxwell. But according to PJ, the man behind all this, OT Fairclough, wasn't a socialist.
We look forward, with more than wry smile, to the next chapter of Jamaica's political history by this master revisionist historian. It will no doubt claim that Norman Manley of Drumblair wasn't a socialist either !
Errol WA Townshend
Scarborough, Ontario
Canada
Wasn't OT Fairclough a socialist?
-->