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No other hurt like this
Henley Morgan
Thursday, September 13, 2007
The caricature of the spurned (rejected) lover ranks among the most pathetic in human experience. We have all seen it and many of us have experienced it: swollen eyes, sullen countenance and an emptiness that no earthly or heavenly object (other than the object of our affection) can fill. To be disdainfully and contemptuously rejected for no other sin than loving someone completely and without reservation causes one to be heartbroken. An individual suffering in this way could make a strong case that there is no hurt worse than this. But there is an emotional knife that cuts even deeper.
Tasting the bitter gall of rejection at the polls gives one another dimension of the depth to which human feelings can descend. To be ignominiously cast aside by the majority of voters in an electoral contest, relegated to the condescending status of being a back-bencher in Parliament - it is like having your spouse and the person for whom he or she left you move in across the street from where you live. It's in your face and worse than any heartache.
For those who have never offered themselves for elected office and so have never known electoral defeat, a fertile imagination is inadequate in giving a measure of the hurt such an experience brings. Growing up in a political family has given me first-hand experience of what it feels like.
My pain remains as palpable today as it did decades ago when daddy lost the election for what was then the South-Eastern St James constituency.
Stored in the archives of my childhood memory is one horrible scene of a mock funeral with a crude effigy of the man I called father reposed in an even cruder coffin. Drunk on the liquor of electoral victory, the supposed mourners mocked and taunted. My family, which had already suffered far too much in the campaign, was virtually held under siege as the marauding crowd encircled the manse at Maldon.
The sense of loss is greater for the individual (or party) enjoying incumbency than for the challenger. In many cases, after a five-year stint in representational politics there is not much of a life to go back to. The jealous spouse that it is, politics at times demands the sacrifice of family, friendships, professional and business interests. In my father's case he, being a pastor, ended up with a church split right down the middle. Once the most loved and revered man in the tightly knit communities that made up the constituency, he spent his last years disillusioned about politics and exiled to another region of the country.
The losing PNP and its candidates (successful and unsuccessful) must be going through sheer hell at this time. There are at least four emotional states to contend with:
* Denial - inability to come to terms with the defeat or to accept that power has passed to another.
* Anger - strong feeling of displeasure at the defeat and the circumstances that gave rise to it.
* Blame - ascribing reason or fault for the defeat to self or to another.
* Self-pity - feeling sorry for oneself almost to the point of despair.
The emotional states affect behaviour in different ways. One common outward manifestation of the internal mental and emotional turmoil is for the defeated foe to avoid public appearances out of a feeling of embarrassment. Another is for the individual to put on a final display of bravado in a vain attempt to reverse the undesirable situation. Yet another is for the individual to engage in some face-saving contrivance such as pretending to dictate the terms of the victor's reign or attempting to prove he or she still enjoys greater affection among those who passed the verdict. And still another is displaced aggression whereby the loser mentally constructs a future battleground in the reality of his or her present situation by declaring the proverbial "I shall return." Look for these signs coming from the defeated and humiliated ranks of the PNP in the days ahead.
It is easy to understand how politics came to earn the reputation of being the most ungrateful of callings. The onlookers may think the losing politician has benefited enough to live off his fat. The losing politician, on the other hand, is likely to recount the many personal sacrifices and conclude that people are most ungrateful and unappreciative. Such feelings serve only to deepen the wound and prolong the suffering.
How can one help ease the transition for the once proud and mighty, who just days before wielded great power and influence in this country, but are now shredding personal documents and vacating opulent offices to make way for the incoming replacement? I would counsel the one painfully demitting office by reminding him or her of this humorous but true definition of the democratic process. "Democracy as practised in Jamaica is that system of governance that ensures the man out of office (the Opposition) is always the one with the answers." Stick around, my wounded friend. In less than a few months the searchlight will be off you and on those who are now thumping their chest and smiling in glee.
Then the momentum for change will start to build once again.
A writer of love songs from yesteryear, in describing the emotional roller-coaster of a love affair, penned these words: "Oh, it hurts so good". Those words would not be appropriate for describing the feelings arising from defeat at the polls. When you look at it, there is probably no other hurt quite like this one. It cuts to the very bone.
