Dear Editor,

Small minds and big honours! Why exactly was such a high Jamaican award conferred on President Robert Mugabe? The OJ, as I understand it, is considered the equivalent of knighthood in the British honours system. This situation is laughable, infuriating, and in a sense deserved. This business of throwing around honours needs to stop. Only a small-minded person would make such a sweeping generalisation about the male population of a country, and this comes as no surprise, considering all the allegations against President Mugabe's name.

What is surprising is the fact that the PM is prepared to respond to this issue over all the other atrocities happening in this country: over the spate of police killings and especially the shooting death of Kayann Lamont and the injury of her sister; over the fact that our children cannot attain acceptable grades in English and maths at the CSEC level; over the ailing economy; over the number of children being held in adult correctional facilities; among many other social ills we face as a country and on which the PM has been mum. All of these issues and those I have not outlined have been brushed aside by the PM because, according to her, she has ministers for the respective ministries under which these issues fall. Doesn't the PM have a minister for this purpose as well?

Charlene Foote

foote.charlene@gmail.com