DAWN RITCH DAWN RITCH
HYACINTH BENNETT, the former leader of the National Democratic Movement (NDM) founded by Bruce Golding, is reported in another newspaper as saying that the NDM resented her because she was not only black, but a woman. And that soon after being installed she made up her mind to demit office in her own time, and in her own style. I can't help wondering if she's trying to do a Heather Robinson on us. From her own lips, and having had a displeasing dalliance with gunmen while in PNP representational politics, Ms. Robinson resigned her post and became the media cover girl for political virtue. Indeed she writes a column in this newspaper from which she criticises politicians for wrongdoings. There is no sound quite as tinny as that of a recent convert.
Mrs. Bennett now excoriates what she calls the 'palefaced' cohort which controlled the NDM and whom she believes attacked her as soon as she'd begun. These may be taken to include Bruce Golding, Brascoe Lee, Chris Tufton, Michael Williams and others. This is a cheap shot, even cheaper than the bottom-of-the-barrel victimhood displayed over her race and gender, and which she says are the fundamental reasons for her downfall. When Mrs. Bennett ascended to the presidency of the NDM, she gave one good radio interview where she sounded like a very sensible person.
After that she rapidly descended into sounding like a miserable, stressed-out, haranguing village preacher. Apparently the rarefied air and public attention surrounding the post, quickly got to her head and made her unsteady. She seemed to think she needed the Lord's anointment given over the air waves, and not the voters' consent in order to win a parliamentary seat, much less a general election.
But how could the voters call upon her when she herself always seemed to be calling on God? Anybody can do this for him or herself, and has no need of a politician's intervention in this regard. Nor should she find it necessary to blame others who may have read her right from the start. Her skin colour was beside the point. Even as NDM President her mind already belonged to Another. So her remarks today taste like the sourest of grapes. Nor did her gender have anything to do with her failure in politics.
OLD BOYS' NETWORK
It is true that an old boys' network runs deep in the politics, commerce and media of any country. But it didn't prevent the female Golda Meir from being elected Prime Minister of Israel, nor Indira Gandhi being elected Prime Minister of India. And when the latter was assassinated, it was done by a religious Sikh, not by a member of the old boys' network, palefaced or otherwise. Mrs. Bennett's desire to try to mock Portia Simpson Miller ought to have been beneath her. But she says Mrs. Simpson Miller will never be elected head of the PNP because of her colour, gender and the fact that she is not a member of the "Drumblair elites". I'd like to bet her $100 on that one, since neither Mrs. Bennett nor I is a psychic and cannot know the outcome in advance. But I doubt that God has given her any undertaking in the matter.
The former NDM Leader is trying to look for proselytes to the philosophy of victimhood which holds that any elite, be it paleface or black, can prevent the rise of people who stand for principle and performance in any democracy. The thing is you have to demonstrate and stand for those qualities in public. Not only sing psalms. The problem is few of us want to get shot in the backside for doing so. This, understandably, causes most people to hang back or fall back, as Mrs. Bennett has done. She tries to prove her spurious case by describing Mrs. Simpson Miller as 'her party's street nanny'. The latter, she says, is merely being used by the PNP to hold the hand of the masses, but not to hold real power. Why would any woman want to heap scorn upon the role of a nanny, whether male or female? The masses are out of work, their children out of school, and their numbers slaughtered every day. Mrs. Bennett should be glad anybody is holding their hand.
And if it was the television coverage of Portia's masterly tour of hurricane-ravaged Lionel Town which vexed her, where even in their anger and despair the people greeted the PNP vice-president like the Lord's anointed, Mrs. Bennett's claws are altogether too much in evidence. Nanny is a national heroine. Being 'Nanny of the Streets' cannot hurt Portia. Nobody could catch the real Nanny. Nobody could shoot her in her backside either. She defeated the British and they signed a treaty, the only Maroon male or female to achieve this. Since being black and a woman didn't bother Nanny either, it shouldn't hurt Mrs. Bennett so much.
UNMISTAKABLE ACCENT
Something got under her skin though, and I suspect that it's not her colour or gender, but the accent and demeanour of those around her in the NDM. It is the unmistakable accent and demeanour of people from a more privileged socio-economic background. What would Mrs. Bennett have them do? Crawl back under a rock? They are as entitled to give political service as she is, whether from the front or in the background. Their origins must no more be held against them, than hers against her. Nevertheless she describes her erstwhile political colleagues as her 'palefaced antagonists and tyrants'. They may be antagonistic and tyrannical, but that is not because they are 'palefaced', or come from a more privileged background.
Having kept her peace for so long, it is a pity that Mrs. Bennett should come forward with such an utterly shambolic argument to try to explain away her failure in national politics. It was a role to which she was not suited in the first place.