- hmoran@cwjamaica.com
Henley Morgan
Thursday, September 13, 2007
The caricature of the spurned (rejected) lover ranks among the most pathetic in human experience. We have all seen it and many of us have experienced it: swollen eyes, sullen countenance and an emptiness that no earthly or heavenly object (other than the object of our affection) can fill. To be disdainfully and contemptuously rejected for no other sin than loving someone completely and without reservation causes one to be heartbroken. An individual suffering in this way could make a strong case that there is no hurt worse than this. But there is an emotional knife that cuts even deeper.
Tasting the bitter gall of rejection at the polls gives one another dimension of the depth to which human feelings can descend. To be ignominiously cast aside by the majority of voters in an electoral contest, relegated to the condescending status of being a back-bencher in Parliament - it is like having your spouse and the person for whom he or she left you move in across the street from where you live. It's in your face and worse than any heartache.
For those who have never offered themselves for elected office and so have never known electoral defeat, a fertile imagination is inadequate in giving a measure of the hurt such an experience brings. Growing up in a political family has given me first-hand experience of what it feels like.
My pain remains as palpable today as it did decades ago when daddy lost the election for what was then the South-Eastern St James constituency.
Stored in the archives of my childhood memory is one horrible scene of a mock funeral with a crude effigy of the man I called father reposed in an even cruder coffin. Drunk on the liquor of electoral victory, the supposed mourners mocked and taunted. My family, which had already suffered far too much in the campaign, was virtually held under siege as the marauding crowd encircled the manse at Maldon.
The sense of loss is greater for the individual (or party) enjoying incumbency than for the challenger. In many cases, after a five-year stint in representational politics there is not much of a life to go back to. The jealous spouse that it is, politics at times demands the sacrifice of family, friendships, professional and business interests. In my father's case he, being a pastor, ended up with a church split right down the middle. Once the most loved and revered man in the tightly knit communities that made up the constituency, he spent his last years disillusioned about politics and exiled to another region of the country.
The losing PNP and its candidates (successful and unsuccessful) must be going through sheer hell at this time. There are at least four emotional states to contend with:
* Denial - inability to come to terms with the defeat or to accept that power has passed to another.
* Anger - strong feeling of displeasure at the defeat and the circumstances that gave rise to it.
* Blame - ascribing reason or fault for the defeat to self or to another.
* Self-pity - feeling sorry for oneself almost to the point of despair.
The emotional states affect behaviour in different ways. One common outward manifestation of the internal mental and emotional turmoil is for the defeated foe to avoid public appearances out of a feeling of embarrassment. Another is for the individual to put on a final display of bravado in a vain attempt to reverse the undesirable situation. Yet another is for the individual to engage in some face-saving contrivance such as pretending to dictate the terms of the victor's reign or attempting to prove he or she still enjoys greater affection among those who passed the verdict. And still another is displaced aggression whereby the loser mentally constructs a future battleground in the reality of his or her present situation by declaring the proverbial "I shall return." Look for these signs coming from the defeated and humiliated ranks of the PNP in the days ahead.
It is easy to understand how politics came to earn the reputation of being the most ungrateful of callings. The onlookers may think the losing politician has benefited enough to live off his fat. The losing politician, on the other hand, is likely to recount the many personal sacrifices and conclude that people are most ungrateful and unappreciative. Such feelings serve only to deepen the wound and prolong the suffering.
How can one help ease the transition for the once proud and mighty, who just days before wielded great power and influence in this country, but are now shredding personal documents and vacating opulent offices to make way for the incoming replacement? I would counsel the one painfully demitting office by reminding him or her of this humorous but true definition of the democratic process. "Democracy as practised in Jamaica is that system of governance that ensures the man out of office (the Opposition) is always the one with the answers." Stick around, my wounded friend. In less than a few months the searchlight will be off you and on those who are now thumping their chest and smiling in glee.
Then the momentum for change will start to build once again.
A writer of love songs from yesteryear, in describing the emotional roller-coaster of a love affair, penned these words: "Oh, it hurts so good". Those words would not be appropriate for describing the feelings arising from defeat at the polls. When you look at it, there is probably no other hurt quite like this one. It cuts to the very bone.
- hmoran@cwjamaica.com