The primary duties of Jamaica’s prime minister, primus inter pares, meaning first among equals, are two-fold. First and foremost our prime minister has a non-negotiable duty to defend Jamaica’s interests at home and aboard. Second he/she has a sacrosanct duty to do all that is humanly possible to improve the condition of Jamaicans. An obvious question comes to the fore, therefore: Were Opposition Leader and People’s National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding to become prime minister of Jamaica in the future, how would he defend and protect the interests of Jamaica at home and abroad without encumbrance given the reality that he is still a British citizen?

“Higgins there is no issue whatsoever of divided loyalty regarding Golding. You, the JLP [Jamaica Labour Party], and others are just being partisan. You are all making a mountain out of a mole hill.” I received this missive from a reader last Sunday. I know there are more like her. Therefore, I decided to reply here.

As, I understand it, the job of prime minister of Jamaica has many duties, pressures, and responsibilities. The obstacle of split loyalties is a debilitating handicap. No ifs, buts, or maybes.

Golding was appointed a senator by then Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller in 2007.

One May 24, 2008, RJR News posted this news item on its website: ‘No dual citizenship holder should be in Parliament – Simpson Miller’. The item delivered these lucid details: “President of the People’s National Party (PNP) Portia Simpson Miller has dismissed claims that the PNP is pressuring the Government into calling snap elections as the dual citizenship controversy rages on.

“Simpson Miler was speaking at the party’s divisional conference at Spaulding Primary School in Clarendon North Western, Thursday night.

“She said, while the PNP does not have a problem with persons holding dual citizenship, any such individual should not sit in the House of Parliament.

“ ‘If you owe an allegiance to a foreign power you should not be a Member of Parliament or a senator in this country… you should not have divided loyalty.

“ ‘If you’re the minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade and a vote is about to take place at the WTO [World Trade Organisation] or at the UN [United Nations], nobody is suppose to be able to call you aside and you have to think twice how to vote… whether your loyalty is to the people of Jamaica or to another country,’ said Simpson Miller.”

Applause! Former Prime Minister Simpson Miller was spot on.

Those who continue to maintain that they do not and cannot see the obstacle of divided loyalty in the fact that our alternative prime minister and finance and public service minister (Julian Robinson) are still British citizens are, in my view, suffering with what I see as a kind of self-contempt in the first instance, and additionally a total misunderstanding of realpolitik. I recognise that some among us have adopted deliberate blindness in order to defend their crumbling foundations. We have always had those types in our history as a people.

I believe most Jamaicans are self-respecting and are not facts-averse. We understand that when Jamaica sits at especially the regional and international table our interests have to come first. That is the raison d’etre of a Jamaican delegation and/or leader. A future prime and finance minister who are still British citizens representing Jamaica’s interests is supremely obnoxious to me and diametrically opposite to what independence means.

Golding, Robinson, and any other in the Parliament who hold dual citizenship need to renounce or resign. There can be no ifs, buts, or maybes, as I see it.

Golding confidently said last month at a presser: “You cannot have one foot in and one foot out.” Luke 4: 23 says, “Physician, heal thyself.” Golding needs to take his own counsel.

During slavery Jamaica had mostly absentee plantation owners. They hired resident overseers to extract the wealth of our island and ship it to Great Britain. As soon as the plantations were not economically viable anymore they took up stakes and left. It is a fact that the mostly absentee plantation owners received hefty compensations.

A similar template was adopted during colonialism. Post-independence some of our parliamentarians and leaders in other key national positions have adopted this cruel model. They extract and then they are gone abroad. We are left to live with and pay for, oftentimes, the awful consequences of handiwork. Self-respecting people do not embrace this kind of anti-independence ethos.

On the matter of self-respecting, note that the mentioned article was published in May 2008. Golding was appointed a member of our Upper House in 2007.

Did he reveal to then Prime Minister Simpson Miller that he was still a British citizen?

This utterance, in particular by Simpson Miller in 2008, raises some important questions? “If you owe an allegiance to a foreign power you should not be a Member of Parliament or a senator in this country… you should not have divided loyalty.”

Golding has put himself up to be prime minister. Jamaicans, therefore, have not just a responsibility, but a duty to know, who he is, as I see it.

There are numerous questions regarding Golding’s dual citizenship status which are impatient of answers in the public square. Golding says he is a champion of “accountability, transparency and integrity”.

TIME COME

I believe some who are vying to hold the highest elected and selected offices in this land and others who are anxious to take up some of the most coveted and sensitive positions in critical institutions, simply do not get it that we are living in a different time.

