As I watched the last episode of Sunday TALK, with Dr Stephen King and the Labour Party’s election-time public relations man (I should have guessed he had another life as a pastor), I discovered myself more than a little disappointed that the host had chosen to perpetuate this obviously calculated farce instead of picking up where he had left off the previous Sunday, when the Ausbert Regis affair took center stage. I am concerned that we may at this time be witnessing a dangerous security apparatus, in many ways similar to the African model. My question is, where does Senator King fit into all of this?
He has always seemed to me a man of misdirected passion, a man on a mission that I have not yet quite identified. I only know that if I was the leader of this country and a prominent doctor approached me to consider decriminalizing prostitution, the hairs on the back of my neck would instantly jump to attention and I would immediately require several answers of the good doctor, among them:
What’s up, Doc? Is there more money to be made from decriminalized prostitution, associated health certificates and so on? What has been your experience with prostitutes who turned up at your clinic or at your private hospital? How many declared whores have you treated in the last year or so, and for what diseases?
I would also want to know what inspired the doctor at this particular time to turn his attention to prostitutes. Why only now, after years of practicing medicine in
our country? And then I would ask him this question: If I should decriminalize ‘the world’s oldest profession’ next week, how soon before you ask me also to decriminalize same-sex marriages, buggery, child molestation and so on? I certainly would be concerned that, of all the pressing social and economic problems facing our country, why the sudden interest in the plight of the prostitute?
I wish to suggest to Dr King that he consider
other avenues on which
to spend his abundant energies. Being a man of influence, he might wish to persuade his friend the governor of the OECS Central Bank to finance a study to determine why the government should at this time focus its attention on Saint Lucia’s near invisible flesh hawkers. I cannot help thinking the leaders of Caricom have agreed, for whatever reason, to implement a plan to scapegoat Saint Lucia into starting something the whole region will down the road regret. Or is it simply that Saint Lucia has been chosen as the venue for a dangerous experiment?
A note to the host of Sunday TALK: I thought you were unusually kind to Dr King and his passive pastor. I also noticed that when you offered them the juicy Las Vegas prostitute model, they did not bite. I couldn’t help wondering if this whole decriminalization idea is just another means to control women who imagine themselves independent enough to do as they please with their bodies. But the thought most prominent in my mind
was that your guests were serving up a diversion from the serious economic and social problems facing us at this time, national security being way up there on the list.
It seems to me that every effort is being made to keep our minds on
frivolity and cheap entertainment, and not on the intelligence-insulting promises of the
election campaign. Is every Saint Lucian worker destined to get in STEP with the program?
Going back to the police issue: Who is the police officer whose visa has been revoked? Why hasn’t his name been released in the public interest? Why are the people who made so much noise about Richard Frederick a couple months ago now silent about the latest visa revocation? Do the Americans and the prime minister know something they have decided to keep from us? Are the revoked visas really connected with unexplained homicides involving the police? How safe are citizens from our supposed protectors of life and property?
Now, here’s something that inquiring minds really want to know. Here’s something the doctor might wish to investigate. Pronto!
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