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Political 'buyas'
published: Sunday | December 9, 2007
Orville W. Taylor
Unless you tell the pollsters that I am your favourite columnist, then you will not get The Sunday Gleaner. What is mine is mine and what is yours, is yours. Furthermore, all roads leading to that other newspaper will remain unrepaired if any attempt is made to read it. Not that it is worth reading nowadays anyway.
Is it not wonderful to live in a democracy, where political power is gained at the polls after costly election campaigns? It is even more amazing that we can take the moral high ground and invite the Dutch government to investigate whether Trafigura Beheer had attempted to 'bribe' the former government. Then, quite mysteriously, we recant from an earlier position that campaign funds must be revealed, after we received so much green that we no longer have to wear little Dutch clogs but we can now buy our own super-plus-size sandals.
Since Hurricane Dean, Jamaica has begun an impressive recovery. Many guinep, avocado and ackee trees were destroyed. Acres of banana lay in waste and with them the former Minister of Agriculture's prediction that there would be crying on the side of the Labourites. A thirsty, roofless and hungry electorate was wooed by both parties and careless words were spat on political platforms. One People's National Party (PNP) activist in the Rocky Point/Portland Cottage area was reputed to have called the relief supply 'Portia water' and attempted to distribute supplies along political lines.
Outright wrong
Then, apparently under their influence, a senior PNP member declared that the 'waters' in South St Elizabeth were tied to votes for the rising star. The comment was not made in the Dark Ages, because millions of Cuban bulbs were lit while he was speaking. Months later, the behaviour of these is still inappropriate and outright wrong.
Alas, the rains after the hurricane have led to a sea of green and many of the trees we thought were dead are sprouting fresh, green shoots. My old ackee tree, which lay dead with rotting red and yellow fruit on September 3, now shows bright green leaves. New leaves, same tree. My black dog died during the hurricane, but I got a monkey to replace him.
A week ago, Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) shape-shifter Everald Warmington, back in from the cold of the No Dollars Movement (NDM), suggested that hurricane relief would be withheld unless persons turned out to vote, ostensibly for the party. Before the dust settled on that matter, Minister with responsibility for Local Government, Bobby Montague, made the shocking statement that roads would not be fixed in a particular constituency if the JLP candidate did not win. And he won. Is this the fruit of political intimidation and victimisation? On moral grounds, the candidates who were assisted in this improper way should not have been elected. But that is idealism. Perhaps he is still suffering from the effects of the tear-gassing last year, but that outburst is a step of a person whose future is in his past.
Montague at 40-little bit, is seen as the hope and promise of a new breed of politician. Indeed, his mandate is local government reform and he has put in place a novel amount of relief money for mayors, given that they have oversight for the entire parish. Yet, there are allegations of extreme variations in the amount given to PNP mayors as compared to their JLP counterparts. Comrade Mayor George Lee had $400,000 to spend he was seen as being responsible for the proposed 15th parish, Portmore. Yet, my friend and colleague Dr. Andrew Wheatley, councillor for the Naggo Head division in Lee's constituency but Mayor for the parish capital, got $5.2 million, more than 10 times the amount.
No peace without justice
Maybe, the JLP pulling the purse strings has forgotten, but Peter Tosh and the United Nations (UN) remind us that there is a relationship between peace and justice. Unless we create an equitable society where political bias and interference are outlawed and punished, there will be no peace.
We cannot create garrisons, provide them with guns or allow them to have them and then make inflammatory speeches on podiums, simply to excite a crowd. The cartoonist in the other newspaper might ignore it, but both the PNP and JLP are equally guilty of political victimisation, thuggery, the creation of garrisons and the political quagmire we have, littered with the bodies of supporters.
Leading up to the elections, we saw some ugly images of our eternal yesterday recurring. For the second time, Rosie Hamilton was shot. Thank God she survived and as poetic justice would determine, she deservedly won. Then, a JLP entourage led by Deputy Leader James Robertson was attacked in an area he knew was a PNP stronghold. Omar Muir was killed. One person too many.
Our failed partisan politics and our bankrupt ideas on the cause of and solutions to crime were evident in the manifestos. Security Minister Derrick Smith inspires little confidence in the wake of an undeclared war that has claimed 20 police lives this year. He is no Jake, and fat man offers scant hope too.
The local government elections while reaffirming the JLP's hold, demonstrates a slight shift to the PNP. Westmoreland, Manchester, Hanover and Portmore are now PNP-dominated. In the latter, Keith Hinds, the pest exterminator, dislodged the incumbent Lee, demonstrating that he could eradicate the termites to which his leader referred. But the termites are all around, and also in his party. Furthermore, there is a species that eats metal.
Formosan termites are spreading fast and the politicians helped to breed them. We must unite to stop them!
