Peter Espeut I NOTICE with sadness the recent passing of legislation heaping mandatory national honours on all Jamaican Prime Ministers - and retroactively too. There is no other criterion.
Be he (or she) good, bad or indifferent, any person invited by the Governor-General to form a government is automatically awarded Jamaica's second highest honour - the Order of the Nation. You could be the greatest Prime Minister in world history, launching the country into unprecedented economic and social progress, strengthening the dollar, reducing crime and eradicating poverty, and you will receive the Order of the Nation.
You could be the most atrocious Prime Minister, cause widespread national strikes and destructive riots and social unrest, run the country into bankruptcy, preside over the most corrupt government in history, encourage police brutality and human rights abuses, design policies which would cause the destruction of the natural patrimony, run afoul of the United Nations bringing international disgrace to the country, even provoke foreign powers to invade us, and you would still be the recipient of the nation's second highest honour - a cut below National Hero.
This is not a national honour - it is simply another political spoil doled out to the victor in the game of politics. National honours should be earned on the basis of good work and exceptional good work too! What these automatic high national honours suggest is that winning a general election is such a great achievement that the victor should be magnificently honoured in the annals of time - forever! Rubbish!
Can you imagine the US Congress or the French Assemblee Nationale or the German Bundestag or the Japanese Diet awarding all Heads of Government or Heads of State - past and present - automatic mandatory high national honours? Can you imagine any of these countries demanding that the members of their Executive Branch be addressed as Right Honourable or Most Honourable? It is the most outrageous piece of personal self-adulation I have ever heard of!
Truly honourable persons have too much dignity and humility to wish to be seen to demand such accolades and titles of esteem without having to do anything to earn them!
What sort of values and attitudes does this reflect? Do we want to send a message that high national honours can be had without post-election hard work? Is this not encouraging the freeness mentality? How does Jamaica gain by these honours to Prime Ministers? How do they benefit the nation or any ordinary citizen? And, of course, the Opposition unanimously agreed, for they will benefit in their turn. Tweedledum and Tweedledee!
I suppose Dawn Rich will again accuse me of trying to tar the JLP with a PNP brush. Sorry Dawn! They didn't vote against it, and they didn't abstain. They are just as guilty!
I wish the Cabinet and the Parliament would spend more of its time trying to solve our national problems, like trying to engineer the sort of education system which guarantees that all except the mentally handicapped will at least learn to read during nine years of government schooling, instead of heaping honours and titles upon themselves. This is nothing less than abuse of power for personal gain. And they are not shy of granting themselves salary increases too, and former Prime Ministers already have a substantial pension for life. Now they will have automatic and perpetual high national honours.
I have never understood why the Governor-General, a figurehead, some retired political party faithful, with little or no real power to make a difference, and whose functions are largely ceremonial, should also automatically receive Jamaica's second highest honour - the Order of the Nation. This is not an earned honour either, but something directly the gift of the Prime Minister. Surely we can demand that the Governor-General be respected without ascribing to him (or her) a status just below National Hero!
STRAITJACKET OF
UNDERDEVELOPMENT?
What all this does is devalue our national honours, and make us the laughing stock of the world. Every dictator of a banana republic awards himself a chestful of medals and requires obeisance. How is this different? It sounds like Henri Christophe of Haiti proclaiming himself King, and creating the Count of Lemonade and the Duke of Marmalade. We are approaching this sort of foppery!
Before receiving high honours, the quality of the work should be obvious, and should be able to withstand the test of time. In explaining the characteristics of a developed and primitive societies, Talcott Parsons, the great developmental sociologist, defined one of the criteria as the award of the benefits of society based on achievement rather than on ascription. In this regard we fit his description of a primitive, underdeveloped society. Will we ever opt for achievement orientation and break out of this straitjacket of underdevelopment? Not anytime soon, I'm afraid.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is executive director of an environment and development NGO.
