Today, the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) stages its 65th annual conference. Judging from the level of pre-conference coverage, the media could be accused of being in collusion with mischievous persons who have declared Jamaica PNP country. But then again, the Labourites are not fighting each other this year as they have done so well in the past; nor do they have an internal election for leader as the PNP had for president this year.

So, the conference is not big news. But the JLP is now governing Jamaica at a critical juncture in the nation's history, a situation due largely to external global conditions bearing down upon every country upon Earth rather than the sins and shortcomings of any government of Jamaica past or present.

There are several pieces of cultivated falsehood about both political parties which have become 'truth' to the other side from unexamined repetition. Perhaps none about the JLP is more outstanding than that its founding leader, Alexander Bustamante, was something of a coarse, semi-literate and opportunistic buffoon compared to his erudite, suave lawyer cousin, Norman Manley, who led the party of ideas.

Bustamante's JLP has been called upon to lead the country for nearly one-half of the 64 years of full internal self-government and Indepen-dence from 1944 and will surpass the PNP in this term of office, if the Government it now forms survives. Both parties, major national institutions, have made both large positive and negative contributions to Jamaica. And those contributions must be frankly and deeply examined, in the interest of truth, if nothing else.

University of the West Indies sociologist Dr Herbert Gayle, at a recent symposium on criminal gangs, has described the two parties as the two main gangs operating in the country. And I have no fundamental quarrel with that.

Critical of choices

It may be too early in our political history to say so definitively, but it does appear that the people have called upon the JLP to lead the country at its most critical junctures. It does appear a little strange that many of those most inclined to worship the wisdom of the people have been so critical of their choices. With Universal Adult Suffrage in 1944, voters chose the JLP to lead the country into the experiment of full internal self-government. Norman Manley failed to win the seat he contested. Manley was in favour of literacy for the vote; Bustamante was not, and, for good or for ill, Busta's views prevailed. The JLP won again in 1949 and the PNP did not see the governing side of the Legislative Council until 1955.

When Premier Norman Manley asked the people, in the election of April 1962, who they wanted to lead them into Independence, they handsomely chose Bustamante and the JLP. There followed the longest period of robust economic growth in Independent Jamaica.

The 1970s, more than any other time in Jamaica's political history, marked a contest of ideas of political economy. The clash culminated in the 1980 general election when the JLP was asked by massive popular vote and seat count to govern a near-bankrupt country.

Our robust two-party political system, from the ups and downs of political contest in the rough seas of global change, has evolved into two centrist, market-oriented, social conscience parties that can scarcely be distinguished. Ideology has come down to who loves the poor more, can manage the market economy better, and is less corrupt.

We need both parties, such as they are, or better replacements for them, for a working democracy. I have always advocated keeping both black dog and monkey on a short leash by regular rotation in and out of government.

The JLP has come to government at this critical turning point in the nation's history not by any conscious choice of voters for them to lead in crisis, but by being overtaken, fresh in office, by global circumstances.

Global economic crisis

Those in the know are saying the global financial-cum-economic crisis has had no parallel since the Great Depression starting in 1929, a time when only Marcus Garvey had a political party in Jamaica.

Food and fuel prices have escalated dramatically in the last year and will not return to base. The United States has just elected a world president to be dealt with by an economically weak and vulnerable tiny island state which has always had a big voice on the world stage, no matter which party is in power.

And many feel that the crime and violence, to which both parties have made distinguished contributions, hence their gang label, has taken a critical turn for the worse during the first year of the JLP in government this cycle.

If the party is serious about governance, these and similar issues are the ones to be engaged at the annual conference, not political froth. The JLP, going into the future in governance, may wish to copy a strategy with which the PNP is much more comfortable and experienced: Setting up study groups and think tanks inside the party and in conjunction with civil society to wrestle with big issues.

Political pragmatism has been a strength of the JLP, which it seems to be losing. Bustamante's oft-recited declaration, "We are with the West" has been widely regarded by 'intelligent' people as the politically unsophisticated rambling of a simpleton. Or perhaps it was the tight encapsulation of a politically, diplomatically, and economically sensible foreign policy. The West has won. South-South cooperation hasn't. And communism, fast disappearing, is no longer available to serve as a convenient bogeyman for the JLP fighting the PNP.

Either underscoring his unlettered ignorance or his shrewd pragmatism, Busta reportedly once snapped impatiently, "Philosophy can grow yams?" And, indeed, philosophy can grow no yams. Philosophers can only eat and philosophise if farmers apply practical technical knowledge to growing yams. Perhaps the JLP conference and beyond could spend some quality time finding that balance between philosophy and growing yams, a balance reflected in that excellent Independence Five-Year Development Plan, 1963-1968, which was led by the boy minister, Edward Seaga, and which I have written on before in this column.

Bustamante's strategy

Trevor Munroe recently reminded me that Bustamante answered his critics about his intellectual capacity by trotting out his 'brains' team on the political platform.

That strategy has been recommended to and adopted by Portia Simpson Miller, now leading 'the party of ideas', having defeated - again - an intellectual. The same sort of criticism of being intellectually challenged, which was levelled against Busta, has been levelled against her, but she remains perennially an enormously popular political leader just like Busta - but with less clarity and fixity of vision and purpose in an age of 'mouth water' politics.

Martin Henry is a communications consultant who may be reached at medhen@gmail.com. Feedback may also be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.