Letter of the Day: When the best man for the job is a woman
Published:Sunday | October 25, 2015 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
Nanny of the Maroons. Portia Simpson Miller. Andrea Moore. Three stalwart Jamaican women, tied by destiny and history at this moment in time, in East Portland.
Within another week or so, the eyes of the world will be on East Portland. But it won't be because an ostensible injustice is being perpetrated there. Rather, it will be the happy occasion of the official event recognising the fact that in July of this year, Jamaica's Blue and John Crow mountains were inscribed on the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation World Heritage Site list for the outstanding universal value of its cultural and natural heritage.
According to the Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust, managers of the Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park, it is one of only 32 world heritage sites listed for both types of heritage.
We, the friends of East Portland, are naturally very proud and excited by the upcoming event to mark this historic occasion. We are looking forward to it. And we are also looking forward to the visit to East Portland of Prime Minister, the Honourable Portia Simpson Miller.
We hope that her sojourn to Moore Town, the ancestral stomping ground of National Heroine, Nanny of the Maroons, will remind her that she has a very important decision to make about another stalwart Jamaican woman, Andrea Moore who, like the Prime Minister's personal heroine, Nanny, was also arrayed against an array of men in the September indicative conference to choose a candidate for the East Portland constituency.
Like Portia before her and like Nanny before Portia, Andrea won. Fairly and squarely. Proving once again, like Nanny and Portia have done, that sometimes the best man for the job is a woman.
Unfortunately, however, we are still awaiting the Prime Minister's decision on whether she will side with the men of the People's National Party's (PNP) National Executive Committee who all asked Andrea to surrender her win to the losing opponent, Dr. Lynvale Bloomfield.
Will the President of the PNP, Prime Minister of Jamaica, acolyte of National Heroine, Nanny of the Maroons, surrender her power to the men of her party?
Friends Of East Portland