Always open season - Jamaica Observer

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Why would anyone go into representational politics these days? This very important question came from a retired police inspector who I had a much-longer-than-usual chat with during my just concluded 6½ months’ road trips in marginal seats throughout the country to gather data on how voting-aged adults were assessing the effectiveness of Prime Minister Andrew Holness and his Administration in general, and specifically Members of Parliament (MPs). I spoke to some of my findings here last Sunday.

Anyway, the mentioned question has rested on my mind for some weeks. Why? The quality of our Parliament helps determine the quality of Jamaica. Large numbers of Jamaicans view our political representatives as corrupt. Several scientific poll findings over many years have said so. Ironically, our politicians are relentlessly castigated by some who “If night should turn to day; they would have to run away,” as said in local parlance. They are abused and reviled by constituents, some of them, modern-day reincarnations of those nine lepers in the Bible who did not return to thank Jesus after he healed them.

Why then would anyone go into representational politics these days?

There is overwhelming evidence that, as a nation, we are caught in several severely unhealthy cul-de-sacs. With abundant and verified data, I have been discussing here, and on radio, the deliberating effects of these social, economic, and political dead-end streets for some years.

One of those blind alleys is our conspicuous and national preoccupation with broad-brushing, especially, political representatives, as thieves, incompetents, liars, and worse. Indeed, the pillorying of politicians is a national sport in this country.

“Is the politician dem fault,” this is a popular refrain nationally. This response is justified in many instances. The chorus has become so engrained in our culture it is a veritable escape route, especially for those who abhor personal responsibility.

I previously discussed here and elsewhere what I believe are some national deficits in personal responsibility as applicable to several areas of daily life in this country and the related debilitations.

Right quick, I anticipate that some are going shout, “Higgins, you are trying to let the politicians off the hook.”

No! Politicians have done some god-awful things to this country. We have paid dearly for many of those infractions, and I suspect will continue to do so for some years to come.

I have chronicled many of the severely costly violations and transgressions of our politicians here for many years. So, no, I am not exonerating politicians.

My point is straightforward. There is a conspicuous and unhealthy national fixation with blaming politicians for every itch and scratch, personal and/or national. This fixation has resulted in an escape conduit for the blatant derelictions, costly breaches, and egregious contraventions of some who are entrusted with immense power and awesome responsibility in this country and whose actions and decisions often impact our lives in much more substantial ways than even those of the politicians. Institutional resistance and lethargy in critical democratic spheres and related crucial growth centres are natural consequences in this context. The social and economic costs are immense.

Why would anyone go into representational politics these days? The mentioned retired police officer opined that, “It is always open season to hate politicians.” He continued: “My father served as an MP in the late 60s. He was not a wealthy man when he left. I can tell you that. In fact, our family was financially worse off compared to when he entered politics.”

I suspect that some whose default position is fixed on hating and blaming politicians for everything will doubtless bellow, “Cho, this man’s father represents a small minority.”

Actually, no, anecdotal evidence suggests that many who enter representational politics are considerably worst off financially and health-wise after they exit. I could relate some very tearful accounts here of political representatives who fetched literal financial hell after they vacated the political scene. I prefer to protect their families.

Some will retort: “Politicians like this policeman’s father are fools. He should have looked after himself first.”

Had he done so, unrelenting castigation, vilification, and/or worse would certainly burst out like lava from an erupted volcano from these kinds of individuals.

Contrary to what many believe, what our politicians get as pay in this country is not great. I have said here several times that we are in a low-tech, low-growth, low-wage economy, and that what we need is a high-tech, high-growth, high-wage economy.

Unlike most other professions the lives of political representatives are under scrutiny 24/7. Should this be the case? No! Some will certainly retort, “Higgins, you have quoted here Thomas Jefferson’s famous words: ‘When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property,’ several times. So, are you now rejecting your belief in the rightness of Jefferson’s proposition?”

No! I don’t believe that when Jefferson, one of America’s founding fathers, made the mentioned statement he meant that people in public life should not have a right to privacy. The Second Amendment of the American Constitution says, among other things: “…The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” I seriously doubt the founding fathers envisaged and/or meant the general population, for example, should own and/or have access to AR-15 rifles, which shoot about 600 rounds per minute. This means that one bullet takes about 1/600th of a second to be fired from the gun.

Unlike most other professions also, there seems to be a most foolish expectation that members of the public can be severely rude to, maliciously slander, and viciously and verbally abuse political representatives on especially social media platforms, and politicians ought not to defend themselves. That is nonsense!

