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THE EDITOR: I have listened to many commentators giving their views on the brouhaha emanating from the statements of two female parliamentarians with respect to the use of names.
Supporters of the PNM insist the exposure of Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s middle name by Planning and Development Minister Camille Robinson-Regis was not intended to be malicious nor to initiate derision and mockery or race-taunting since people’s full names have been used on many occasions.
For example, the Prime Minister is fondly referred to as Keith Christopher Rowley and National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds’s full name has been broadcast by Persad-Bissessar on a previous occasion.
The supporters of the UNC insist their leader’s response was in order since Robinson-Regis’s mention of Persad-Bissessar’s middle name Susheila (previously kept closely guarded) constituted exposure, an invasion of privacy and was designed to poke fun and ridicule. Therefore their leader was merely responding to an unprovoked attack.
Could both views be considered correct and supported in a plural society striving for much needed development by replacing memories of a sordid historical past characterised by the ravages of colonialism, polarisation and ethnic division with empathy and compromise in order to forge a productive united nation?
[caption id="attachment_960206" align="alignnone" width="783"] Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar - Marvin Hamilton[/caption]
Robinson-Regis should know, or ought to have known, that culturally such name exposure could have the tendency to provoke ridicule and teasing by certain members of the public.
On the other hand, Persad-Bissessar, who has been accused of referring to the Prime Minister in racial terms, eg “orio,” or “blank man,” ought to be wary of the use of another racially tainted reference.
There can be no quarrel with the defence of her name in cultural and historical terms but should Persad-Bissessar have gone so far as to resurrect the ghost of slavery with its horrendous past? Did she not suspect that reference to “slave master’s name” would stir up racial animosity, especially given her past utterances?
Such behaviour appears to betray significant insensitivity to people of African origin at best or a don’t-care racial attitude at worse. And to those who say Persad-Bissessar was merely stating a historical fact, I wish to remind them that facts, even truths, can be offensive.
I have no intention of casting judgment on either of the parliamentarians but apologies by both would go a long way towards easing racial tensions and distrust while engendering ethnic harmony.
D THOMAS
Port of Spain
 
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