How low can we go?

HOW SAD to watch what Jamaicans define as ‘cass-cass’, our two party leaders in conferences speaking to large audiences, and on TV reaching the nation and beyond, especially when transmissions by 1Spot media facilitate a wider reach on the Internet.

Here is Dr Peter Phillips, leader of the PNP, at the party’s annual conference in brash overtones accusing the Holness Government of being the most corrupt since Independence. To add credence to his claim, he details the scandals, the fiascos, the waste, and the corruption besetting the JLP administration midway its fiveyear term in office.

Phillips’ body language was abrasive, his face enraged, his tone arrogant and supercilious, as if his party, when in power, rose above such misdeeds, and that even when the party misstepped, the willingness to deal internally with the matter seemingly absolved it of the taint of malfeasance.

GO LOWER

One would have thought that being prime minister, Andrew Holness, on watching Dr Phillips’ combative performance, would have heeded Michelle Obama’s entreaty, “When they go low, we go high.” No way, not in Jamaica. When they go low, we must go lower. When they want to ‘chuck badness’, as Jamaicans would say, we must show who is the ‘badder man’. It is always a shootout at the OK Corral. Or using the analogy of war – ‘of taking no prisoners’ – take the gloves off as the battle plan for destroying the Opposition.

Holness took off the gloves; his face was contorted and angry, his language a descent into tribal politics. It was indecency at its worst and aggression most vulgar. He must have forgotten he was prime minister.

His Patois, in an extremely derisive tone, was unbecoming, as he disputed the opposition leader’s claim that his party, the JLP, was the most corrupt in the country’s history, declaring instead that the PNP was the most corrupt in the Caribbean.

He then chided the opposition leader for being a liar and a hypocrite, and as he added more personal insults to the applause of the gathering, at any moment, I expected the audience, without being gender accurate, to shout, lock him up, lock him up, in reference to Phillips. Mind you, if it was Portia Simpson Miller, as opposition leader, the presumed refrain would have been, lock her up, lock her up, a call more consistent with what occurred in another jurisdiction.

Holness has been two and a half years into running a Government that has been rattled by resignations of a minister of government and heads of major statutory bodies; has been mired in corruption, waste, and lack of best practices in corporate governance; and has underperformed badly in relation to growth expectations. He has maintained, however, an interest in indulging in this silly tit-for-tat as regards whose corruption is worse, and whose corruption is bigger.

He keeps forgetting that the electorate threw out the PNP and installed his party to do much better and to fulfil the election promises he offered his people. They want results, Mr Prime Minister, not your setting the bar so low as to remind the nation what the PNP did.

Playing ‘last lick’, akin to oneupmanship, with the PNP, does not help. Success is a long road, requiring diligence and intensity. The change will be slow, but it must happen and it must be beneficial and enduring.

The ship of state changes very slowly. As President Obama opined, “The ship of state is like an ocean liner; you turn the wheel slowly and the big ship pivots. Sometimes your job is just to make stuff work. Sometimes the task of government is to make incremental movements or try to steer the ocean liner two degrees north or south that 10 years from now, suddenly we are in a very different place than we were.

“At the moment, people may feel we need a 50-degree turn, we don’t need a two-degree turn. Well, if I turn 50 degrees, the whole ship might turn over.”

Our ship has to turn, but not with the disdain, coarseness, crudity, and verbal confrontation that took place between our two leaders. Such behaviour justifies and foments indiscipline, verbal sparring, which descends into rage, then physical confrontation, then retaliation.

ALTERNATIVE RESPONSE

Instead of a competition about corruption between our two leaders, it would have been nice if Dr Phillips, when his party led the Government, had some significant achievements of, say, a four per cent annual average growth rate, a sharp reduction in corruption, as well as a 30 per cent decline in violent crimes. That would have allowed him to stand at the podium on Sunday and be gratuitous about the party’s accomplishments. We know that wasn’t so.

If it were, the prime minister, in his presentation, could then acknowledge and commend the PNP for its performance in accelerating growth, reducing corruption, and slashing crime. He could then brag that his five-in-four is bigger than Phillips’ four per cent, corruption has been similarly reduced, and in accordance with his election promise, people can now sleep with their doors and windows open. None of that happened, and when there is underperformance, belligerence and insults dislodge civility.

We have to raise the bar. It is not just about JLP outflanking PNP, but Jamaica stepping up to the plate and outperforming other countries in raising our per-capita income. Mr PM, the ball is in your court.