Early in 1969 Norman Manley retire and him son, Michael, get elected as leader of the People’s National Party, the PNP, which at the time was the opposition party in Parliament. The first time I hear Michael Manley it was on the Rediffusion and he was saying ‘Better must come’.
So I start read ’bout the PNP’s ‘politics of participation’, and them four basic commitments to create a Jamaican economy that was ‘less dependent on foreign control, an egalitarian society based on equality and opportunity, a truly democratic society, and a society proud of its history and heritage’. It put me in mind of Sun Yat-sen and Mao Zedong and Zhang, and my own father, Yang Tzu. And it seem like maybe there was still a chance for us. Still a chance that Jamaica could hope for a better future. And when I go listen to Manley speak at one of him rallies he stand up there and say: ‘We come too far, we’re not turning back now. We come too far, we’re not turning back now. We have a pride now. We have a place now. We have a mission now. And I say to you, my friends, together we are going to march forward under God’s heaven building democratic socialism. Glory to socialism.’
And that was it. That was me and Michael Manley because this was how we was going to create a fair and just Jamaica. Just like how Zhang talk ’bout the right of the ordinary woman and man to live a decent life free from the tyranny of warlords and the domination of foreigners. This was the same thing, only now we wanted social justice and fair distribution of wealth, and we wanted to ease out from under so much foreign economic control.
When Michael Manley win the general election in 1972 I celebrate more than I done for Independence ten years earlier, because this time it really seem to mean something. It wasn’t just that we going take over governing ourselves. It was like we really going do something. We really going make it different, like Manley say, we were going to ‘walk through the world on our feet and not on our knees’.
Manley buy the public utilities, and take over all the foreign-owned sugar estates and a heap of the hotels. So instead of one man own one plantation, now we had workers’ co-operatives, and small farmers working the land that nobody used to do nothing with. People was learning to read and write. There was day care and community centres. Plus the government bring out new labour legislation that replace the old Master and Servants Law and them introduce a minimum wage.
It was a new Jamaica. It was a new vision. It was new hope.
Judge Finley say to me, ‘You all excited ’bout Michael Manley, but not everybody so happy with him.’
‘What yu mean?’
‘Yu nuh notice how many of them jumping on a flight to Miami since him introduce all these changes and especially since the property tax?’
‘If yu going to redistribute you have to take from somebody to give to somebody else. That is how it work. Anyway, they can afford it.’
‘Well, maybe they don’t want to because them got five flights a day to Miami and every one of them getting fuller day by day.’
Finley was right. I just think to myself good riddance. If them don’t want every woman and man to have a roof over them head, fair wages and equal opportunities, then let them go.
But what catch my attention was how all of them so busy trying to smuggle money off the island. They got US dollars stuff in them beehive hairdos, sew in the lining of them clothes and straw baskets, bury in cakes and little patties, stick to them leg and then put plaster over it like the leg broke. It was high adventure, that what it was. And every day in the newspaper there was more news ’bout people getting stop at the airport and where them got the US dollars hid.
But they carry on do it anyway, because they wasn’t going leave them money behind. And they didn’t seem to care nothing ’bout it being illegal under the Exchange Control regulations.
By the time we get to 1974 and 1975 things really getting bad because all we got is half the supermarket and wholesale business and although that going alright it not really enough to keep everybody going. The men getting restless. Sun Tzu say, ‘ When the troops continually gather in small groups and whisper together the general has lost the confidence of the army .’ So I start worry that I going lose some of them. Most likely Milton and Desmond. Me, Hampton and Finley been running together since we fourteen so I reckon we going stick together no matter what.
Sun Tzu say, ‘ A skilled commander seeks victory from the situation and does not demand it of his subordinates ’, but I don’t know how to make it mean anything. All I can think is there is some opportunity here if I can only figure out what.
When I write to Mui I say:
I know you want to come home but business is very bad down here. So it is better for you to stay in England for now. I sent Karl the money he asked me for to open up his nightclub so maybe you can help him with that. Why he want to call it the Opium Den I don’t know. I suppose that is his business. But whatever you doing you need to study, because when the time come for you to come back it would be good to have a trade, like being a barrister like Norman Manley. That way you will really be able to help the people.
Then one day Margy telephone me. She finish her college course and move to New York where she do some other course and some other course, and now she working in a cosmetics company.
‘What you do there?’
‘I scout out new products and find ways to sell them.’
‘You think you could do that for yourself if I set you in business?’
‘Are you serious, Uncle?’
‘Yah, man. But we need to have the company registered office in America, can be New York or anywhere you like, but New York is good. And we have to have a subsidiary here on the island.’
We set up Yang Cosmetics Company, which import raw materials and export locally enriched face creams, body lotions and other beauty products. The company registered in New York with business premises in Port Antonio. This is where Margy want to live when she on the island, because she think it truly beautiful over there.
The cosmetics company allow us all sorta currency exchange so now I am selling US dollars to all these rich Jamaicans in such a hurry to leave. We passing the US dollars through the cosmetics company and the Jamaican dollars through the supermarkets. And as these people getting to Canada and the US they helping me move more money through the imports and exports because they reckon they helping others like them to get their money out.
Everything turn out fine because I was selling US dollars at ten times the official exchange rate to people who would rather have US $100,000 in a American bank account than a million Jamaican dollars in Kingston. Especially since constant devaluation mean that the Jamaican dollar worth less and less even while it just sitting there in the bank. Plus, doing business with me mean that they nuh take no risk of getting caught at the airport and getting their money confiscated. Business was booming.
I make sure I put a good roll in the bishop’s collection box because all the time now he got more and more projects for poor relief. And I stand by Michael Manley and his land and welfare reforms.