Dawn Ritch, Contributor
IN STARK contrast to the pervasive gloom that has settled over the country since the election, the scene at the House of Representatives for the recent swearing-in of its 60 Members of Parliament was a positive hubbub of excitement.
Not remembering a thing about it, I'd called an MP-designate's driver on his cell phone, only to stumble upon the vast commotion. "Where the hell are you?" I asked. He replied in equal measures of awe and self-importance, "At the swearing-in Miss Ritch, im jus gawn een, yuh nuh ear it?! Listen nuh ...!"
I felt as though I were eavesdropping on the most intimate conversation in the world, and recoiled in resentment and disgust. If that was how outside Gordon House sounded, then it could only be the reflection of the supreme triumph felt in the hearts of every MP that morning. It was like suddenly being dropped into a stadium at the climax of a World Series, where both competing teams are unaccountably the victors. I couldn't help thinking what a wonderful thing it is in life to have a legitimate job of any description, much less one that comes with prestige and salary increased twice this year alone, a duty-free vehicle, overseas health insurance, additional perks of great monetary value and varied descriptions, and for the 17-member Cabinet bodyguards and drivers.
Even some who are not Cabinet members nor members of the ruling PNP, have bodyguards and drivers. With such inestimably cushy jobs who needs to win an election? All they really need to do is win their seats and the world is their oyster. All that was left was for television cameras to be placed on both sides of the House, and their day was made.
Never before was such an array of expensive suits and bonnets in the House of Represent-atives, each one more remarkable than the one before, as both sides filed in and filled the chamber with the low, persistent rumble of a distant earthquake. It was a sick-making experience, relieved only by the fact that this newspaper published the fashion page from the event in black and white. To have had to see it all over again in colour would have been more than I could bear.
Despite myself, I watched many friends take the oath of office, and resolved to cultivate a better class of friends in future. Both sides of the House are really interested only in each other, because this is where they are happiest and most at home. Whatever capacity the country may lack for joy was magnified by the tumult of 60 MPs eager to be in the coveted company of each other.
Both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition delivered themselves of lengthy speeches which seemed crafted purely for each other's personal consumption. Both wore ties in their respective party colours, taking obsessive concern with party politics right into the nation's business, and demonstrating throughout a steady visual contradiction to every pretty word they said.
Who could have been surprised therefore, when it was all over that a violent confrontation immediately took place right outside on the street, provoked by no less a person than the Most Honourable P. J. Patterson, and not once but twice? A larger crowd of JLP supporters had been trading insults with the crowd of PNP supporters all day, amiably enough it seems, to have seduced the police into letting down the guard rails at either end of the block, and permitting both groups to stand in front of Gordon House.
As soon as the Prime Minister emerged from the opening of Parliament the JLP supporters booed him. Anyone who watched the swearing-in of Mr. Patterson as Prime Minister at Emancipation Park, will remember that a crowd of about 30,000 people booed the mere mention of Edward Seaga's name in the roll call of Jamaica's former Prime Ministers. This was a state ceremony, yet nobody said a word. Indeed some well-known Labourites were standing on their seats that night, hoping for recognition from distant comrades. The partisan ugliness of the booing was exceeded only by a version of Brown Skin Gal meant to ridicule Mr. Seaga and sung by hundreds of attendees on both sides of the barricades at the function.
This later event at Gordon House according to reports, was just a simple boo, nobody sang anything about him, nor threw a single missile. Yet Mr. Patterson gave them the four fingers signifying Fourth Term which, considering the audience for which it was intended, was no better than giving them one. This provocative gesture was met with a further tumult. Yet the Prime Minister took his leave slowly, almost insolently, and despite being hustled into the waiting car by his security, took time just before to give the JLP supporters another four fingers in an act more petty and more infantile than words can ever express.
I don't know how Audley Shaw managed to miss the whole thing by being in hospital both in Mandeville and then Kingston, but I'm inclined to ask him to present a medical certificate for his absence.
Aloun Assamba was most definitely there. No one could have missed the billowing clouds of pink around her head in the Government benches, a hat soon soiled as she left the House since she was right behind the Prime Minister and half-empty bottles of beer had started to fly. She beat a hasty retreat, protected by her brother, back into Gordon House and was overcome by the utter shock and horror of this nastiness. This is not an auspicious beginning to the New Millennium, but a farce.
Local Government elections are due some time very soon, and it is not at all clear that the People's National Party has yet been able to hand over the reins of the country to a Cabinet seized with the urgency of holding them. Predictably Mr. Patterson and his delegates were off to New York right after the opening of Parliament, but not before his former personal adviser, Delano Franklyn, now Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was off to Europe with an even larger delegation, Dr. Peter Phillips and entourage off to London, Sharon Hay Webster off to Brussels, and of course K. D. Knight, just back from South America.
Ah yes, I forgot that other perk of office they enjoy, which is foreign travel in great state. Is it any wonder then that they crave nothing more in life but a seat in the House of Represent-atives? See the world, live a life full of privilege, and every five years or so make your seat the winning entry to luxury, barring a jostle here and a boo there.
The sight of the seats on both sides of the House almost equally occupied was almost a physical fright. Far from giving me confidence in the future of the country, it confirmed my worst fears that the only people who have any future in it are the ones sitting in the House of Representatives.
