My second favorite dictionary says whataboutism is “a conversational tactic in which a person responds to an argument or attack by changing the subject to focus on someone else’s misconduct, implying that all criticism is invalid because no one is completely blameless.” Additionally: “Excusing your mistakes with whataboutism is not the same as defending your record.”
As for the Oxford dictionary, my personal go-to tool for separating bon mots from shameless illiteracies, it defines whataboutism as “the technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counter accusation or raising a different issue.” My OED offers this curious sample use of the word: “The parliamentary hearing appeared to be an exercise in whataboutism.”
On this Rock of Sages we call home, books amount to nothing more than nothing. Ours is a society that seems to get along just fine without bookstores and newspapers, with little appreciation for scholarly accomplishments and no time at all for dictionaries and critical analyses, not even of events related to our daily lives. In our Facebook-bedeviled society, words mean whatever a user chooses them to mean. (Oddly enough, when our government representatives speak overseas about what makes Saint Lucia a special place to visit or to set up business, the proof they offer, more often than not, is the late Derek Walcott, the 1992 Nobel winner for Literature. Of course, what we say on home ground about our advertised esteemed son of this soil where there are no shelves for his universally cherished oeuvre, is altogether a different matter. Not without cause did Walcott famously attribute to some of our leaders “minds incapable of metaphor.”)
Witness: Not long ago an MP who expressed disappointment with the day’s level of debate was ordered to withdraw his comment on account of a particular word that by ordinary measure might be considered innocuous, even naïve. And since the MP had not attached his observation to particular colleagues, the word in question hardly rose to the level of rule breaker. The greater surprise was that the disappointed MP had complied, without question.
Was the unwelcome word perchance synonymous with declassé, unparliamentary, inappropriate, dishonorable, “terminological inexactitudes” (the acceptable euphemism for lies)? Not according to Oxford, which offers a detailed history of the ostensibly objectionable word, including the origin of its current meaning. Why, then, was it ruled base and out of place on the recalled occasion? No one chose to tell.
On the other hand, there were the recorded contradictions. Remember the House session when, minutes after he had prayed with an accommodating priest for a peaceful and united one-love Saint Lucia, one MP ominously informed another on the opposite side that he was ready to “shoot from the hip and make shit come out of your mouth,” without a word of rebuke?
To paraphrase Gore Vidal, for some people knowing is never enough unless everyone else knows. Quite obviously the ill-tempered honorable gentleman wanted to place other disagreeable MPs on notice that he was packing heat! In all events, profanity has been, from as far back as the late 70s, our parliament’s lingua franca. Nothing new. Not for nothing had George Odlum in his time labeled it “the House of dissemble.”
Then there was the unforgettable occasion when a Speaker was forced to jettison himself out of his chair and take refuge in his secured office. He later directed his clerk of parliament to notify MPs that beginning with the next scheduled sitting, and before stepping inside the chamber, they would be required to hand over their Glocks and other artillery to the sergeant-at-arms.
I easily could offer other local examples of egregious House behavior (a particular 2010 sitting comes to mind) but to what avail? The predictable reaction of the honorable miscreants and their think-alike following is to speak of faraway regions where it’s normal to whip hapless females in the public square, and to defenestrate citizens of a certain orientation.
Whataboutism has little to do with it. Rather, their point here, their only point, is to suggest there was nothing unusual about their worst performances in parliament. Least of their concerns is that in their attempts at justifying their often puerile behavior, their name-calling and their numbing allegations hurled from both sides of the parliamentary chamber, they inadvertently advertise how far we’ve arrived down the sewer—and how comfortable we are in our new digs.
Of course, there is also to be considered the fact that Parliament was never created with slaves in mind. Not even freed slaves. It is no fault of ours that the Magna Carta had, among other things, established the special class of citizen fit to serve the king in his Great Council as consultants on government matters. We inherited our version of parliament from those we continue mindlessly to refer to, with exaggerated Hollywood scorn, as “our former masters.” We are the grateful recipients of something we likely never fully understood, something quite foreign to our so-called African sensibilities.