All citizens are entitled to their good name. There are some politicians, like Transport Minister Daryl Vaz; Dr Michelle Charles, MP, for St Thomas Eastern; Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn, minister of state in the Ministry of National Security and MP for St Andrew West Rural; Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton and MP for West Central St Catherine, who are quite skilled in elegantly defending themselves on social media from false and vituperative abuse. Applause!

SHE WAS PUSHED

On the thorny matter of malicious rudeness, I think former prime ministers Edward Seaga and Portia Simpson Miller are the two national political leaders who have suffered the most at the hands of those who spew acidic and hateful invectives.

Post the People’s National Party’s (PNP) 86th Annual Conference, I heard a PNP spokesperson say on radio that former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller was not pushed out of the party. This is simply not true. Recall that after Simpson Miller was “touched by her master” she announced, on Sunday, January 31, 2016, at a mass rally in Half-Way-Tree Square that February 25, 2016 would be the date for the holding of our 17th general election. The PNP was defeated.

Backstabbings, retaliations, rumours of internal party coups and counter-coups mushroomed at 89 Old Hope Road, almost immediately following the February 25, 2016 defeat. The bitter feuding in Norman Manley’s party spewed onto the public pavement. It was cut-throat, personal, and nasty. The massive haemorrhaging in the PNP, post February 25, got considerably worse over a period of nearly a year.

Recall that a vituperative meeting of the PNP’s National Executive Council (NEC), held in Hatfield, Manchester, on Sunday, February 5, 2017, witnessed a fiery explosion from Simpson Miller. The rotting innards of the PNP spouted into the public arena. The political stench was awful.

Trustworthy media reports said, in her anger, Simpson Miller went off script and emptied her political soul. According to reliable reports in the media she berated the meeting, inter alia, “Like how you glad fi see mi out, don’t be glad to call mi when you need mi to win election.” She scolded the NEC. Simpson Miller, according to reportage in credible media, criticised the inner sanctum of the PNP and angrily told them that she had been pushed, and nobody had to tell her to leave. She castigated the members, saying: “I worked like a donkey for this movement.” Dependable media reports said that at Hatfield, Simpson Miller fumed that some in the PNP were party to leaks of internal information. She also chided men in the PNP, who, she said, “…don’t like female leadership”. Facts!

TOO BIG TO CRITICISE

On the subject of facts, there are some among us who simply do not get it, that there are no sacred cows in public life.

As I see it, the people of this country have not just a responsibility, we have a duty to scrutinise the actions of all our democratic institutions, including the Integrity Commission of Jamaica.

I see some people on social media and elsewhere reprimanding others for questioning the conduct of the Integrity Commission in the manner of “How dare you?” They reason that the commission is staffed by individuals of the highest intellectual and moral calibre. I think such people have totally missed the point. The legitimate questions which the public has a duty to ask should not be minimised and/or held hostage by discussions about the academic attainment, high standards of morality, or outstanding contribution to public service of the members of the Integrity Commission, as some have been attempting to do.

Some have foolishly fallen into a trap of believing that the value and importance of some among us is lodged in the inner core of the stratosphere. And there are some among us — for reasons related to the residual effects of plantation slavery, colonialism, learned timidity due to certain social realities rampant in Jamaica, overt classism, and related factors — who have succumbed to the notion that some people are so scholarly that their every utterance and pronouncement warrants unquestioning deference. I believe these rotten vestiges of an unusable past must be rejected.

Intellectual ping-pongers will doubtless try and conflate this point and assert that I am advocating disrespect as a default position, especially for individuals in leadership. My point is simple: Respect must be grounded in critical appraisal, not historical ascription of classist attributions. These are crucial benchmarks of sophisticated societies.

Infallibility is God’s domain. Some do not get it. Our important democratic institutions, like the Integrity Commission, must be subject to the sanitising heat of public opinions within the ambit of the law. If they are protected in secure bunkers they are of little use, except to those sheltered within.

I think Prime Minister Andrew Holness is right to have gone to the Supreme Court to seek judicial review of the actions, non actions, and comments made by the Integrity Commission and two of its directors — Craig Beresford, director of information and complaints; and Kevon Stephenson, director of investigations — concerning his uncertified statutory declarations.

I have read the Integrity Commission’s report. I see absolutely no reason that Prime Minister Holness’s statutory declarations have not been certified. There are many important questions which the commissioners need to urgently answer. I was hoping they would have appeared before Parliament some weeks ago when they were invited. I wonder when they will be available.

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