“The future will tell us whether it would not have been better if neither I nor Rousseau had ever lived” remarked Napoleon at Rousseau’s grave. Nearly 200 years later history has still not made up its mind if Bonaparte was a blessing or curse to mankind. He was certainly a boon to authors and publishers, being the most written about human being of all time. One hundred thousand books have argued that he was a warmongering ogre responsible for a million unnecessary deaths. Another 100,000 have proclaimed him a law giving hero who liberated the modern world from feudalism.

Napoleon was the living embodiment of a question that has been asked ever since the first tribal chief emerged over 10,000 years ago - do men seek power to do good for their country, or to exalt themselves above others? Are leaders essentially public servants or egoistic exploiters?

Undisputedly evil figures are common enough, and mankind would surely have been better off without Hitler or Stalin. Leo Tolstoy claimed that “in historical events great men, so called, are but the labels that serve to give a name to an event”. But - if great is defined as merely extraordinary - this is certainly false for such megalomaniacs whose bloody regimes were born and died with them.

Yet have any leaders been truly indispensable to their nation’s welfare? Would America have become a great country without Washington? Would World War II have been lost without Churchill? Would South Africa have experienced civil war without Mandela? We can never know.

The actors themselves rarely doubt their importance. Even ‘secular saints’ like Ghandi and Mandela seem prone to the towering sense of self regard that tends to envelop even mediocre politicians. A modest politician is as much a contradiction in terms as an honest lawyer. But then as Pascal wrote

“Vanity is so firmly anchored in man’s heart that a soldier, a cook or a porter will boast and expect admirers, and even philosophers want them; those who write against them want to enjoy the prestige of having written well, those who read them want the prestige of having read them, and perhaps I who write this want the same thing, perhaps my readers…”

Surrounded as they are by fawning sycophants, it is hardly surprising that leaders often develop a ludicrously heightened sense of self-importance.

Yet mankind must be led. In every known society there has been someone ultimately in charge, a final decision maker. We may curse and castigate them when things go wrong, but if we could do without them we would.

Because they are allowed to, democracies like to blame their problems on their leaders. “The politicians have wrecked the country!” Jamaicans grumble. “Eddie and PJ are dinosaurs!”. Yet in a democracy the people are free to choose the best men among themselves to lead the nation. If they do not, whose fault is it?

Though not quite tragic, Jamaica’s history since 1972 has been disappointing. While the world’s real per capita GDP has increased several times over since then, ours has actually fallen. And our murder rate has quadrupled. Countries like Trinidad, Singapore, Costa Rica and Mauritius – all of similar size and background - have far surpassed us in quality if life. Are our leaders are to blame? Would Jamaica have been better or worse off without Michael Manley, Edward Seaga and P.J. Patterson?

Politicians generally see themselves as servants of the people who have given their all to their country. Most would echo Napoleon’s words : “All my life I have sacrificed everything – comfort, self-interest, happiness – to my destiny”. And amidst all the cynicism of politics, there remains something noble about the idea of persons dedicating themselves completely to a public and not private cause.

Butch Stewart and Edward Seaga for instance are both men of exceptional drive and intelligence. Mr. Stewart has concentrated on making money and become a very rich man. Mr. Seaga has devoted his life to serving Jamaica and found himself in financial straits. Who knows if he might not have achieved comparable success had he spent all his time on personal business like Mr. Stewart? But then posterity does not measure men by money.

Ironically Mr. Seaga’s debt problems are evidence that in a global corruption perspective Jamaican politicians have been relatively honest. A measly US $500,000 back tax debt would hardly bother an Alan Garcia, Duvalier, or Trujillo! Nor is Mr. Seaga our first former elected leader to have money problems. After his 1962 defeat Norman Manley had to sell his famous Drumblair house. No Jamaican prime minister has been fabulously rich. They may or may not have been an honest lot. But if they were thieves, they have not been very good ones! At least not so far.

How responsible are our rulers for Jamaica’s poor economic performance since 1972? Well faulty economic policies have undoubtedly been part of the problem - in the socialist 1970s real per capita GDP fell by a ruinous 18%. But the statist 1980s produced only moderate growth and the free market 1990s none at all. The primary fault may lie with an electorate that has continually voted in ‘tax, borrow and spend’ administrations. Governments are understandably reluctant to attempt fundamental structural reform if it means certain electoral defeat.

But our politicians must take much of the blame for the violence that has engulfed Jamaica. It was they who tribalised the nation with patronage, ‘garrisonized’ the inner city by distributing houses on party lines, and armed political gangs. Who started it? We will probably never know and each side naturally blames the other. But if Michael Manley and Edward Seaga had followed the examples of their predecessors the cancer of violence could never have become so deep rooted. Busta and Norman never allowed ambition to come before the national good. Their 1970s heirs, to their eternal shame, too often let political expediency override all else.

Perhaps other leaders would have acted differently. And there were men on either side who spoke out against the violent tactics employed by both parties. Yet they never garnered enough popular support to challenge the entrenched leaders. As an old proverb says “Show me the leader and I will know his men. Show me the men and I will know their leader.” changkob@hotmail.com