If only we understood the words handed us by our once upon a time enslavers; words that even now chain us to a history we claim to despise; words that sprang from minds as different from our own as, say, kwèyól is from standard English. Is it even possible our former masters underestimated our talent for mimicry? Did they fail to notice our chameleonic penchant for adapting our colors to suit the day’s brouhaha, however dangerously shortsighted, and despite what any manual might say to the contrary?
With much pomp and ceremony, we accepted our made-in-Britain Standing Rules and Orders of the Honourable House of Assembly of Saint Lucia. Did the pre-1979 version, like the current document, actually give the Speaker “the power to regulate the conduct of business in all matters not provided for” in the stated rules? Is the quoted line vulnerable to different interpretations, depending on the Speaker’s mindset? Do the quoted words empower him to permit, calculatedly or out of palpable ignorance, House behavior reminiscent of fish-market brawling?
What about the following, also from Section 88 of the Standing Rules and Orders? “The decision in all cases for which these Standing Orders do not provide, shall be within the discretion of the Speaker, and shall not be open to challenge.” You would expect an official in whose hands the power of life and death had effectively been invested, who cannot easily be dismissed, would first have to undergo an exhaustive public examination of his background. So far as is evident, in our region this is not the case. Officially, we know only that our Speaker is “elected by parliament.” How he or she gets to be a nominee in the first place is not known; at any rate, not generally. Was he or she the only candidate presented to voting MPs?
In 2001, a new secret ballot system was introduced to elect the Speaker of the House of Commons. As for the election process, written nominations for candidates for Speaker must be submitted on the day of the election. The election is presided over by the longest serving MP, referred to as “the Father of the House.” Each candidate addresses the House, the order determined by lot. MPs are given a printed list of candidates, and cast a single vote for their preferred choice.
There are several other stipulations. Suffice it to say that once the winner has emerged, he is “reluctantly” dragged to the Speaker’s chair by his main sponsors, symbolic of the time when the Speaker would have the challenging job of mediating between Parliament and the Monarch. There is no formal way of removing the Speaker, although he is subject to votes of no confidence, as well as pressure to resign.
At the time the Saint Lucia parliament debated the Recommendations for Constitutional Reform (2015), the prime minister had this to say: “I have fundamentally changed my views on some key provisions in our Constitution. I do not believe anymore in the provisions governing the public service. I think there has to be radical alterations to those provisions. I have serious and fundamental problems regarding the so-called independence of office.”
To which, I am tempted to say, Amen. After all, what is good enough for the inventors of Parliament ought to be equally good even for its pretend embracers who, at the drop of a spicy word from the mouth of a careless MP, are rendered apoplectic.
And what about you, dear reader? What would be your reaction upon discovering your bank had employed to handle your savings account a notorious, albeit never convicted, individual with a penchant for robbing banks? What if you had personal experience of some of his more offensive proclivities? If to private sector employers the personal history, qualifications, character, reputation and sponsors of job applicants matter, then why not to the managers of our public service?
Our nation has suffered enough embarrassment by the holders of our highest offices—from governors general to criminally promiscuous prime ministers, House speakers, school principals, Treasury personnel and police officers. As I write, two former parliamentarians, one a retired Speaker, are serving time at Bordelais Correctional Facility—for behavior possibly overlooked during their time in office.
While making his first budget presentation since retaking office in 2011, Kenny Anthony famously appealed to the electorate to be more discerning in its choices of parliamentary representatives. Said the Prime Minister, in private life an attorney and a lecturer on constitutional law: “You have the right to ask the most personal questions about the private and public lives of those who offer themselves for office.”
The Prime Minister had never been more on point. After all, a sewer rat does not turn into a cuddly fluffy puppy simply by relocating to a safer rat hole. If only Kenny Anthony had gone a step further than just talking the talk!
So the father so the son his going to continue his father mistakes.
(I need a number to contact you Rick)