Dawn Ritch, ColumnistThe cornerstone of being a leader is the ability to touch and inspire. It is different to being a crumpled up piece of paper on the Opposition benches.
After her inaugural budget presentation last year, Madame Prime Minister was heavily criticised by media for not practising her reading before her delivery. They said she stumbled. Worse yet, she could not find her place, they claimed. They eagerly predicted that she would be a simple and irresponsible populist, regardless of what she said.
Somebody is going to have to practise, that is for sure. Practise and repeat by heart important passages from the Bible. Her choice of quotations this year at the end of her speech from the prophets Isaiah and Amos, was a tour de force.
It said:
"Is not this the fast that I choose?
To loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
When you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?"
"Let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."
In the context of his time, Isaiah was saying that he was not against fasting, but it ought to lead to something in terms of how we live out our religion. It ought to work against anything that dehumanises people.
Politics and religion
Politics also is about how people live, and people's quality of life. Religion has to be concerned about any aspect of life. Politics and religion, therefore, have similarities, and this is why they so often make common cause. The last two lines from Amos sum it up pithily.
The irony is that anybody hoping to win a general election in Jamaica should find it necessary to defend from start to finish her commitment first to the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. But she said that without such a priority, Jamaica would 'sink into a sea of social disorder". I can't imagine why th would make anyone feel queasy.
Mrs. Simpson Miller was, as any fool must by now have come to expect, composed throughout. I particularly liked that she used her hands sparingly, and hasn't made a habit of pointing at people. She wrote notes and received notes, and still delivered her presentation without faltering. Moreover, she has a stunning figure, and looks absolutely resplendent in red.
She caught my attention early when she told the House of Parliament and the nation that she was 'looking the money' for some project or other near to her heart. By the time Mrs. Simpson Miller was through, it was clear the prime minister was seeking funding for several social and health interventions to be made by her administration. The money is not in hand, and she announced that it was so.
For several other initiatives, she has the money. Madame Prime Minister will clean and refurbish all the island's public markets. And UDC has $90 million to make all Jamaica's beaches welcoming and safe. It's as though she read my mind.
She said she's going to use the people's money to help the people. Then she announced things she was going to do with money from the National Health Fund. I don't have a quarrel with them, but it's not the people's money. It's cigarette smokers' money, and we get neither credit nor respect. Now that she's going to take proper charge of it, I don't think I'll mind so much.
The reason why people in Jamaica know their Bible so well isthat they have nothing else to read. It's racy, historical, inspiring and an excellent read. But we should have something else to read, and this is a prime minister who sounds like she will do something about that. One trained teacher per basic school is a step in the right direction.
'Jeans and track suit'monitoring unit
A curriculum for three-year-olds is a bit frightening. Bear in mind that three-year-olds are singing hymns with their mothers for entertainment, because toddlers need clean lyrics. The curriculum at basic schools must, therefore, reflect international best practice. It should include more than a copy of the Gideon Bible, no matter how precious.
American and Islamic fundamentalists have made a mockery of the holy scriptures. So, wherever these trained teachers are coming from, I hope they're from neither place. A little Shakespeare at an early age will do far more good than any Burning Spear.
She also announced she would build the Spanish Town to Ocho Rios leg of the highway, and that it would bring development. Mrs. Simpson Miller even stoutly defended the building of the new multi-purpose stadium in Trelawny and said that too would bring development. It was a Simpson Miller brimming with confidence from start to finish.
There are some, no doubt, who will claim that because she doesn't really know the price of fixing one pot hole, she's unable to make repairs.
But Madame Prime Minister is setting up, she said, a 'jeans and track suit' monitoring unit at Jamaica House, not 'a jacket and tie one'. She wants to be told by the citizenry the moment the first little thing goes wrong in their communities, and before it becomes a big problem. That sounds like my kind of place.
I'm also glad she's targeting the bulk of new housing and home loans to the north coast of Jamaica. For decades, hotel workers have had to travel much too far, or squat on the rivers. This skewing of benefits towards them is long overdue, and a signal service to the people and island of Jamaica. This is an excellentstart.
She began her budget presentation with a moving tribute to the late Syrian and Honourary Jamaican, the Honourable Ray Hadeed, O.J. He was a manufacturing pioneer in the island, an enthusiastic believer in economic development, and someone she clearly loved and respected a great deal. That sensitivity to the significance of his life bodes well for the future of the manufacturers and minority races in Jamaica.
Her theme, 'One Jamaica, One Family. Shaping the Future together', is obviously, therefore, sincerely held. And Madame prime minister has left no doubt that she intends to direct it herself.
