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Et tu, Bruce?
Published: Thursday | May 20, 2010
André Wright, Night Editor
Just to be clear, I am not writing in my substantive post as night editor of The Gleaner but as an average Jamaican citizen who just happens to be using the privileges of night editor of The Gleaner. If you think that's hogwash, be careful: I might just become your next two-tongued prime minister.
After Bruce Golding's revelations in Parliament that he authorised, in his capacity as Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader, a law firm to 'explore' extradition matters, the majority of Jamaicans have come to wonder whether the prime minister is daft or needs to have his head examined. (We know it is not the former.) That diagnosis by a JLP man, Harold Brady, of Daryl Vaz, the minister of misinformation, seems to reflect a deficit in the mental or moral capacity of the JLP hierarchy, including Ken Baugh, who doubles as medical doctor and spin doctor, and the cunning Karl Samuda. Schizophrenia seems to be so rife among the JLP that the party should move its headquarters from Belmont Road to Bellevue Hospital.
The overwhelming feeling of disappointment and disgust with Golding - and his alter egos, however many there are - emanates from his well-crafted narrative as the one principled politician who was willing to walk away from the mud-slinging political pigs with their snouts in the trough.
Fast-forward from 1995 to 2010, his storyline has indeed been as dramatic as it has been fictional. He fashioned himself as an Obama-esque change maker. He made people believe again. However, he has become an apostate of his own gospel. Bruce, the party leader, is a split personality whose self-interest trumps the stated principles of Bruce, the lecturer.
Appeal for forgiveness
Despite the prime minister's appeal for forgiveness in Monday's public broadcast, the Jamaican people must not allow this matter of deception to be swept under the carpet. Perhaps Golding believed that elasticisation of the absolute truth was the modus operandi of political leaders. After all, Hillary Clinton said, during the United States (US) presidential campaign, that she was under "sniper fire" when she arrived in Bosnia in 1996, though footage showed her in the most serene of circumstances.
And Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who is running for a US Senate seat, was exposed this week for false claims that he "served in Vietnam", when, in fact, he had never set foot in that country. Mr Blumenthal and Mrs Clinton both claimed that they "misspoke", the same excuse at which Golding is grasping. The prime minister's decision simply to apologise just doesn't cut it.
Despite all the discussions about dismantling garrison communities and constituencies - political strongholds which use paramilitary muscle to silence dissenting voices - Golding's JLP and Portia Simpson Miller's PNP have done nothing about them, except to talk. Though Mrs Simpson Miller's South West St Andrew constituency has for more than three decades been overwhelmed with poverty, political loyalism is fanatical and ballots once exceeded electors. The prime minister, contrary to all his speeches, is leader of a constituency ranked as the mother of all garrisons, where an alleged drug lord is based.
We don't believe
Mr Golding claims that it was the JLP that hired Manatt, Phelps & Phillips but has not disclosed any evidence to prove it was not on behalf of the Government. Full disclosure, and nothing less, will absolve him. Till then, we don't believe you, Mr Prime Minister.
And like Shebada, the popular roots-play actor, Golding is definitely on the border line. His party and his Government have been irretrievably entangled. Douglas Leys. Ronald Robinson. Tom Tavares-Finson. And, of course, Golding, who has more hats than the Mad Hatter. We don't believe you, Mr Golding.
The prime minister's statement during a radio interview, well before his confession in Parliament, that it 'appeared' there were other interests seeking to lobby the US government indicates calculated deception. We don't believe you, Mr Prime Minister.
Like Julius Caesar, the Jamaican people have been stabbed in the back. Et tu, Brute? Et tu, Bruce?
Mr Golding, like Mrs Simpson Miller, has lost a generation of voters because of greater loyalty to party than people. More Jamaicans will see their only escape from political skullduggery in a green card, not in a green shirt or cap.
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