Orville Taylor | Reality cheque: Monroe doctrine

Sunday cornmeal and peas, cooked with coconut milk. No chicken from the store or corner shop. The rooster, ‘Bigga’, was sacrificed to feed us. A beautiful Dominica fowl with black, white and grey mottled feathers was dinner. Rice was scarce in a country where 80 per cent of children are born out of wedlock. Ironically, the same percentage of goods available from grocery shops and supermarkets was ‘married’.

An awful period of privation. Lots of basic goods were unavailable and those on the shelves were more than an arm’s length away. Stretch as we did, a tin of bully beef was luxury and tinned mackerel slowly replaced it as the Jamaican national dish. Never mind the salt fish; ackee lost its partner, who sometimes had to double as a substitute for pig’s tail or salt beef.

Christmas 1976, 10 days after the People’s National Party (PNP) won a decisive 47 of the 60 seats in Parliament, Michael Manley was still very popular and the Jamaican dollar was stronger than the American. George Washington’s face was only worth 80 Jamaican cents. Things were tightening, though. The ‘Rely on Ourselves to Survive’ (ROOTS) campaign; not only cultural introspection and appreciation for our Jamaican and black ethnicity, but, more importantly, it was about import substitution, because we knew that something was afoot and the Americans were as angry as a woman scorned. Congress felt dissed with an upper case ‘P’, and we were suffering.

Two years earlier, Manley had declared democratic socialism as the dominant ideology of his ruling PNP. This was followed by a deepening ‘bromance’ with Cuban leader Fidel Castro and the invitation of myriad left wing heads of government to the country. Tanzanian Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Mozambique’s Samora Machel came and rubbed salt in America’s sore.

A month before our election, Jimmy Carter, gentle countryman from Georgia, strong on peace, human rights and respect for international laws, was elected president. Importantly, he was not part of the Republican administration, scandalised by the impeachment and removal of Richard Nixon. Carter’s persona led him to a peace deal between the Arab world and Israel and he was respectful of sovereignty. However, he was American and, thus, carried forward the main elements of the Monroe Doctrine.

December it was as well, 1823, President James Monroe declared in the aftermath of the war that led to the independence of … yes! Venezuela, that any attempt by colonial powers, especially Spain, to establish new colonies or to reinforce or reinstate colonial hold on any territory in the Americas would be seen as an act of aggression against the American people.

Not contemplating China or even the Soviet Union (Russia), it was a warning to the former slavers to ‘hands off’.

Note, however, that the corollary to the doctrine was an implicit treaty that America keep its nose and fingers out of the affairs of Europe. Moreover, it would not interfere in the activities of the existing colonies.

By 1845 under James Polk, the dogma of Manifest Destiny was adopted to declare that it was the God-given right of the US to have full hegemony over the Americas.

Despite initiatives by other presidents over the past two centuries, the basic ethos of Monroe never left American geopolitics.

One important element in this policy was that every head of government, whether democratically elected or otherwise, must be someone who is both pro-American and liked by their government or, at a very minimum, not acting inimical to American interests.

From the Cuban Missile crisis to regime changes, backing of coups, capturing of heads of government, assassinations, supporting opposition militias, propping up right wing dictatorships and myriad activities, including invading and taking control of the government and resources of sovereign nations; these have been the activities of the US in the region.

For those who oppose and despise President Donald Trump and his supporters in the acts, which include what the international community calls ‘extrajudicial killings’ of the alleged drug smugglers, he is not an anomaly.

Trump is simply less diplomatic and more open about what he does and what the American people stand for. He did not elect himself. Over the past three elections, essentially, the same number of Americans voted for him. He is doing nothing that he never said he would not, and with full knowledge that the American president has immense power, if not authority, to act. Only Democrats should be surprised.

Therefore, while people might want to criticise Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness for tiptoeing with his response to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and everything else, former Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding is 100 per cent right in cautioning that, if Holness makes a wrong step, not only will the Jamaican people likely suffer, because of recriminating measures, but, more personally, he can be silently extracted like a wisdom tooth, to face charges he might know little about.

Still, a word of caution to Americans is that the Doctrine plays into the hands of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, because America has no locus standi to interfere into what he is doing there.

Similarly, it underscores the same principle in Asia as China asserts its own version of the doctrine.

No intimate analogy or derisive comment about Maduro in Jamaicans vernacular about dogs, cats and luck. But there is a limit to what or whom Trump can grab and get away without consequences. America cannot win if it is fighting on too many fronts.

Most diaspora Jamaicans are American citizens or residents and, if the US gets diarrhoea, we get the end of the stick. If America walks, we walk; and, if they fight ...

We need peace and rule of law.

Orville Taylor is senior lecturer at Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.