Dear Lord,
I come to you today, as your favourite miscreant, with one simple request… and no it’s not to win the lottery, I believe we have established you aren’t a genie… as Parliament beings its meetings, please grant the Speaker of the House Jagdeo Singh the eternal patience he is going to need to deal with these trifling politicians. Amen.
Once upon a time, I considered becoming a teacher. Oh, to shape the minds of the future, guide them to do better, be better, and be the change they wanted to see in the world.
This consideration got trashed when I accidentally got a job at the Guardian and later had children of my own, which taught me that children are monsters. Had I been subjected day in and day out to a herd of neurologically and cognitively underdeveloped humans, I would have checked myself into St Ann’s a long time ago.
Children… even my own… can be extremely unreasonable, irrational, petty and criminally wrong and strong.
This description can also be applied to a group of folks who gather weekly in the sacred halls of the Red House. Let’s be honest, their behaviour before the break had been exceptionally atrocious. It always has been, but the childishness has ramped up in recent times.
It can be deduced that the amplification of primary school playground behaviour has come from a shift in roles.
The United National Congress (UNC), once the tiny Standard Ones, who everyone bullied and trampled over, has now risen to the ranks of the Standard Fives.
Whereas the People’s National Movement, due to circumstances they brought upon themselves, now find themselves being demoted back down the playground hierarchy to Standard One.
Oh, how the UNC has waited for this moment. Their level of petty is off the charts. I mean they always had the tendency to throw shade, but now they are rubbing their new positions in the House of Parliament aggressively into the faces of the PNM.
The PNM, on the other hand, finds itself struggling with its position. No longer are they sitting at the top of the slide, kicking other children off the ladder. Nope, nope, nope.
As such, both parties are aggressively trying to assert some sort of dominance in the Lower House and in doing so have turned those once hallowed halls into a thunderdome of school yard kick, scratch and name calling.
I did have a good laugh at the Minister of Homeland Security Roger Alexander saying… and I quote… “You don’t call persons names. We don’t do that here,” in response to the Venezuelan justice minister being fast and out of place with our prime minister.
Not sure if Alexander is aware, but before his time some names that our parliamentarians have called each other in the Lower House include: Oreo, Zammy, Small Pin, Dunce and Schizo.
The fact is, our parliamentarians behave like undisciplined people, who all deserve a set of licks… preferably delivered via a rubber slipper.
They seem to forget that every week they invite a group of students from various schools to sit in on their proceedings. The same students they constantly berate about their bad behaviour and lack of discipline.
If our leaders are busy word-slapping one another and behaving like entitled toddlers, how do they expect the people they lead to behave? Hey, if my national leaders can call each other’s names and generally be disrespectful to one another, why can’t I? And therefore, we devolve into a society of entitled, self-serving, corbeaux scratching each other’s eyes out in a pointless game of “who is better.”
I want to say I hope our parliamentarians reflect on their behaviour and their words and try to do better when they assemble in the Lower House, but that would require a miracle. And if the Lord has a miracle planned for me, I would rather not waste it on that lost cause.
Which is why I got to pray for Speaker Singh. Bless his heart because he has kept his cool, which must be incredibly difficult in those colonial-esq think robes.
Thus far into his tenure he managed considerably well. In fact, I have adopted many of his disciplinary lines in my own parenting.
Hitting my children with: “Can we just move along!” “Did you say it? Yes! Then sit down and move along” “Sometimes you have to let the children fight it out!” and the classic “Calm Dowwwwnnnn.”
Again, bless him and watch over him, Lord.
Anyway, if anyone is looking for me on Fridays, I will be outside the Red House selling “Move Along” and “Calm Down” T-shirts with Jagdeo Singh’s face on them… check meh, all sizes, $20!
