Winning people over with simple language

THE EDITOR: I publicly thank Dr Maryam Abdool-Richards, principal medical officer at the Ministry of Health (Institutions), for her especially enlightening presentation at the Prime Minister’s news conference on May 1.

With a few delicate, laser-like strokes of communication, Abdool-Richards was able to employ simple language and illustrations to convince hard-to-understand people like myself that the covid19 pandemic is a hungry wolf just ten days away from our nation’s door,

In the same way that her charming manner successfully disguised her seriousness of intent to get her points directly across, Abdool-Richards exhibited mastery of the communications technology in the vein of leaders like Eric Williams, Abe Lincoln and Basdeo Panday.

Such men understood from deep inside that words well put together can move people to new heights of possibility and action with brave hearts and intrepid souls.

This might have even been a key factor that caused Prime Minister Dr Rowley to exhibit positive signs of contagious anxiety as manifested in a body language which spoke of real concerns which, to my mind, actually touched most viewers last Saturday.

“Ah talking to you because you alive!”

What more does a reporter need to appreciate such a personal statement from a PM who was himself infected by the virus and can now talk with his tongue in his cheek, even as he’s caught concealing an obvious triumphant inner smile?

The two doctors on show last Saturday can help the country further by giving some classes to the Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister (Communications Division), who has been making presentations on TV in Janet and John reading style.

It should be no wonder therefore that this same minister appeared to have perched himself on a higher seating level when interviewing the Mighty Chalkdust, one of our respected icons.

That PM’s conference last Saturday provided much needed dramatic relief for a nation and people who will carry the best-prepared presenter down a garden path and leave him standing high and dry the minute he misses a step or hits a bad note, as so many calypsonians have embarrassingly experienced.

For my part, therefore, covid19 is especially important for bringing out the qualities of communication by officials who seem to be finally getting it thankfully right at a time when we need the turn around that will come not from the enforcement of laws upon us harden citizens by the Commissioner of Police or from the throne-like speeches similar to Minister Symon de Nobriga on Liverpool.

Instead, success will only come from the leadership’s ability to win the people over with words, music, love, heart, drama and soul.

In this regard, Rowley and his band of not-so-merry men may want to use this winning formula to beat the Duke of Hazzard, his nemesis who recently grabbed half the seats from Tracy Davidson’s eyes-wide-shut PNM Assembly men in Tobago, where a fresh election is due soon.

RUDOLPH WILLIAMS

St James