THERE was a time I looked forward to Time magazine ‘person of the year.’ I was fascinated by the fact that the magazine’s policy was to choose a person or entity that had the greatest impact on America – not necessarily a positive one. The person or thing selected must have changed America in an unpredictable and unimagined way. On that score the revengeful 9/11 attacks masterminded by Osama Bin Laden, should have made the front cover of Time. That it did not perhaps meant that the attacks had struck too close to the heart and soul of the citadel of American business and politics.
No such claims can be laid on the little Star newspaper with the big heart, (or is it huge gonads?), operating in a minuscule, half literate, fearful Saint Lucian society. When its publishers first announced a person of the year, I imagined they had chosen to mould a special species of men and women from available feeble stock – as it conjured up victories from such weakness. I smiled at the paper’s offerings and looked with interest and without comment.
The time has come to use the opportunity presented in these weekly columns to say who (or what), in my view, should be deserving person of the year, in this sweet little rock of sages – by which I do not mean the aromatic herb used in cooking. To select a deserving person or thing even from a small field does not make the final selection less challenging.
For my part the following persons are on my short list of ‘person of the year, 2015’. Ms. Mary Francis; for her persistent advocacy of due process, fair trial for accused persons and her bold condemnation of the lackadaisical functioning of the justice system in Saint Lucia. Ms. Mary Isaac, formerly president of the Civil Service Association (CSA), who showed strength and courage in standing up for her members against a government which threatened to deduct their salaries without any consultation or prior agreement, and whose advocacy continues in the island’s Senate.
To these two, I add Mr. Guy Joseph, Member of Parliament (MP), for Castries South East – for his consistent representation of his constituents in Parliament in the face of planned, hostile and mischievous distractions there.
Notwithstanding the commendable efforts and high profile of these three my choice of person of the year is ‘The Constitution Review Committee,’ so ably chaired by Justice Suzie d’Auvergne, deceased. If I was forced to choose another to replace the deceased Justice and her Committee, it would be Eldon Mathurin, a surviving senior member of Justice d’ Auvergne’s Review Committee.
In our anxiety for political independence and the undue haste with which Britain wished to offload her remaining colonies, we accepted a ‘handed-me-down’ constitution, preferred by others. On the portals of 37 years independence, what could be more meaningful and transformative than the tabling of a new revised constitution for the island? A far sighted government and parliament could have seen to it. The rock of sages with its Nobel Laureates deserves better.
A constitution that aims to further empower people while eroding the dictatorial provisions for a Prime Minister – any Prime Minister – would be beyond reproach or rebuke. Furthermore, a constitution which anoints the electorate with powers of recall, would have spoken volumes to a region and to a world that has grown accustomed to treating people as footstools and voting machines and king ascending to political power, fame and fortune.
It was bad enough for the Prime Minister and his cronies to disagree so publicly and insultingly with the Committee Report. What was even more debasing and déclassé was to have invited a sister of the deceased Justice d’Auvergne to sit in Parliament, there to witness such insults, leveled at her deceased sister’s report. To the utter dismay and consternation of many, the Prime Minister lambasted the Committee Report, calling it otiose; meaning: ‘serving no practical purpose, not required, functionless, and futile;’ – laughable even.
After five long years of laborious work during which the committee interviewed hundreds of Saint Lucians from far and wide, and having carefully recorded what these Saint Lucians had to say, a report was presented to Prime Minister Anthony, the person who appointed the committee. That report was allowed to lie dormant whilst it was meticulously studied by a ‘Constitutional Lawyer,’ Prime Minister, Kenny Anthony.
‘By their deeds ye shall know them.’ The delay in presenting the report of the Committee to Parliament should have alerted observers that the recommended provisions, or parts thereof, did not sit well with the Prime Minister. Observers arriving at such a conclusion were quickly proven correct when, during the debate, the Prime Minister and his old side kick, Philip Pierre, literally tore the committee’s recommendations to pieces.
To diminish the powers of the Prime Minister and to give constituents the power of recall was a strong and persistent recommendation from the people interviewed. The government objected to these recommendations because they interpreted it to be about them and not about what the electorate wanted. The process of cobbling a new constitution is for the future guidance and happiness of the people – everyone!
Morals, manners, etiquette, class and decorum went crying to heaven for vengeance on the parliament floor the day of that debate. Those who witnessed the vulgar performance may have wished for a constitutional ‘Rite of Passage’ demanding etiquette, manners and morals from those who seek to enter parliament. Perhaps the people who recommended that, an MP ought to serve in his constituency and not be automatically handed a portfolio, are onto something.
Finally, of the mountain of agenda items crowding the United Workers Party manifesto, one of them ought to be a fresh look at the Suzie d’Auvergne Constitution Review Report.
