OH MY gosh! What a waterfall of suggestions and recommendations for Mrs. Portia Simpson Miller! What a cataract of proposals from everyone on how the country should be governed, and what next must be done and how.
I know that the time for her accession has dragged on, but surely people have something better to do with their time than churn out documents, articles, and proposals like armchair experts.
Why is everybody telling Portia what to do? Is it that they are convinced that she doesn't have two ideas in her head, one to rub against the other? Is she the Jamaican equivalent of some dumb blond, to be guided and told the time of day 15 million times a day in print and on radio?
I find the on-going exercise quite tedious and most sickening. Incredibly, these people seem to think the most popular politician in the country doesn't have a grain of sense in her head.
Every puss and dawg is coming up with its half-baked idea. Everyone is rushing to instruct her as to how to govern, who to appoint, who not to appoint, who to save, and who to let go.
The other day, my good friend Mrs. Fay Tortello was roundly chastised for telling talk show host Wilmot Perkins that he shouldn't let people calling from abroad pontificate and monopolise air-time. She didn't know why they bothered, she said, because they don't live here, and do not endure the hardships. But every day, they come on air or write articles telling us what to do.
I wish only to add that chief among them is Don Robotham who writes for this newspaper, but lives in New York. He's long gone about his business, and like the rest of them probably afraid even to land at Palisadoes. The dollar is going to fall, they say, there will be capital flight and inflation will return unless Dr. Omar Davies remains Finance Minister. All these things have long been a part of our daily lives anyway, so his going is hardly likely to make a piece of difference.
THE BACK OF
DR OMAR DAVIES
All well-thinking people want to see the back of Dr. Omar Davies, even his own party. Yet, Robotham is recommending that he stay and claims he's indispensable. If the opinion-maker thinks Dr. Davies is all those things, and so wonderful, why doesn't that writer come back and live in Jamaica? If we can do without his presence we can do without his opinion, to say nothing of his instructions.
There is no way for any living person to relate to what is going to happen next in Jamaica, nor participate in it, by remote control. There is no virtual participation. You're either in it or you're not.
The same thing goes for being Prime Minister. You're either Prime Minister or you're not, and no amount of paper work, interviews or research can change that fact. Nobody told P. J. Patterson that he should name somebody from the Opposition as Minister of State in National Security. But the Observer editorial made that utterly ludicrous recommendation to Mrs. Simpson Miller last week. Have they forgotten the reason for the difference between the words 'Opposition' and 'Government'? Too much thinking has run them dry it seems. Patterson never needed any help from the Opposition before. Why should she?
The Observer, Don Robotham, Garth Rattray, even this newspaper, clearly assume she can't manage on her own. But what makes them experts?
The whole purpose of the exercise is to maintain the status quo. There is no reason however, to believe that things will be any better in Jamaica if Dr. Davies remains indefinitely.
On the other hand, Mrs. Simpson Miller was elected president of the People's National Party to bring about change. Yet all the people who vilified her before are now anxious to remain in her Cabinet. Can it be that they want to undermine and sabotage her? It seems not to have dawned on any of them yet, that they are now expendable. Nor is it likely to because all their little sycophants are busy writing rubbish about them.
The fact remains that if she could do what she did without all of them, it fully demonstrates their irrelevance. But they think she can't do without them, and they assume she can't make a decision of her own. It is quite evident that some of them are not at the top of her mind, so every day they become more shrill and hysterical. But they didn't hustle Mr. Patterson in this way, so why should they Mrs. Simpson Miller?
Absentee wisemen who have run and left the ship of state and think that they must now guide it from afar, should recognise that new leadership has taken over. Far from paying any attention to them, she should absolutely ignore them.
It is a piece of impertinence to suggest that after all these years in government and representing the people, Mrs. Simpson Miller has no ideas of her own. After 40 years in politics she must be itching to get going on them. And because she will be Prime Minister, she gets to implement them, so there's no point anybody trying to crowd her.
The irony is of course that none of them were supporting her before, nor did they expect that she would be able to win. Now they want to tell her what to do, and what not to do. Now everybody is an expert and giving instructions and advice.
I suppose it's wonderful to be so underestimated because it means that expectations are low. It is a good thing therefore that she will no longer be subjected to these indignities because after March 30, nobody is going to be able to command her again. This of course, has not yet registered upon her Cabinet colleagues and the world at large. It seems destined to come as a shock.
All these years they've been sitting with her in Cabinet, yet none of her colleagues ever noticed that she does what she pleases and when she pleases. It has also escaped them that the country is saying that they'd like a little more of that, and a little less of them, and they're glad it will be her responsibility and not theirs, a fact that she at least knows well.
So instead of hauling her there and pulling her here, it would be wonderful if she were allowed to gather her thoughts and get on with it.
