Mark Wignall | Isat the ‘unlearned’

Mr Isat Buchanan, is it at all possible that in the last few days you have revisited the innards of your brain and concluded that you dealt a most painful blow to younger Jamaicans who considered you, a well-known attorney at law, as heroic material?

I am not at peace with my silent presumptions of the answer. But Mr Buchanan, whatever it is that has short-circuited the good sense that you are supposed to have, you must have also realised that in the eyes of some, you are not yet fully built.

Four bright youngsters one year enter university with stars in their eyes. One of them is you, Isat, and you do well. Another does medicine and completes in style. Yet another masters the toughness of mechanical engineering.

Let us assume that academically, you, Isat, were not the pick of the litter, but unlike your peers in their professions, you are lauded by your fellow advocates, more than that earned respect by the use of the term Learned Counsel.

So you go around, Isat, with a little extra swelling of the head. And although it could be an impediment instead of a noble rush, the hope is that you will temper your words with the certain knowledge that you are still imperilled by the curse of youth.

Isat, youth is glorious and ought not to be abused. In a perverse way I can understand why you decided to use that particular programme to spew your bile re the DPP, and for good measure, when egged on, you repeated the nasty slur. That is part of the curse of youth, putting the cart of misdeeds way ahead of the horse of consequence.

Was it in your quiver of attributes, that voice that begged for an extra second to take back what had already been shot out?

You used that programme because you conveniently forgot, or you cynically saw the words in Desiderata as meaningless, “Avoid loud and aggressive persons. They are vexatious to the spirit.”

In addition to that Mr Buchanan, you have pushed yourself into radar range of the General Legal Council (GLC).

Listen, my young friend. All youngsters screw up at times, but the General Legal Council? Do you realise that if your wickets are shattered at the GLC, you have no medical or engineering degree to fall back on?

At its worst it could see you moving to a gully bank community and getting increasingly familiar with turkey neck and curry gravy over your hal- pound of rice. Over and over again.

Many older people wanted to see people like Mr Buchanan grow, do well professionally, and become a wealthy person. Many poor, older people wanted to complete the vicarious trip through the youngster.

We know that he has apologised. What is an apology? It is a concoction of bodily and facial stance and words meant to convey that one is sorry one was caught doing a crappy thing. A very unlearned thing.

PAULA LLEWELLYN INTRIGUE

I am probably not in the least the best person to write about Paula Llewellyn. I admire her. I respect her. Like all of us, she must have faults, but I have never seen her openly demonstrating in the public arena that her faults live in a most crowded area at the front of her brain.

I have been following politics, and the multitude of intrigues it inspires, since 1976. One of the cardinal rules of trying to live inside the world of political tectonics is the knowledge that whenever a controversial matter arises in the public arena, often, it is really a snowjob where powerful, allied interests get together to send the fool (the unfortunate public) a little further.

One part of the political divide is implying, without saying so, that Ms Paula Llewellyn has Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) sympathies. We do not know that that is so, but even if it were, where in the minutes of legal and political discourse and in the delivery of fairness in this country has it been logged that she has a weighty finger on the scale of justice that favours the JLP?

One of the attributes of national leadership is that refusal of the leader in whatever sphere to deny himself or herself the pull of one’s own biases.

And what if it turned out that the learned lady was a Comrade? Would she be allowed by many of those bashing her because social media allows them the failure to see a Jamaican diamond?

If their unit of judgment is a piece of broken glass instead of the sparkle of a diamond, they would do that quite comfortably.

Space does not allow me to go much further on this issue. Have a good day Ms. Llewellyn. You crown our independence.

HER SURVIVAL SKILLS

Mildred (not her real name) was seated beside me on a nailed-up, rickety bench. It was a miserably hot day. Middle of last week. She sells bags of condiments and liquidised roots in small bottles. She was telling me about the toughness of life. I was telling her about the horrors of poverty.

Four Nigerians stow away on a ship and end up, 14 days later, thousands of miles in Brazil. They survived by strapping themselves to the rudder of the ship. Food ran out on the 10th day. They drank seawater for four days.

“Things are bad here but that. That is worse than hell,” I said.

“Speak fi yuself, Missa Wignall. One day last week after mi neva sell nutten mi buy a tray a chicken back fi $200. Two piece inna it. Mi tek out one piece, cut eh up fine and curry it. And me and mi two pickney eat it with flour dumpling and rice. Di next day same ting until di sale pick up.”

“So whey yu little man dey?” I asked.

“Him nuh really bad, yu nuh. But him damage him foot pon a site and him caan work. Him boss gi him a little ting, but it done, and di foot still nuh get better, so sometimes him haffi put fi him rice inna di gravy pot.”

I gave her two bills and apologised for not having more to give her. She smiled at me, drew on her spliff and squeezed one of my knees in thanks.

Our independence is tied up in shiny bows that capture the pride of many of our people. Other areas are painfully obvious. That is always the constant challenge.

- Mark Wignall is a political and public affairs analyst. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and mawigsr@gmail.com.