Commentary

Shearing your grief

The Honourable Hugh Lawson Shearer, former Member of Parliament and Trade Union leader, passed on yesterday at the age of 81, and with his death, and with the Honourable Edward Seaga, Leader of the Opposition stating his plan to resign sometime in November, perhaps it is safe to say that the opening age of Jamaica's political history, which began with independence almost 42 years ago, may be finally coming to a close.

Both Manleys - Norman and Michael Manley - have since gone and it may be safe to say that Seaga and Shearer were the two remaining people - of at least any real resonance - who still remained.

Now H. L. Shearer is gone. Granted, he no longer took part in politics and had not done so for some time, but his work as both a trade unionist and a politician long overshadowed those who thought to come after him or had taken the first steps down that way.

Those who would have a lot to live up to.

Of course, he did stir up some controversy during his one and only tenure as Primie Minister of Jamaica, what with his government banning Guyanese radical and university professor Walter Rodney, and also the banning of books deemed as 'subversive'.

Neither of these activities may have sat well with people to whom he preached the rights of the workers - just like Rodney - or to whom he extolled the virtues of an education (Then why ban the books?, they may have wondered).

Yet that it is all water under the bridge and like they say, time cures all ills.

So thanks to the Honourable H.L. Shearer from, if we may be presumptous enough, the people of Jamaica, past and present.