It has become obvious to The Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) that certain members of the political directorate either make no connection between their own public behaviour and the resultant indiscipline, coarseness of manner and disrespectful antisocial activities of their followers, or do not in fact care as to the consequences.
The recent disgusting, disrespectful and potentially dangerous outbursts by Messrs. Basil Waite and Mikael Phillips on public political platforms indicate clearly that the People’s National Party is still training political dinosaurs. Their unfortunate utterances represent the most regressive and ignorant behaviour that Jamaica had hoped to discard on the rubbish heap of our dark and shameful political history.
The behaviour of Mr. Philips in particular, is extremely disappointing as he is a Vice President of his party and is someone who hitherto, has expressed himself to be aware of the consequences of permissive and slack leadership in a society which is not anchored by strong moral principles or established cultural strictures against violent language and behaviour .
The President of the PSOJ Mr. Howard Mitchell is once again cautioning the political directorate that our fragile investor confidence, which has recently shown growth and improvement, is not immune to the negatives of arrogant and vulgar behaviour nor to outbursts which incite and encourage contempt and hatred for others who hold different opinions. He opines that how we manage our politics reflects on all aspects of our society including commerce.
“We call on all Jamaicans who respect themselves and love our country to condemn and shun politicians who promote divisiveness and antisocial behaviour whether in the heat of political platform conflict or in our Houses of Parliament”, said Mr. Mitchell “If the political directorate is serious about Vision 2030, this reprehensible behaviour should not be accommodated. They must be required to apologize and to forsake public speeches until they can comport themselves as leaders, not rabble rousers and demagogues.”