Mind your business, MP Young

THE EDITOR: Port of Spain North/St Ann's West MP Stuart Young needs to mind his business.

He needs to get on with the business of overseeing the Ministry of Energy and representing the interests of his constituents.

What he does not need to do is mind the business of and pry into the personal lives of other people, be they men or women, he/she/it or them. As I said earlier, sir, you need to mind your damn business.

As a retiree and someone who has lived into my sixties, I am well familiar with many local terms, slangs and sayings including the term zamie/zamee. I can say without fear of contradiction, such a term has absolutely no place in the House of Representatives.

And to his minders, supporters and political sycophants, miss me with your defence that this was political picong. Codswallop!

I listened carefully to MP Young when he decided to give his mouth liberty, knowing he was protected under parliamentary privilege.

The venom in his tone, the sneer in his voice and the very words he used were not intended to be innocent picong. They were intended to hurt, to denigrate, to besmirch, to smear and to bring odium and ridicule. Just ask Colm Imbert, who sat next to MP Young and was heard gleefully laughing and saying, "She going to use the bathroom."

And on the issue of Imbert, one would think that as an elder statesman in the PNM and as a politician of many years' vintage, he would know better than to aid and abet a fellow parliamentarian in misconduct. One would have thought the goodly Finance Minister would have, sotto voce, upbraided his colleague and tell him that he was wrong.

But as Basdeo Panday (rest in peace, sir) once said, "Politics has a morality of its own." What did Mr Imbert do when MP Young was spewing his venom? He laughed derisively. He asked if the Opposition Leader was going to the bathroom, to which the sneering energy minister said, "Yeah, she going and zamie."

Did Mr Imbert chide Young for his unparliamentary conduct? Absolutely not. In fact, he jokingly told his colleague to "Behave, nah" and then warned that the "mic still on," clear proof that he knew what Young was saying, and how he was acting, was patently wrong and unparliamentary.

We like to rough up and berate our young people for easily falling into bad habits and falling in with the wrong crowd. Talk is cheap.

But can we blame them when they become bullies, when our very parliamentarians lead by poor examples?

Can we blame society for its failures when elected officials readily and gleefully insult each other, stoke the fires of racism and promote gender inequality?

Stuart Young's behaviour last week Thursday, quite simply put, is shocking and reprehensible. He owes the nation and its women a full and unequivocal apology. But to the women and girls of TT, please don't hold your breath, and wait for that apology.

It's been a week since his zamie statements, and there has been no condemnation by the Prime Minister, no howls of protest by the PNM women's league...nothing but potent silence. So, women and girls, don't expect any apology from MP Young. Sorry to say, but politics indeed has a morality of its own.

LEE MERRICK

San Fernando