Abusing their pulpit

RECENT events have underlined the need for our leaders to show more maturity, responsibility and common courtesy when it comes to their public utterances, especially when addressing their support base.

On the one hand, we have a sitting prime minister who has no qualms in speaking of “dotish labour leaders” leading workers astray.

Dr Rowley’s comment on Saturday might be easy to dismiss as picong were it not for the fact that TT is at a precarious moment in its history.

There are strained relations between the Government and the trade union sector at a time when that sector is needed more than ever to push forward with the covid19 vaccine programme for its members.

With public sector safe zones due to take effect in a matter of days, one would think Mr Rowley would seek to build bridges, not burn them. At the very least, he should not exacerbate lingering mistrust.

On the other hand, we have Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, a former prime minister with aspirations of leading a future government, publicly describing the death of a Venezuelan baby during an incident at sea on Saturday, as an instance of the Coast Guard “murdering a baby.”

We hold no brief for the Coast Guard – indeed we have noted the red flags evident in their account of the events – but the question of whether this case is one of murder, manslaughter, gross negligence/recklessness or purely an unfortunate accident, is an intricate one requiring judicious balancing of all the facts.

Mrs Persad-Bissessar, a senior counsel, ought to know better than to make such a stark pronouncement while the matter is subject to investigations which are said to be ongoing.

Both of these leaders regularly speak to large segments of society and what they say has significantly more weight than the average man. Both need to exercise more restraint, especially when it comes to pronouncing on potentially inflammatory matters.

We have seen what can happen when leaders fail to do this.

Donald Trump’s claim of a stolen 2020 presidential election led to deadly riots in the US Capitol last year.

Boris Johnson’s smear against the UK Opposition Leader Sir Keir Starmer, in which he suggested Sir Keir when he was a Director of Public Prosecutions, spent “more time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile.” This no doubt played a role in the harassment of Sir Keir by a mob outside Westminster on Monday.

Leaders who use inflammatory and uninformed rhetoric for purely political ends not only erode their status but also undermine the public 's trust.

Is it little wonder a large proportion of our population has not heeded calls from the leadership to get vaccinated? Is it little wonder some of the unvaxxed have listened to religious leaders who spread misinformation on the vaccine that it is a cocktail of the devil or could control minds and bodies?

We need leaders to rise above the fray and not abuse their pulpit. To do otherwise, would simply be a dotish folly.