Politics, planes and pilots
Dear Editor,
Jamaican politics is increasingly becoming disappointing, vexing, and unattractive.
The purposed and forced crash-landing of a passenger aircraft with 155 passengers onboard by the captain and pilot of a damaged plane into the Hudson River, New York, in early 2009 may be used to illustrate this unfortunate state of our politics in three ways.
Sometime after the abovementioned incident, that pilot shared one of his philosophies, which states that anytime your job begins to seem easy, it is time to leave that job. He was not only referring to the self-motivational aspect of work but also the fact that people are relying on that worker to do their tasks properly, for as much as people’s lives could be at stake.
This Andrew Holnessled Administration is trying to give the impression that the country has been running seamlessly. One stark example is the calm, cool, and self-humoured demeanour of Security Minister Dr Horace Chang. Former security ministers, such as K D Knight, Peter Bunting, and even Robert Montague, appeared frazzled and scathed by this portfolio, but not Dr Chang. And he is certainly not doing any better than they were.
The recent pronouncements by Opposition Leader Mark Golding about what the People’s National Party (PNP) would do, if given the opportunity, was like doing so to the yonder. The intentions of Golding are honourable and commendable, but he has made the mistake of endeavouring to preach prosperity and potential, while failing to bring home the truth that we and the next few generations are figuratively dead.
The plane is already destined to go down, and impressive Titanic myths of unsinkability, which the Jamaica Labour Party has been feeding us must be thrown off by the PNP. What we need now is a leader to take us down with all the heart, expertise, and love of God and the people that he has in him, and such a person is not among Holness and friends.
Finally, while heading for the inevitable crash-landing, we must remain hopeful and trusting in a leader that deserves such, and after crashing, we must be thankful to the hand which guided him and that he subscribes to and not be deterred from ever flying again, which is what is playing out in this ongoing voter apathy brought on us by this interim pilot of an Administration.