EMERSON, THE American philosopher, once remarked 'what a new face courage puts on everything' and we saw a shining example of this in Parliament on April 7 when Mrs. Portia Simpson Miller, Minister of Local Government, electrified a dull debate by breaking with her parliamentary colleagues to abstain from voting against a resolution moved by the Opposition.
Her conscience would not allow her to deny that the Jamaica Fire Service, virtually down to its last engine, was woefully and imprudently underfunded in the present Budget a fact brought out by Mr. Audley Shaw in a series of carefully crafted questions which Mrs. Simpson Miller answered with refreshing candour.
It turned out that the original allocation for the fire service in last year's budget was radically cut in the Supplementary Estimates and when Mrs. Simpson Miller confirmed that the overall shortfall was $600 million, the dimensions of the crisis became clear. And when she realistically pointed out that such a lack of funding might result in the service being down-sized, stations closed and fire personnel laid off, this emboldened the Opposition to move a resolution expressing "grave concern" at the underfunding.
As is usual in Jamaica's banal political culture, everyone expected members of the Government side to vote against the resolution to be a man but not a woman, for Mrs. Simpson Miller abstained and in that courageous act sent a message to all Jamaica that there is still some hope that honesty can prevail over political expediency.
But even this victory was spoiled by images in a television newscast of PNP members of the House publicly berating Mrs. Simpson Miller for daring to stand up for principle, even going so far as to poke fingers at her face in a vulgar display of frustrated arrogance.
And even subsequent to the Simpson Miller epiphany in Parliament, news reports suggest that the PNP hierarchy is so outraged at what it sees as disloyalty that disciplinary action is being contemplated.
This would be utterly self-destructive because if Minister Simpson Miller, previous to the parliamentary debate, was not the most popular politician in Jamaica she certainly will be now. We salute her for an act of courage and defiance which has changed the course of political debate in Jamaica for the better.