Dr. Orville Taylor is senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work at the University of the West Indies, Mona.
published: Sunday | December 9, 2007
Orville W. Taylor
Unless you tell the pollsters that I am your favourite columnist, then you will not get The Sunday Gleaner. What is mine is mine and what is yours, is yours. Furthermore, all roads leading to that other newspaper will remain unrepaired if any attempt is made to read it. Not that it is worth reading nowadays anyway.
Is it not wonderful to live in a democracy, where political power is gained at the polls after costly election campaigns? It is even more amazing that we can take the moral high ground and invite the Dutch government to investigate whether Trafigura Beheer had attempted to 'bribe' the former government. Then, quite mysteriously, we recant from an earlier position that campaign funds must be revealed, after we received so much green that we no longer have to wear little Dutch clogs but we can now buy our own super-plus-size sandals.
Since Hurricane Dean, Jamaica has begun an impressive recovery. Many guinep, avocado and ackee trees were destroyed. Acres of banana lay in waste and with them the former Minister of Agriculture's prediction that there would be crying on the side of the Labourites. A thirsty, roofless and hungry electorate was wooed by both parties and careless words were spat on political platforms. One People's National Party (PNP) activist in the Rocky Point/Portland Cottage area was reputed to have called the relief supply 'Portia water' and attempted to distribute supplies along political lines.
Outright wrong
Then, apparently under their influence, a senior PNP member declared that the 'waters' in South St Elizabeth were tied to votes for the rising star. The comment was not made in the Dark Ages, because millions of Cuban bulbs were lit while he was speaking. Months later, the behaviour of these is still inappropriate and outright wrong.
Alas, the rains after the hurricane have led to a sea of green and many of the trees we thought were dead are sprouting fresh, green shoots. My old ackee tree, which lay dead with rotting red and yellow fruit on September 3, now shows bright green leaves. New leaves, same tree. My black dog died during the hurricane, but I got a monkey to replace him.
A week ago, Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) shape-shifter Everald Warmington, back in from the cold of the No Dollars Movement (NDM), suggested that hurricane relief would be withheld unless persons turned out to vote, ostensibly for the party. Before the dust settled on that matter, Minister with responsibility for Local Government, Bobby Montague, made the shocking statement that roads would not be fixed in a particular constituency if the JLP candidate did not win. And he won. Is this the fruit of political intimidation and victimisation? On moral grounds, the candidates who were assisted in this improper way should not have been elected. But that is idealism. Perhaps he is still suffering from the effects of the tear-gassing last year, but that outburst is a step of a person whose future is in his past.
Montague at 40-little bit, is seen as the hope and promise of a new breed of politician. Indeed, his mandate is local government reform and he has put in place a novel amount of relief money for mayors, given that they have oversight for the entire parish. Yet, there are allegations of extreme variations in the amount given to PNP mayors as compared to their JLP counterparts. Comrade Mayor George Lee had $400,000 to spend he was seen as being responsible for the proposed 15th parish, Portmore. Yet, my friend and colleague Dr. Andrew Wheatley, councillor for the Naggo Head division in Lee's constituency but Mayor for the parish capital, got $5.2 million, more than 10 times the amount.
No peace without justice
Maybe, the JLP pulling the purse strings has forgotten, but Peter Tosh and the United Nations (UN) remind us that there is a relationship between peace and justice. Unless we create an equitable society where political bias and interference are outlawed and punished, there will be no peace.
We cannot create garrisons, provide them with guns or allow them to have them and then make inflammatory speeches on podiums, simply to excite a crowd. The cartoonist in the other newspaper might ignore it, but both the PNP and JLP are equally guilty of political victimisation, thuggery, the creation of garrisons and the political quagmire we have, littered with the bodies of supporters.
Leading up to the elections, we saw some ugly images of our eternal yesterday recurring. For the second time, Rosie Hamilton was shot. Thank God she survived and as poetic justice would determine, she deservedly won. Then, a JLP entourage led by Deputy Leader James Robertson was attacked in an area he knew was a PNP stronghold. Omar Muir was killed. One person too many.
Our failed partisan politics and our bankrupt ideas on the cause of and solutions to crime were evident in the manifestos. Security Minister Derrick Smith inspires little confidence in the wake of an undeclared war that has claimed 20 police lives this year. He is no Jake, and fat man offers scant hope too.
The local government elections while reaffirming the JLP's hold, demonstrates a slight shift to the PNP. Westmoreland, Manchester, Hanover and Portmore are now PNP-dominated. In the latter, Keith Hinds, the pest exterminator, dislodged the incumbent Lee, demonstrating that he could eradicate the termites to which his leader referred. But the termites are all around, and also in his party. Furthermore, there is a species that eats metal.
Formosan termites are spreading fast and the politicians helped to breed them. We must unite to stop them!
Dr. Orville Taylor is senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work at the University of the West Indies, Mona.
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