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I attempted posting this yesterday but there seem to be problems in publication ? I’ll try again.
One would think, that you Black Pete Josie, being the defacto overseer and top House Nigger of Allen Chastanet’s UWP Plantation, you would have Allen the weasel publicly promise, that if Kenny Anthony were to be struct by lightening, and Allen becomes P.M in a dream., Allen would implement the reforms you suggest that Kenny Anthony has failed to implement. Instead Allen Chastanet has offered not a single plan to improve anything, not even how he would go about cutting the grass on the Square, and what he would do to subdue his blatant ignorance and learn the the first Black PM of South Africa is Mandela and not Bandela.
It would come as no surprise to you that Nelson Mandela is no great hero of mine. Surely, Caucasians have forced-fed Black folk the hype about Nelson Mandela, because unlike Robert Mugabe and Khadaffi, he allowed the Caucasian Christians who plundered and pillaged the homeland of the Black African to keep the land, the gold and the diamonds. Should Chastanet know of Nelson Mandela, or “THAT EN YOUR ROLE” ? LOOK!
https://www.facebook.com/284538805083530/videos/vb.284538805083530/468909329979809/?type=2&theater¬if_t=like
Whenever the Caucasian Christian shower praises and accolades upon Black Africans, that should be a Red Flag to Black People. BEWARE !
There can be no better example than Nelson Mandela who has left South Africa’s wealth and power in the hands of the Pirates and white supremacist Christian, while non-thinking Negroes are taught to hate the Most Honourable Robert Mugabe, an African Giant, fighting the Pirates to reclaim the stolen lands and wealth of the Zimbabwean People from the Caucasian Christian Pirates. This is a common practice of the Evil Caucasian’s miseducation of the Negroes, as was done in the case of Marcus Garvey and The Great Prince Malcolm X. — Should Chastanet know of Nelson Mandela, or “THAT EN YOUR ROLE” ? LOOK AGAIN !
https://www.facebook.com/284538805083530/videos/vb.284538805083530/468909329979809/?type=2&theater¬if_t=like
When the Caucasian Christians have determined that a Negro has been coopted into their program of oppressing the masses of the people of African Ancestry, the Negro will be permitted to Kneel and kiss the feet of the evil woman, who is the vicar of God-on-Earth, as if God needs some deviant to stand in his place. Negroes may be baptised with a REALLY WHITE NAME, like the Negro Rick John Wayne, and made an Honorary White man with the Traitor’s Badge of O.B.E., M.B.E., as a Member of the British Empire, known for enslaving the Africans, and is given a no-rhythm, anorexic “femme blem”.
Now they are one of them; they’ve arrived; Velon John, Rick John Wayne, and the Derek Walcott who loved you so much that he brought you the Nobel Prize and a White woman to demonstrate his ascent from the Chaussee and Grass Street – my back yard near Maryan Street, Leslie Land Rd – into the company of the Slave Master. Here’s what this Caucasian said about The Honorary whites, Velon John, Black Pete Josie, Gail Riogbert with her Irish accent, John Wayne, and the Negroes married to the White woman Virgin Mary, Linus Clovis , and the other ascetical perverts claiming celibacy.
https://www.facebook.com/717947878333399/videos/778194482308738/?theater
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Peetar
You hid this one behind the SKIRT of a woman- nice desperate strategy= but you still come out with a bluddy tampon clenched between your fangs.
Pete ole boy, you are not well.
Your reliance on the SENSATIONALIST Star? newspaper and its gassy yellow journalism editor
-think bloated large intestine-
is a burgeoning CRUTCH!!!
Your increasing RELIANCE on the crutches of Leaky Rickey @ waning star rag paper, informs us that your chronic early mental abnormalities brought on by your loss of face with your noble biological father-
over your immoral outcome at SMC,
heightened by your booze addiction,
needs major hospital intervention- since yesteryears!!
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Those of us who read this Newspaper, THE VOICE OF SAINT LUCIA, where we are so privileged to learn from reporters like Micah, and Rochelle, and my brother Guy Ellis, and too many others to enumerate, are so far ahead of the unfortunate ones who are searching for 2016 information in the writings of marooned Negroes like John Wayne and the Caucasian God of the Slave Master being sold every Sunday as the Savior of the African from the Satanic folk.
