Dawn Ritch, ContributorTHE MOST Honourable P. J. Patterson, Prime Minister, said that he refused to swear the Oath of Allegiance to the Queen one more time, and therefore prior to the general election passed a law to change the Oath.
Prior to the election, this column expressed doubt that this would necessarily improve his sense of responsibility to the Jamaican people, and argued that our civic rights could be better guaranteed were he to continue swearing allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen.
Mr. Patterson is also hell-bent for leather on removing our right of appeal to Her Majesty's Privy Council in the United Kingdom and is putting that procedure in place. He wants a Caribbean Court of Appeal.
Recently, it was in the news that the Caribbean region is going mendicant to international lending agencies, looking to borrow US$100 million to set up a trust fund to establish the Caribbean Court of Appeal. Never mind that the Attorney-General of Jamaica, Mr. A.J. Nicholson, said on the television news that Jamaica doesn't have the money to repair all its existing courts. It seems to me that at the very least Jamaica would be better off begging money abroad to repair our own courts. Instead we are off in an unnecessary search for US$100 million to try to reinvent the wheel, and can be relied upon to make it wobble.
After the Prime Minister of Jamaica refused to swear allegiance to the Queen of Jamaica, who also is the Queen of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, doesn't want her court anymore but wants Jamaica to have its own, then created an Emancipation Park at which he took the new Oath of Office instead of doing so at King's House, it ought to be blindingly clear to any fool that he is separating this country in spirit, letter and ceremony from the United Kingdom and the British monarchy and, who knows, may even shortly have plans to leave the Commonwealth.
I was a little surprised therefore, at the level of public hysteria which greeted the news that the Government of the United Kingdom has introduced a new regulation requiring that Jamaicans apply for a visa in order to enter the kingdom. More shocked even to hear use of the word "motherland", that visas shouldn't be required of us in view of our history, and that it was a racist act. A great deal of heat is being generated on the subject. Our Prime Minister disses the Queen but people don't expect that to change our relationship with those countries who still swear allegiance to their Queen.
The fact is, however, that when you move out of your mother's home and go out on your own, it is unreasonable to expect her to continue to do the washing and ironing for you, as well keep your pot on the fire.
To recent decades of abusive rhetoric against the British in general and the colonial era in particular we have now added the ditching of the Oath to the Queen, and the proposed replacement of the U.K. Privy Council. It seems inconceivable therefore to think that anyone in his or her right mind could continue to believe that we are entitled to some sort of special consideration by the British Government.
It seems to me that all nearly 400 years of historical association with the British has netted them the length and breadth of this country is the deepest ingratitude. On the other hand we think Americans are the Cat's Pajamas, praise them at every opportunity and are happy to go along with whatever they say. Every American is a hero descended from heroes, and every Briton an oppressor descended from colonial oppressors. To cap it all we line up quietly and meekly for a visa to the USA, and nobody calls them racist for requiring it. This is the prevailing double standard here in Jamaica.
Instead of taking it up with the British High Commission, those Jamaicans offended by the new regulation should take it up with our own Prime Minister. The British say that we keep coming for two weeks and staying longer, and sometimes disappear in the U.K. altogether. What they didn't say is that we have also been exporting unpleasant things like gun crime and yardie behaviour, and that gun bans there in the U.K. have not been able to cure the problem. Indeed violent crime has increased according to the Sunday Times, along with the virtually unprecedented use of heavy weaponry in some of these acts. Lest we forget, London is the home of the IRA bombings, not gangsters like Al Capone.
The Prime Minister through good governance ought to be reducing violence and murder here, as well as offering hope for jobs and a good livelihood here in Jamaica. Then the lines for overseas visas would shrink, and other people would be glad to see us when we come. The small islands in the Eastern Caribbean have long known of the deleterious effect upon public behaviour of a flock of Jamaicans. They don't want our dancehall or our ghetto slang to take root either. They prefer living in well-ordered societies.
This cannot be said for the majority of Jamaicans, to whom graft, corruption, violent crime and social decline are all nine-day wonders. We have an infinite capacity to bear it all, and no hope of any better unless we emigrate.
This is why the Prime Minister's actions in the Karl Blythe matter are par for the course to a people who have apparently learned to accept corruption in Government as a way of life, and not an aberration. Mr. Patterson found it necessary before the general election, to send the Angus Report to the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Commissioner of Police and the Auditor-General for investigation and action by those authorities, and accept Dr. Blythe's resignation as Minister of Water and Housing. In accepting his resignation the Most Honourable must acknowledge, even privately, that Mr. Blythe was culpable because had he thought otherwise his ready acceptance of the resignation displays a callous and insensitive side to the Prime Minister's character.
After the general election, Mr. Patterson was returned to office and sent the Angus Report to Dr. Ken Rattray, a special adviser and consultant to Cabinet, to determine Dr. Blythe's culpability in the matter if any, thereby effectively removing this consideration from the constitutional purview of the Director of Public Prosecution.
Patterson has now reported to the House of Representatives that Dr. Blythe has been exonerated by Dr. Rattray's report, and that the Prime Minister himself accepts these findings. He has not yet seen fit however, to return the severely damaged Dr. Blythe to Cabinet. Since the former Housing and Water Minister has subsequently announced on radio that he intends to run for the presidency of the People's National Party, position of some sort in Government cannot be far behind. This damage to his reputation, however, may result in his election as President of the PNP and Prime Minister if precedence is of any significance in the PNP.
The mere act of sending the Angus Report to a Cabinet consultant has impugned the integrity of the members of the Angus investigation team, since the PM has now stated it was not a commission under the Commission of Enquiry Act. He has therefore undermined the very procedure he put in place, by wanting to exonerate Dr. Blythe before the authorities have been given sufficient time to take action in the matter.
It looks like a last-minute recovery and reprieve for Dr. Blythe, and sets a dangerous precedent since it is a departure from the behaviour one expects of a prime minister.
By inclination I'm a conservative, and against dangerous precedents of any kind. The Oath of Allegiance should have remained what it was and the Caribbean Court of Appeal should not be established because it is an ill-conceived and unnecessary aberration.
Furthermore the Prime Minister of a country ought to take the Oath of Allegiance indoors, not outdoors, no matter how comfortable the chairs. A promise to a people and a country ought to have greater significance than a country wedding, no matter how big, and not take place in a park, even a newly constituted national one.
It robs the occasion of sobriety, and hints to me at any rate, that disorder has now permanently overtaken us.
