Peter Espeut

I know I have a series from last week to complete, but I must break it to comment on Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller's presidential address to the PNP conference last weekend.

By several criteria it was a good speech. It was the people in her own party who (during the presidential campaign) evinced rampant class prejudice by questioning her competence with the English language, and doubting her ability at public speaking (locally) and private speaking (overseas). Well, those snooty people got their comeuppance last Sunday! Her delivery was excellent and self-assured, and her diction was no worse than certain Rhodes Scholars I regularly hear.

Her content was cogent and focused on her ultimate goal (getting her own mandate), and it was a masterful display of (tribal) political speechmaking.

It is enough to make the JLP shake in their boots and doubt their real chances at the next election! But then, this is what was predicted before the presidential campaign: Peter, they said, had the support of more MPs - and the middle class; but Portia, they said, was the only one who could beat Bruce in a general election because of her popularity with the poor. No one is popular with the poor who cannot 'mooove' people at a public function. I was not surprised at her delivery or her content. This is why the delegates elected her. She is the big hope for the PNP.

And there were substantial things to agree with and to be happy about in her speech. She was uncompromising in her talk about putting an end to political thuggery.

And she made it clear that she wanted an end to police brutality. These are two matters about which I have many times written because I believe they are fundamental to national progress.

Candour was refreshing

Not every politician has been so up-front about these matters, and her candour was refreshing. She did not waste time denying that her constituency was a garrison, as many have done; she spent her time making it clear that she didn't want to go back 'there.' The real test will be whether this good intention will pave the road to Hell or whether it will be translated into reality.

And Portia was clear that unless our education system becomes functional and produces literate people - people able to start businesses and develop the economy - our national progress will be held back. The last 17 years of PNP Government - and the previous nine years of JLP Government, and the previous eight years of the PNP, and the previous 10 years of the JLP - have not been able to fix the rot in our education system created by a plantation society wishing to protect its supply of unskilled (semi-literate) labour. If under her watch she can fix Jamaica's education system to improve literacy and examination performance - especially among males - her legacy, her high place in history, will be assured.

What I was disappointed about in Portia's speech is what I have written about before. She seems to be allergic to the word 'environment'. She used the word in her Labour Day pep talk, encouraging people to go out and "clean up the environment"; but she didn't use it this time. She will spend millions in a campaign to clean up 'communities,' which is OK.

Most of the tourists who will come for the Cricket World Cup 2007 will not come from the U.S.A.; most will come from Test-cricketing countries which tend to be environmentally aware. The clean streets and communities will impress them (or rather, they will consider them 'normal' and 'ordinary'; it is we who will be impressed); what will not impress the tourists will be the deforestation and the marine pollution and the scarcity of wildlife. What will turn off ecologically-minded tourists will be environmentally-unfriendly hotels and unsustainable development.

The Prime Minister's only reference to environmental matters in her speech was that nothing will stop the (unsustainable) development of the big (environmentally-unfriendly) hotels (the words in the brackets are mine).

A good first effort, Madame Prime Minister; but there is room for improvement.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is executive director of an environment and development NGO.