Folks are no longer in awe at things and/or people who wear the label of “farin” (foreign). Why? In part, thousands of Jamaicans, especially in the last four decades, have travelled outside of Jamaica for various reasons, including study, and have realised that not all that glitters is gold.

As Jamaicans we have a rich heritage of welcoming all peoples and treating them with respect. I foresee that we will continue to do so. I believe, too, that there is a rapidly increasing maturity and realisation among our people that a big part of the ultimate solution to especially our long-standing problems resides, to a large degree, in leaders who are unquestioningly devoted to this Rock. Individuals with divided loyalties are not best suited to help Jamaica realise her full potential especially in key national areas, as I see it.

A MODERN SCOURGE

On the subject of national development, one of the biggest hindrances to our growth and development is the systematic spreading of lies on social media platforms by individuals who are willing to see Jamaica reduced to cinders if it means they will be kings of the ashes. I have been warning about the deleterious actions of these unprincipled individuals here and elsewhere for a very long time.

When idlers send e-mail and WhatsApp messages with poisonous threats which disrupt schools, hundreds of children suffer. Dozens of teachers and parents suffer too. When miscreants use applications which are designed to make life easier for all to make prank calls to the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS), National Water Commission (NWC), Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB), Kingston Wharves, etc, there is a massive cost to all Jamaica. Hundreds of production hours are lost, expensive equipment is used unnecessarily, and human resources are deployed needlessly. I have been saying here for a long time that the technology exists to track these pranksters and hold them accountable for their misdeeds.

Then there are those who use social media to perpetrate drive-by shootings on people’s reputation. This, to me, is a most vicious crime.

Yes, the slaughter of a people’s reputations is a crime.

Decades ago in Othello, William Shakespeare told us: “Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls.

Who steals my purse steals trash; ‘tis something, nothing;

‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands;

But he that filches from me my good name

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.”

— Act 3, Scene 3

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes,” many literary scholars attribute this quote to renowned American writer Mark Twain. Some attribute the quote to Jonathan Swift, or even Winston Churchill. Regardless of origin, the validity of this statement cannot be successfully contradicted today. Social media, in particular, forcefully brings home the frontal reality of this declaration made decades ago.

In recent times the deadly seriousness of lies came to the fore during the novel coronavirus pandemic. Hundreds needlessly died because they succumbed to the lies of con-artists, religious fanatics, conspiracy theorists, science deniers, and the bosom buddies of the virus. They noised it far and near that, among other things, COVID-19 vaccines contained microchips and substances derived from dead people.

I am all for free speech. Of course, we cannot forget that with every freedom comes great responsibility. I am not one of those who believe free speech means you can shout fire in crowded theatre when there is no fire.

Many of these reputation assassins operate from what they figure are the secure bunker of numerous burner accounts. Gladly, technology has made it possible to smoke them out of their dark crevices and expose them to the sanitising heat of taking personal responsibility. Sadly, by the time they are exposed much reputational damage is often done.

Those who fund, direct, and manage troll farms must be made to pay for their actions. Bad actors who damage the country’s and people’s good name by retailing and wholesaling innuendos and lies must not be allowed to operate with impunity. I have been arguing in this space for a long time that those who take part in drive-by shootings on people’s reputations should be held accountable. I will continue to say, let them pay, and pay dearly.

Those on social media who plead and sometimes boast that they have but “two rubbed-out bed slippers” and “less than a $100 jmd in the bank”, so it is futile to sue them, would do well to think about the idiocy of their actions before they advance their supposed penniless state as a kind of escape route.

Weaponised lying is now amplified via the conduit of the Internet. It is a clear and present danger which, sadly, continues to gain strength in our society. It is largely the poor and uneducated who are usually the victims of lies.

Two years ago, I said, among other things, in this space: “Those of us who grew up in the rural parts of this country have more than likely heard these words quite often: ‘Ignorance of the law is no excuse.’ The people on social media who take it upon themselves to post material which injure, maim, and destroy the reputations of innocent individuals would do well to heed this warning from rustic folks. Those who spew slander from burner accounts and believe they cannot be found should think again; you can. It is not that difficult either.”

I was very happy to see this last Monday, “Prime Minister Andrew Holness has indicated that his Government will be taking steps to begin clamping down on the proliferation of false information on social media platforms.” (Jamaica Observer, June 24, 2024)

Where there are no swift and sure consequences for unlawful actions chaos is the order of the day.

Garfield Higgins

Garfield Higgins is an educator, journalist and a senior advisor to the minister of education and youth. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com.