My First Cousin Ronald Boo Hinkson was at the Grammys last night in person, and let me tell you brothers and sisters, IT WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY as the NIGHT CAUCASIANS GOT THE MESSAGE. Many of the scholars who frequent this Stellar Newspaper, The Voice, saw their writings transfigure and materialize in living color, or is that what we were told about Transubstantiation from the “Losti” into the Flesh of God ? Perhaps not, but it’s the closest thing I ever saw to this moment, leaving Caucasians Speechless, and Negroes in tears. Here’s a commentary about what you scholars have been writing in this Newspaper; take a listen, but focus ON THE FACES of the Caucasians as the TRUTH confronted their CHARADE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2wwHgJ9NIY&feature=share
Being a reader of this Newspaper, and I am not referring to the incorrigible Negroes like the one TOM TOM from Monchy who died in his sister’s basement fire in New York, NY. last week, but the Black Original Man and Woman, determined to break the chains of indignities by ending worshiping a dead Caucasian Male as their God, eating his flesh like savage cannibals, and drinking his blood to get to Heaven after death.
So here is the SHOCKER as it went PRIME TIME, leaving Caucasians across the Universe in a state of stupor as they realize that the Original People are awakening from the Graves of miseducation and humiliation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHMdR8fK-88&feature=share
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Peetar,
Your mental disorder became apparent in virtual reality BECA– USE of your cloaked DISDAIN for the Vieux-Fort constituency.
I have previously outlined how you went numb when empress rigo was ambulance chasing at st judes hospital to sully the peoples leader-
and when the last independence celebration gave Vieux-Fort as a southern venue for the Arts -You ridiculed their efforts
The stench of your father’s goat herd at Beane Field, your pimping of their milk for poontang and your fallout at SMC by impregnating an innocent virgin is major catharsis and political hae for VFort.
Dr kenny resrrects that super ego father figure who castigated you for not fulfilling the family drem and investment in you , circa SMC.
You hate VieuxFort so much that you did not publish your memoirs book via Dr Reynolds Publishing at New Dock Road (YOUR VERY OWN GPS LOCATION OF BIRTH ) -for crying out loud
Here is my short list for person of the year.
Dr Reynolds and Mr Modeste Downes-
True blue-real HEROIC characters who represent the much needed renaissance St Lucia so desperately needs and deserves……..
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Black artists are using high profile events as a platform to discuss race, making some whites uncomfortable. It shouldn’t, because the discussion is overdue
Race is never a comfortable topic.
So often we talk about living in a post-racial society, a society where the color of one’s skin is not mutually exclusive to the content of their character.
Martin Luther King’s Dream.
But this is not the reality. Instead of transcending issues of race, we’ve shoved it in a closet with the hope that it would stay buried underneath the rest of our dirty laundry. And in the process of doing that, new generations grew, many of them never knowing what it meant to hate someone just because of their skin color.
A post-racial society.
When Barack Obama won the White House in 2008, we were told “racism is over”, and yet bigotry only grew. First in subtle ways, and then, when pushed, bigotry exploded. Maybe not with the force of the burning hatred of the ’60s and before, but one could argue that subtle, seething hatred, mixed with outright denial is even more insidious.
So now, in 2016, America finds itself faced with a blown-open closet where racism and bigotry once again paint the room of our collective discussions and people are extra unhappy about it on both sides.
Much of this unhappiness is rooted in frustration and fear. For so long, black Americans have felt voiceless, and with the election of Obama, they’re told that all those past aggressions are now dead and buried. If a black man can be president, then our transgressions are forevermore anchored to the past.
And yet, it endures.
We live in an America that hasn’t been more divided…wait, that’s not true. That’s being dishonest.
What is true, however, is the fact that our divisions have never been more magnified. It’s one thing to call each other niggers and honkeys in the privacy of our own homes, amongst like-minded people, but now…now through the magic of Social Media, we can see the effects of racism and bigotry played out in living color, and that’s no pun.
We see the murders of Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown and so many other black men and women, and they’re sent around the country, around the world with just a keystroke, and instead of a collective THIS IS WRONG, we started to hear how they were wrong.
We blamed the victims in an era where victim shaming is supposed to be anathema. Except, somehow, when it comes to black people.
When this resistance to this disproportionate treatment becomes too much for one community to endure, it turns into #BlackLivesMatter, and instead of collective reflection and sympathy, we start to hear that all lives matter, even though the very idea of having to say that black lives matter means that clearly there is a perception that they don’t matter enough.
Yet some, a growing number of people, see #BlackLivesMatter as black lives matter more.
When this plea turns to black entertainers and athletes using their given platform to put up a mirror to the ulcerating wounds that are now festering with each incident, instead of understanding, we hear claims of “reverse racism”.
And now we’re half way through Black History Month 2016, a month where certain “fair and balanced” news outlets peddle certain black women to decry its very existence, and America is being taken to task during their favorite events, and it’s not going over well…at all.
The match was lit in of January, with Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith publicly boycotting the Academy Awards over lack of diversity, not only in nominations, but in Hollywood as a whole. The reaction was not loud, and largely brushed off as we moved onto more pressing things in the 24-hour news cycle.
http://neverdaunted.net/white-people-are-having-the-worst-black-history-month-ever/
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