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Bend down low, let me tell you what I know...
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Re: Bend down low, let me tell you what I know...
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dine1
Errol from the Observer Editorial
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Nov 7 05 9:38 AM
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Cynical and obscene, Ms Hay-Webster
Monday, November 07, 2005
Sharon Hay-Webster, the South Central St Catherine MP, just doesn't get it, does she? Either she is exceedingly naive or very deeply cynical.
We choose to believe that she is not a fool.
Which, therefore, leave us with the option of cynicism in interpreting her response to last week's violence in Spanish Town among ostensible supporters of the People's National Party (PNP), backing the slain gang leader, Donovan "Bulbie" Bennett.
"This too shall pass," Ms Hay-Webster, told our sister publication, the Sunday Observer, as was reported yesterday.
Indeed, Ms Hay-Webster expects that "those who truly support the PNP will continue to do so".
Perhaps!
It is relevant that Ms Hay-Webster's comment be placed in context.
Bennett was a notorious criminal, whose Clansman gang was big in the extortion and protection rackets in Spanish Town, and was held responsible for scores of murder by the police.
In Jamaican politics where the hard men of violence used to play a central role in rustling votes for parties or intimidating opponents, Bennett and his gang is aligned to Ms Hay-Webster's party. It fought bitter battles with the One Order gang - aligned to the Opposition labour party - over politics and for the control of rackets in Spanish Town.
In the event that Ms Hay-Webster is unaware, there is a growing mood in Jamaica against that culture of politics. And to their credit, the Jamaican police, with the apparent support of the security minister, Dr Peter Phillips, have been on an effort to crush these criminal gangs.
For her own part, Ms Hay-Webster - who, in the past, has scoffed at the stance of her predecessor MP, Ms Heather Robinson, to have no relationship with gangs - was recently involved in negotiations with Clansman and One Order operatives to broker a truce between them.
Last week, in the aftermath of Bennett's death, in communities where Bennett's blood-tainted benevolence was extended, people came out in support of the slain don. They burnt T-shirts with the picture of Dr Phillips, who also happens to be vying for the leadership of the PNP.
What is apparent from last week's development - underlined by the statement by Superintendent Wade that elected members of the PNP facilitated Bennett's criminality - is the corrosive and decomposing grasp with which the nastiness and violence and corruption still holds elements of Jamaican politics.
That is bad enough. More frightening, in our view, is how blightly Ms Hay-Webster responded to the gross embrace and the tango of the obscene which played out last week.
She was not sickened by the spectacle. She was not nauseated to the point where she would not engage with those who would dance for the maggots. Come to think of it, there is no recollection of an unambiguous denunciation of Bennett and the Clansman gang.
For, "this too shall pass" and once things settle "those who truly support the PNP will continue to do so". And probably the next leader of Clansman, too.
That, apparently, doesn't bother Ms Hay-Webster if there are the votes with which to win her seat, which may be verminously tainted.
In that regard, we consider Ms Hay-Webster's statement not only obscenely cynically, but politically corrupt and demanding of action by the leadership of her party.
In the process, perhaps the PNP's leader, Mr Patterson may wish to reveal what assessment, if any, was made of Ms Hay-Webster before her re-selection to stand in the last election, and what concerns, if any, were raised about her?
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