As I mentioned on the night of triumph of the new leader of Jamaica, it is the only country where you will here a politician say,
God bless you, comrades!
However, the new Prime Minister has created more confusion with her more recent righteous-to-rass statements:
So stated Portia Simpson Miller, newly “annointed” Prime Minister of Jamaica, last week at the Rehoboth Apostolic Church in Portmore. If you substituted “Muslims” for “Christians”, then the Taliban would probably agree with her.
Read it again.
That first “if” is ambiguous. It is not a straightforward conditional; rather it is used rhetorically and could be replaced with “because”, thus suggesting that her divine appointment is in fact a given. As a consequence, all true Christians are obligated to support her as Prime Minister. If total support is not forthcoming, then divine retribution will follow, sparing only His Chosen One.
Very neat. Absolute power with absolutely no responsibility.
A few days before this commandment, our new Leader had instructed her Ministers to appoint pastors to either sit on or chair all new boards or government agencies. The response from church leaders was positive yet wary. Canon Ernie Gordon noted that “the separation of church and state has been an American phenomenon, not British, not Caribbean”, adding, “people who are chosen must not be appointed solely because they are clergy persons, but they should be competent and have a passion for the job ahead.”
Church leaders will therefore be chosen for their competency and passion in the subject. However, as opposition leader, Bruce Golding, pointed out, “in every parish there is a Spirit Licencing Board which licenses all the rum bars. There is also the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Commission and the Caymanas Track Limited” – which leaves one wondering how they will find enough clergy with the necessary competency and passion for boozing and betting.
I only hope the interventions of the annointed one will be more pragmatic than the prayer meeting held last weekend in Spanish Town that called for divine intervention to heal the former Jamaican capital of its bloody scars (21 murders in the last two weeks). “We believe that the old slave masters must have set some level of curse on Spanish Town as in the past it was a central point for the slave trade,” said Bishop Rowan Edwards at the meeting.
Do you still question why there should be a separation of church and state?
If not, stand ready for a national exorcism.
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