Dear Editor,
I was a proud bystander when for the first time in our history, the three Js, flanked with six Ministers, marched majestically and took their seats in our Parliament. The first females in our history to sit in our Parliament, Janet Jagan, Jane-Phillips-Gay and Jessie Burnham. This was a historic and glorious moment for all of our people. A moment that vindicated the struggle of our women who were always in the vanguard opposing slavery, imperialism and colonialism. It was therefore a moment of sadness that from the PPP’s side in our Parliament, we have members of Parliament showing such disrespect to female Parliamentarians. The three Js must be turning in their graves and for those of us who are alive as I did, wept when Parliamentarians can talk about ‘dildos’, and other members of the PPP in Parliament use banalities describing female Parliamentarians who occupy the hollow chambers of our Parliament.
What is worrisome, what is distressing Editor, and what is almost unbelievable is the Speaker seems to have an attack of deafness and I hope for two things, first, that the Honourable Minister of Health with the abundance of money available, provides the Speaker with up-to-date audio enhancing equipment so he can hear and act when MPs openly show such disrespect to females members of our Parliament. Second, if there is a modicum of decency, if there is a tincture of respect for our females, the three offending PPP Parliamentarians should either offer a full public apology or President Ali should ask for their resignation. Editor, the above is to save our country from a slide into the suck-sand of oblivion. When they ignore what may seem to some to be small acts of indecency we create conditions like a malignant ulcer that can take over the entire body politic, if not removed with dispatch.
What worries me more is that on the Government’s side I’ve grown to have a high regard for Minister Vindya Persaud, whose father and members of her family rank among the best Guyanese I know. She and others must break their silence or else they would be damned and held responsible for this dissent and the rending of the already torn fabric of our society. The urgency for a sort of moral renaissance is patent as our country is experiencing the rape of our natural resources and the spending spree supported by a well-oiled propaganda machine. If we allow this type of behaviour seen in Parliament to be swept under the carpet, all of those who remain silent will be guilty of presiding over our descent into the dark dungeons of despair, degradation and decay. The fact that this display of uncouth behaviour was in the presence of students makes the above call one that ought not to be postponed. The combination of bad financial management and moral turpitude is a recipe for our decline as human history has shown.
Sincerely,
Hamilton Green
Elder
