Floral Tribute at the Shrine of the late Most Hon. Edward Seaga
Reflection
By
Dr the Honourable Andrew Holness ON, PC, MP
Prime Minister of Jamaica
At the
Floral Tribute at the Shrine of the late Most Hon. Edward Seaga
National Heroes Park
On
May 28, 2025
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It is a deep honour to once again stand here in the sacred grounds of the National Heroes Park to pay tribute to a man whose legacy is deeply woven into the fabric of our nation, the Most Honourable Edward Phillip George Seaga affectionately known as Blinds, Papa Eddie.
Today, on what would’ve been his 95th birthday, we do more than honour his memory, we recommit ourselves to the values he stood for, the institutions he built, and the people whose lives he changed. Edward Saga was not merely a political leader, he was a builder of systems, of structures, of dreams. He believed in the power of government to serve the people, and he worked relentlessly with discipline and precision to turn that belief into reality.
Born in 1930 and brought home to Jamaica just three months later, Edward Seaga’s life was one of total dedication to Jamaica. By age 22, he had already made a profound declaration of loyalty renouncing his US citizenship in favour of full Jamaican identity, a rare thing to do and he did it not out of convenience, but out of conviction. He believed that he could only serve one flag, and he chose our flag. He chose Jamaica. He did not wait until it was a political necessity for a convenient political ambition.
Edward Seaga was a man of deep intellect, but also action. Though trained in sociology and anthropology at Harvard, his academic knowledge never stayed locked in an ivory tower. It was translated into policy, into programmes, into institutions that have become part of Jamaica’s national architecture. We often speak of leaders who had vision, good intentions, but Mr Seaga had more than a vision, he had followed through. He had the discipline to design the machinery of government to match the intention, to match the vision and the good ideas but what I admired most about him was that he had the courage to confront inherited limitations and the will to execute
All leaders will come to you with good intentions, and you will hear a lot of good intentions in the promising season. You will hear a lot of promises and eloquently expressed visions, but the real test of the leader is the ability to transform those good intentions into reality. And indeed, that’s the idea of transformation so you could say then that Mr Seaga was a transformational leader which is a step up of a visionary leader, but you would also have to give him credit as a courageous leader because he was willing to confront many of our deeply held and deeply seated perspectives that really formed our limits. He saw more in us than we saw in ourselves. He challenged us. He confronted us. And he didn’t care too much about popularity in doing so. And in today’s world, as I suspect in all times, we need leaders who care about the people more than themselves, more than their popularity.
I will return to that point a little later on, but to reinforce the current point, which is Mr. Seaga as the builder, the transformational leader, the institutionalist: it is important to repeat, and I see many youngsters in the audience. I’m at that age where I can refer to people genuinely as youngsters. The Jamaica Stock Exchange, that was one of the institutions built by Mr. Seaga in 1968, the Jamaica Mortgage Bank in 1972, the National Development Bank in 1981, which is now the DBJ, the EXIM Bank in 1986 JAMPRO in 1987, The UDC which developed the Kingston Waterfront, Ocho Rios, Negril, the Heart Trust NSTA in 1982, training hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans; that’s just a small part of his legacy.
On the social side, the JCDC, which is the promoter of our national festival, the National Gallery, Things Jamaica and Devon House; just some of the institutions that he has created which defines the architecture of Jamaica today.
Mr. Seaga was a warm and humorous person. Many persons would not know this, would not have gotten to see this side of it because the public would see him as so focused on building but if you had the opportunity as I did and others who are here would have been with him from, they were children, Minister McKenzie and Minister Grange and others. Certainly, Minister McKenzie regaled lost with stories how he got a beaten from Edward Seaga; to show you how long he was associated with Mr Seaga from he was a boy. And you would’ve heard Desmond say that Mr Seaga was his father and that is genuinely and truly the greatest compliment that you could pay to anyone.
Those of us who knew him personally could attest to his humour. I prefer to use the term wit which would be a probably more apt description, but he was also very warm and very caring, but he was also a keen debater. He never shied away from controversial topics and when I came into his office much later, when I suspect he would’ve mellowed a bit, I did try to advise him against getting involved in certain public debates but the no avail. Mr Seaga believed in confronting issues, taking them on and speaking truth to power. He believed in putting the full story and Mr Seaga also loved music, and I suspect that’s where Minister McKenzie and Minister Grange got their own liking for music. And on my way in, a radio station was playing Manny Oh, a hit that he produced acknowledging and Mr Seaga’s contribution to music in Jamaica.
But apart from that, I wanted to highlight today a part of Mr Seaga contribution to Jamaica that is not always readily appreciated and recognized, and I thought that this morning I would broach it. Every so often the world goes through phases of profound change. After World War II the world went through a series of profound changes, which created several institutions that currently define the global order. And some people may remember a phrase that was used to describe a difference in world outlook, the Cold War, a battle of ideas and philosophical outlook.
And Jamaica, as small as we were, we were part of that global contention, and Mr. Seaga stood very strongly for one perspective on human development. He stood very strongly for freedom, for democracy, for liberal democracy. He stood for markets and competition. He stood for human rights and the respect of individual freedom, and it was not always easy to do. It was a time when many Jamaicans paid with their lives. It was as if the country were in an undeclared civil war. There was a state of public emergency where many Jamaicans, one of them I know definitely sitting here in the audience was detained and then had to leave their country. Many of them spent many months forced to leave the country and were it not for the strength, were it not for the determination, were it not for the courage of Edward Seaga, Jamaica may have gone in a direction which today we now know that we would’ve lived to regret.
It is not a part of our history that is well understood. It is not written about too much. And as we honour Mr Seaga on his birthday, one of the things that we need to do, we, meaning those persons will carry on his legacy, we need to properly put that era into context and put Mr Seaga’s contribution into context so that the generations coming can have a better understanding of what truly took place. And it is very important because there is a concerted effort of revisionism to try and write history in the way it did not happen otherwise called propaganda.
So, in many ways Mr. Seaga’s life was a bridge between eras, between disciplines, between different aspirations, but fulfilled with action. So, as we lay this floral tribute today, we do so not in mourning, but in affirmation of a life that continues to shape our own of a legacy that caused us to build on what he began. And the best way to honour Mr Seaga is to carry his work forward, to protect our institutions, to invest in our people, and to dream with our eyes open.
Thank you, Mr Seaga. Jamaica remembers you, Jamaica thanks you and Jamaica continues your work. May his legacy live on in the lives that we continue to improve, the institutions that we continue to build and the nation we continue to strengthen.
Continue to choose Jamaica.