Public figures need to lead by example

Michelle Charles' recent treatment of a constituent highlights the decline of civility in public discourse that former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson has lamented. Charles, a member of parliament for the Jamaica Labour Party, made offensive remarks to a woman wearing the colour associated with the opposition party, even going so far as to place the cloth up her skirt. This incident, along with previous cases of political tribalism and incivility, has prompted discussions about the need for a new values campaign to address this coarsening of society. While previous attempts at such campaigns have faced challenges and scepticism, recent events, including Charles' behaviour, offer an opportunity for a reset and a genuine discussion about reversing this trend of incivility in Jamaican public discourse. Prime Minister Andrew Holness could potentially address this issue as part of his legacy.

A new values campaign

9 Aug 2023

MICHELLE CHARLES’ recent offensive treatment of a constituent was another example of the incivility i n public discourse of which P.J. Patterson laments.

It is good that Dr Charles, the governing Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) member of parliament (MP) for Eastern St Thomas, apologised for what she may have presumed to be a joking berating of the woman for sporting an orange (the colour of the Opposition People’s National Party) rag in her office, before lodging the supposedly offending article up the woman’s skirt.

From this newspaper’s perspective, it required in these times a major deficit in sensitivity and self-awareness for a mature, educated woman in a leadership role to not only engage another mature woman in this fashion, but to post the evidence to social media. It demeaned both parties, even if Dr Charles may not have got it.

On the face of it, Michelle Charles’ action echoed the March incident in which the PNP’s deputy general secretary, Dexroy Martin, quarrelled with, and sought to eject, a female reporter from the party’s compound for wearing green, the JLP’s colour. Which, of course, is an intellectually flaccid response to a visual cue of presumed allegiance, or otherwise, to the political tribe.

But in this Dr Charles, subliminally, was also doing something more: affirming the politics of patronage.

The MP declared the victim of her embarrassment to be a supporter and a friend. But her action, though seemingly wrapped in jest, suggested that she saw a political client who risked disqualifying herself from patronage for not bearing the appropriate mark of the tribe. Or worse, flying the standard, even in miniature, of the competing group.

THE WILL TO CHANGE

This call to political tribalism was made more egregious by Dr Charles’ blatant hand-up-your-skirt disrespect of the woman, at a time when the society remained rightly scandalised at Isat Buchanan’s sexually explicit rant against the director of public prosecutions (DPP), Paula Llewellyn, in what he saw as a serious intervention in the debate of profound constitutional import. Mr Buchanan was forced to resign as chairman of the PNP’s human rights commission.

Mr Patterson’s statement of abhorrence of the tone of public discourse was probably triggered by Mr Buchanan’s remarks. Its coincidence with Jamaica’s celebration of its anniversary of Independence and the abolition of slavery was appropriately symbolic, especially coming from a former PNP leader and Jamaica’s longest-serving prime minister.

“Utterances from some in the political sphere and positions of authority belittle us as a nation and also undermine respect for all,” Mr Patterson said. “Public respect is rapidly descending to an all-time low. The language used routinely is distasteful, disgraceful, and comments are derogatory.”

Few will disagree with Mr Patterson. The question is whether there is the will to do anything about it.

Nearly three decades ago, Mr Patterson, when he was prime minister, launched a ‘values and attitudes’ campaign in an effort to address the coarsening of the society, one weapon in the arsenal against the country’s crisis of criminal violence.

The campaign was ridiculed and scorned by opponents. It was, at best, deemed a political deflection. A decade later, Mr Patterson attempted to revive the campaign by another name, with very much the same outcome.

MIXED SIGNALS

Since then, Mr Patterson’s successors, including the current prime minister, Andrew Holness, have echoed his lament about incivility in public discourse, but have given mixed signals on addressing the issue. Condemnations tend to be perfunctory when it is an attack against one’s presumed enemy. And often for MPs, there is the cover of parliamentary privilege behind which to hide, such as with the assaults by government legislators against the Integrity Commission. These attempts at weakening the oversight institutions of governance cannot be divorced from the general harshening of the national discourse.

Recent events, including Dr Charles’ tone-deaf behaviour, however, provide an opening for a reset, and for opening a real discussion on reversing this coarsening of Jamaica – a new values and attitudes campaign, perhaps.

It is one of the issues upon which Prime Minister Holness can build a lasting legacy.

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