The Editor, Sir:

I write in full support of the views expressed by Mr. Roderick Rainford in his letter published by you in the Saturday, September 29 edition of The Gleaner as your 'Letter of the Day'.

Some early initiatives of Prime Minister Golding would suggest that he is quite determined to change for the better the quality of our governance. The chairmanship of important Cabinet committees by members of the parliamentary Opposition is one such, and his stated intention to relocate physically the Parliament is another.

However, Mr. Golding would walk the talk of the consummate democrat and public servant number one, were he to allow for wider debate of the most appropriate location for the latter.

I would like to suggest that the siting of the Parliament building should be seen as an important dimension of a much larger national undertaking: that of building a national monument to our heritage and democracy.

Our right to govern ourselves is after all what our National Heroes struggled for and it would be most fitting that the edifice symbolising the success of their struggles be located within the Park dedicated to their memory and in proximity to the resting place of three of them.

The openness, spaciousness and centrality of National Heroes Park are also factors that make it an infinitely more desirable location for the people's Parliament than what currently exists and what is being contemplated. The monument to our political heritage and democracy should be expansive and uplifting, not claustrophobic and uninspiring. It should embody the recognition of our past as well as our collective vision and aspirations for the future.

Encroachment and defilement

Regardless of sentiments, none of these criteria can be achieved anywhere on Duke Street. Truth is, the almost surreptitious desecration of a section of National Heroes Park to make of it a National Heroes car park is the type of encroachment and defilement which may yet make the dream of creating an awe inspiring national monument of the park a virtual nightmare instead of a quite realisable dream.

I believe that realising the dream has the potential to galvanise the national will and effort around the kind of collective action that will produce something of lasting value transcending narrow political partisanship and myopia: a public space that represents as it celebrates the best that we can be as a nation.

I am, etc.,

AGGREY BROWN

P.O. Box 175

Mona

Kingston 7