An idea grabbed me when I read the STAR headline story last weekend. It activated a political chord I had turned to sleep-mode a long time ago. Wouldn’t it be nice, I thought, to turn that aggravating sad-story on its head, this holiest week on the Christian calendar? In consequence, I dedicate this piece to our embattled parliamentarians, believing they should be their brother’s keeper. In the rough and tumble world of politics, politicians receive sufficient tongue-lashing from those who will not tread into politics. The rest, who are naive enough to think that after Dr. Ubaldus Raymond there will be no more dirty games, are mistaken. The following is therefore an Easter prayer for the elected and selected who represent this island in high public office.
First off, we should thank God every day, and not during Holy Week only, that we have not yet been proven guilty of anything. It is unwise to pass judgment on any issue, personal or national, without first knowing all the facts.
Secondly a person who has previously been framed and defamed in order for some other to gain a political advantage ought to be extremely careful, knowing that he is marked for destruction. Such a man must therefore stop all fraternizing with women and men, period! It’s obvious that some politicians are being held to a higher standard than the sample of the population from which they spring.
It’s also obvious to this writer that people who study power-relations between men and women tend to blame powerful men who think every person in a skirt, whether married or single, is fair game. Men who unthinkingly engage with women in obscene and unsavoury conversations, believing they are smart enough to control the outcomes of their flirtations, are doomed to perish, by today’s intrusive high-tech-macro. Such reckless sex exploiters have not bargained on the Machiavellian twists of those who manipulate IT platforms in a determined effort to take down amateur philanderers. The third and best advice is to stop playing smart—you will be trapped.
The invasion of modern technology in our daily lives means that everyone who has ransom money to pay, or something of value to lose, can become a target. Today’s politicians and their cronies seem determined to use every weapon to enrich themselves. They do this in and out of office. In an earlier life, I used to think that a bloody revolution was the only way to instill the strict discipline that a strong, nationalist politics demanded. I believed that it would also spare the younger generation from corrupt politicians that can manipulate the electorate. There seems little hope of success of a bloody revolution in the face of this ‘In God we trust’ crowd, who will sell their loved ones for a mess of pottage.
Today there is hardly a free and independent press on the island. It seems that every aspiring journalist merely aims for name and face recognition and the fame and sexual rewards that this may bring. Financial reward seems coincidental, except where bids are offered for dirty political work. It therefore does not surprise me when money is used to do the bidding of mischief makers whose poverty was apparent only last week or the week before.
This prayer is dedicated to the island’s parliamentarians, especially those who have committed errors of judgment, and for people who have fallen short of the glory of God.
“In the providence of God, with the breath of life each of us became a member of the human family. In maturity we stand facing the needs and responsibilities of life. God never brought us into being to live in the narrow trench of selfish individualism, but as brethren one of another in mutual dependence and support.
“Nothing does the Holy Bible, the rule and guide of our faith and practice, more strenuously teach; nothing does strict morality more strenuously demand. No household can fashion the home where dissention and selfishness toll the death of unity and peace. No community can protect character where petty strife is born of mischievous tongue. No city can become a place of prosperous growth whose citizens care little and do less for its advancement. No state can derive the benefit of its own resources whose people obey but the one law of individual inclination and greed. No government can stand firm whose adherents are blind to the unalterable law, ‘In union is strength, in harmony peace’.
“Although a few among many, you, my parliamentary friends, cannot shirk your share in this great responsibility. Your personal contacts with others may be circumscribed by the limit of the circle within which your daily life is lived; but your influence passing through and from those whom that circle may surround, may reach further than you can conceive.
It is therefore my wish and prayer this Easter-rising on which Christianity stands, that you are encouraged to do your best in that which you have promised to do. That you see in your neighbour what you desire your neighbour should see in you. To always remember that there is no claim more honourable, no characteristic more glistening with honest affection, no words more freighted with a man’s best love than to be called by your peers, your constituents and your fellow MPs, a kind and generous person.”
In the meantime, I pray Prime Minister Allen Chastanet carries out a full investigation into the latest matter concerning one of his ministers and that he will make a full disclosure to the nation when all the facts are uncovered. He must not repeat the mistake of a former leader by using language to frustrate the work of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in case this latest matter has to be prosecuted in a court of law.
