C. Roy ReynoldsONE OF the favourite expressions of the late George Peppard of the television series, "the A-Team", was that he liked it when things come together. Things came together on television Wednesday evening in the first two stories of the broadcast.
The first was the JLP's idiotic demonstration and the second the protest over the nude weddings at Hedonism III. In terms of their degree of absurdity, I am not sure I can rank them.
I would not say much further on the wedding affair as I have already articulated my feelings on that in a previous article. Of the two, the Seaga-led demonstration is likely to have the greater effect on this country.
How, at this time when people are searching for a way to survive in a world more hostile to the wretched of the earth than at almost any time in history in the post-feudalism age, Mr. Seaga and his misguided band seek to ride into leadership on an issue like this is profoundly disturbing. Yes, the present Government has been less than inspiring. Yes it might be sadly in need of a period of lying fallow, but just what are we to replace it with?
Is marching on a phoney issue the stuff of which an alternative is made? We are being asked to believe that the CCJ is a sinister imposition. Some of the pathetic participants in that silly demonstration were heard to say that the proposed replacement of our arrangement with the Law Lords is being done too soon. But how soon is soon enough. People in Jamaica having been advocating changing the relationship from the close of the 19th century. This is the 21st century, and we are still not ready! Good God, when will we be ready?
The contention of the JLP, as I understood it, is that we cannot trust true justice to come out of the Caribbean at this time. So that suggests to me that we are either feeble-minded or woefully devious and we have to retain a bunch of civilised white men to underwrite justice.
Where in that demonstration has any attempt been made to justify its outrage. It comes across as a just thinly-veiled opportunity to pillory the Government. And as a voter and citizen of this country, I find the samfie objectionable. If people want my vote they must approach me with sense and sensibility. It is dismaying to see people allegedly well educated and trained expending such heat without even being able to sensibly articulate what they are talking about.
But at another level the JLP's campaign almost guarantees a replay of the circumstances leading up to the 1972 election. As I see it, P.J. Patterson and his crew are being painted into a situation where they have to make the case for national self-respect. I don't know how the JLP proposes to take the position as the defenders of the last bastion of colonialism.
I have not done any polls but I pride myself in being able to think like the mainstream and my reading is that any such campaign will hand Mr. Seaga and his crew a bitch of a last-lick. They ought to reflect soberly on the failure of their long-ago slogan: "Turn them back". It didn't work then and my bet is that it won't work this time. As I see it, Mr. Seaga's great claim to consideration was his alleged genius to manage. It wasn't much of a claim as anybody who studied the concept learnt in Management 101 the ability and willingness to delegate is one of the first fundamentals of good management.
That concept does not appear to be in Mr. Seaga's lexicon. In a world vastly different from what Mr. Seaga inhabited in his last turn at Government, how will he manage? He had a wonderful opportunity to underwrite his claim to fame when he ran his private business but now we hear he is hundreds of millions of dollars in debt to some state entity. Or even if the money is owed by some other management company, how come his arrangement with it allowed the problem to arise? If this matter is not settled, does Mr. Seaga intend to again hold the position as Minister of Finance or Prime Minister? If Mr. Seaga and his 'yesmen' hope to inspire the people of this country, they had better find more important things to propose than mindless demonstrations.
If what they hope to inspire is the total collapse of the country, as has been hinted not at all subtly on many occasions, what do they hope to do with the country then? It seems to me that they are a people who like biblical things. So I want to remind them of the proximity in time between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. If they reflect on this soberly, they would go down a different road. But if they don't like the biblical analogy they ought to reflect on an old Jamaican proverb: "Di same knife stick sheep stick goat". Or maybe this latter is too Jamaican for them and we can't trust anything Jamaican.
In any case they ought to stop their damn nonsense and get on with telling us how they expect to run this country in the 21st century. Dinosaurs are not candidates for stardom in the third millennium!
C. Roy Reynolds is a freelance journalist.
