January 30, 2013 at 5:54 p.m.
Has the PLP lost its sense of right and wrong?
Remarkably silent because, with so many accusations and allegations flying about, a reasonable citizen would expect that an Attorney General would examine known facts, examine written law, and would, at some point, at least be in a position to make an official statement. To say whether or not Bermuda's Constitution or any of Bermuda's laws had - in her view - been breached. Or been kept.
Of course, there is the possibility that the Attorney General does not know what has happened. Perhaps the Attorney General is unaware of the manner in which, and the circumstances leading up to, the secret pre-dawn arrival in Bermuda of the four Uighurs. Perhaps, the Attorney General lives or is kept so much in the dark that she has heard and seen and knows nothing.
Strange, isn't it, that Bermuda's Attorney General has been so silent? So very silent.
Dame Lois, Bermuda's first National Hero, would not have maintained the low silence that we have all heard. Dame Lois was a woman who lived by principle. During the time of Apartheid in South Africa, she defended a white South African couple because she saw it as the right thing to do; even though her political friends as well as her political opponents said that it was politically unwise.
When Prime Minister Tony Blair was contemplating joining Dubya Bush's ill-thought out escapade into Iraq, Britain's Attorney General, performing his professional and public duty, offered a professional and legal opinion on the legal issues surrounding Blair's pending decision. I would have thought that Bermuda's own Attorney General, seeing the Premier under such pressure, would have strode out into the public domain and would declare to all us unlearned ones - and to the Premier - that everything was proper. Or would tell us - and the Premier - what was lawful and what was unlawful.
Dame Lois would have spoken up
After fourteen days, shouldn't we get something other than silence - this now unprofessional silence. God knows and all who knew her know - Dame Lois would not have been silent.
Everyone knew that we could always expect Dame Lois to be honest as well as forthright. But whose honesty can we rely on now?
Shortly after L Frederick Wade's burial, Dame Jennifer Smith - then the Deputy Leader of the PLP - stepped into the position of leader of the PLP. Stepping into history, Dame Jennifer led the PLP to its first ever victory in the November 1998 election.
Eleven years later the PLP has a new deputy leader. The PLP also has a new leader in the form of Dr Ewart Brown. The deputy leader has said that Dr Brown has made 'mis-steps', and that she felt 'politically neutered' by Dr. Brown's actions. I reckon the deputy leader also knows - even if the Attorney General has not stood up and publicly confirmed it - that Dr Brown has breached Bermuda law.
Further, the Premier's claim that his solitary discussions had to be kept secret are completely at variance with what is happening elsewhere with the many Uighurs (and others) reportedly going to Italy, Spain, Portugal and possibly Palua. All these national discussions are taking place openly under national voter and political scrutiny. The Premier's defence of his secretive handling reeks of untruth - certainly he has offered no national security need for secrecy.
Does an end - any end - always justify the means - any means? This is a matter of leadership - and honesty and integrity.
Does a deputy leader still resolutely - blindly? - follow a leader who has gone that far down the road of bad and wrong leadership?
If so, how much further down that road will the deputy leader follow?
Will every bad decision be isolated and then defended or excused - and then accepted? Has the uniquely American process of dividing solid facts into slivers of sound-bites-- as happened in South L.A. in the Rodney King beating trial - become the new way of seeing all things? Will there never again be any looking at the whole? Will there be no reckoning?
Does the PLP and its deputy leader of today have enough of the kind of courage and sense of right - and wrong - that was so strong in Dame Lois?
Did honesty and integrity also die with Dame Lois?
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