Why Desmond gets no respect

By George Davis

Poor Desmond McKenzie. In the wake of well over 200 murders in his West Kingston constituency since January 2012, the member of parliament finds himself cast as the vile villain that the people, albeit a small but vocal minority, are determined to be rid of.

It's against his name that the excrement of their anger is being daubed in the most public show of dissent you will probably ever see from rock-stone Labourites in the staunchest of all Jamaica Labour Party constituencies.

Desmond must not fool himself for a minute. He must see the burning of T-shirts emblazoned with his image for what the situation really is: The people are sending a clear signal to him that even if they may lack the ability to write a thesis defending the power of metaphors and their relationship with acts of protest, the reason they burn these T-shirts is because it would create major problems were they to ignite something else.

After all, murder is a tough thing to digest, and it can be a very slow process. Desmond is an emotional chap. So it's a safe bet that, away from the glare of the media, he has shed tears over the reality that his constituents deem his alleged non-representation or under-representation worthy of a street protest, even as they've yet to publicly demonstrate against the killing of a half a dozen pregnant women and the shooting of more than 30 children since the December 2011 general election.

It was not supposed to be like this. On paper, Desmond was the ideal candidate to replace Bruce Golding as MP for Western Kingston. He is a son of the community, knows its character, its tastes and its likes, and is intelligent to those things which swing the mood of the people.

And yet there have always been sounds from those within the constituency that the universal love lavished on Edward Seaga and which was withheld from Bruce Golding is deemed too good for a man like Desmond. Again, on paper, Desmond should be getting this love in spades, especially as he can assert that, unlike any representative, he is truly one of the people, given that he was birthed from the loins of the same community as those on whose behalf he now agitates in the halls of governance.

But it is not so. Speak with the right people and they will tell you that while they had no issue with him as a local government councillor, they never fancied him as their MP. They will tell you that he doesn't move them the way Seaga did and doesn't inspire the level of obeisance that the former prime minister, in his days as a political pugilist, used to command through his very presence.

And perhaps that's the problem Desmond is having. Like the great Rodney Dangerfield, he's getting no respect because he's no Seaga. And even though he has never tried to be, focusing instead on being his own man, some of his constituents are using his non-Seaganess as a paring knife with which to cut strips of bacon from his back.

Turning tables

Who would have thought the day would come when Tivoli residents, in the capital of the West Kingston political heartland, would not only burn a shirt with their MP's face, but scrawl the name of their fierce political rivals on the sign welcoming visitors to the community?

Who would think the sun could rise on the day when Tivoli residents donned orange shirts to indicate that they would rather ride with the Comrades than stand by their own Labourite, voted in as MP? Indeed, stranger things have happened. But not many.

And while Desmond cries into his handkerchief at his rejection by a segment of his own, the transformation of West Kingston in the past five years into a wild, deadly frontier in the old west will continue to present more challenges for its residents.

The killings will likely continue, and residents, so secure over the past decades, will have to get used to the terror dished out by bands of rogue gunmen. For sure, the protest against Desmond will die down. But his hurt at his treatment by his own kin may never.

Selah.

George Davis is a journalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and george.s.davis@hotmail.com.