Dawn Ritch, Contributor
SUPPORTERS OF Opposition Leader Edward Seaga rode up from Tivoli Gardens in rented buses last week, to demonstrate against Mark Wignall outside the newspaper for which he writes an opinion column.
Their grouse is that Mr. Wignall criticises the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader on an on-going basis, and frequently does so using vulgar turns of phrase.
I find no mystery whatsoever in Mr. Wignall continuing to criticise Mr. Seaga's performance. It is dismal. And there is hardly a week without some evidence of his ineptitude and intrigue.
When Eli Tisona was convicted of money laundering in a Florida Court, Mr. Wignall quite rightly reminded us that this man plucked from cocaine operations in Colombia to face charges in Miami, had been the blue-eyed boy of Mr. Seaga's while the latter was Prime Minister in the 1980s.
Mr. Wignall therefore asked the former Prime Minister when and what did he know of Mr. Tisona's predilections, predilections which predated the establishment of the Tisona-run Spring Plain farm in Jamaica. Mr. Seaga has never replied. But every journalist who has since asked the same question has been personally abused and vilified by his supporters.
Debt-riddled
Next Mr. Wignall went on to the millions of dollars of debts to General Consumption Tax occasioned by Enchanted Gardens, an entity owned by Mr. Seaga. GCT is the sword of Damocles which falls daily upon the heads of ordinary Jamaican citizens, but in Mr. Seaga's case appears to be in a state of suspended animation.
Then there is the overall indebtedness of companies owned by the Opposition Leader which runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Mr. Wignall said that these matters severely compromise Mr. Seaga in his role as Opposition Leader, an observation that has been frequently made by many others, including myself.
On top of all that Mr. Wignall has for decades been the chief field researcher of the Stone Polls. And what he finds in those polls regarding the public perception of Mr. Seaga and the desirability of his political leadership, have increasingly shocked and alarmed him. This, along with comments on the poor public perception of Mr. Patterson and the PNP administration, have been a staple of his columns.
I find no motive here other than a columnist doing his job, and charting the astonishing unravelling of Mr. Seaga in plain view of all.
Danger
As a columnist who has herself done much the same thing for the past 10 years, I must warn Mr. Wignall that he is in danger of unravelling himself. The late John Hearne, a former columnist, novelist and friend of mine eventually drove himself mad by caring too much. The dismal and ruinous performance of Michael Manley in the 1970s broke his heart. Whenever hope builds too strongly for Jamaica, I remember John. We columnists are no more to politicians than bodies to be thrown under boiling pots of corn when they have their annual contests at the National Arena to see who is the most debased.
Less anger and more ridicule preserves us, and this is where our editors come in. A good editor must always sit in a cool office with his or her feet up on the desk. We are the dogs who bring in the bones and drop them at their feet. Most are juicy, but often we look and smell like some of the bones we bring in because of where we have been digging up those particular bones.
Mr. Wignall and I both write for family newspapers, and believe me some of our bones need washing and disinfecting before they are fit for publication. I can think of one or two very grubby bones of mine in the past that needed a full 18 months of quarantine, and then what a feast they were. If we can't make them less grubby ourselves, then it is the duty of our editors to do so.
This is the matter of good taste which is one of the principal ingredients in proper editing. So if Mr. Wignall has a fault worth criticising it is not his own, but that of his editors.
Though why Mr. Seaga, Tivoli Gardens, and others of his supporters should find Mr. Wignall's want of taste so particularly offensive is perplexing. They know no other currency.
