Dear Editor,
The following quotes from SN’s report of February 1 on the current Budget debate makes interesting, indeed instructive, reading as in the following extracts:
1) “APNU & AFC front-bencher Amanza Walton-Desir hammered the government for its perceived failure to address the effects of inflation…”
2) “Regally attired and with a hairstyle to match, the first-time parliamentarian was heckled by those from the government side”
3) “Her presentation was later dismissed by Minister of Labour Joseph Hamilton as being just the fluttering of a ‘headless chicken’. Questioned by Speaker Manzoor Nadir whether he was imputing something to the parliamentarian, Hamilton responded: I am saying that the opposition represented is a barnyard of headless creole fowls…headless yard fowls.”
Some perceptive persons could not help but see a disjunction between the descriptor and the physical portrait of the female presenter, and wondered whether the assault was not too insensitive – not only on a single female counterpart but her representation of women as a whole. One is left to wonder what must be the Minister’s quiet assessment of his own female staff – moreso at this time of debate on the status of women – seen as ‘headless creole fowls’.
One wonders whether his own family agrees with this assault on a qualified national representative of female human beings in Guyana, and elsewhere? Not only Mr. Hamilton must be required to account for this insulting evaluation of women, but action should be taken to expunge these salacious remarks from the records.
Incidentally what thought is given to how students, including valedictorians, react to such expositions?
Yours faithfully,
Elijah Bijay
