Far too many baleful and indefensible utterances don’t matter, to too many, until they do. History has shown us that words, incendiary words especially, have more than a high probability, if not a certainty of crossing over into conduct, more often than not very violent conduct.

I illustrate this crucial point with reference to the Holocaust — the systematic State-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, children, and thousands of other peoples by Nazi Germany. Professor Niall Ferguson a Scottish–American historian, and Milbank Family Senior Fellow at Hoover Institution and a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, wrote a very insightful piece in the highly respected publication
The Free Press, entitled ‘The Treason of the Intellectuals’, which pinpointed the national and hugely consequential impact of words. Professor Ferguson borrowed that title from the name of a book by noted French Philosopher Julien Benda.

I made reference to Benda’s seminal work here many Sundays ago. Anyway, Ferguson said, among other things: “The lesson of German history for American academia should now be clear. In Germany, to use the legalistic language of 2023, ‘speech crossed into conduct’. The final solution of the Jewish question began as speech. To be precise, it began as lectures and monographs and scholarly articles.” (The Free Press, December 10, 2023)

The contemptible attempted assassination of former president of the United States of America Donald J Trump, last Saturday, should serve as a powerful reminder that “words are not wind”, as we say in local parlance. Words have consequences. The attempted assassination of Trump should not and cannot be countenanced in any shape or form by true and faithful adherents of the sacred ideals of Western liberal democracy. Those who are in a state of extreme agitation today because the would-be assassin’s aim was not much more accurate are not friends of democracy.

History has shown us that we cannot further the sustained cause of democracy from the muzzle of a gun. President Joe Biden is right, “Everybody must condemn the attack on Trump.”

WORDS MATTER!

In the post-mortem on what happened, what might have happened, and/or what should have happened at the Trump rally last Saturday, well-thinking folks globally must not lose sight of a very crucial fact. Yes, honest and strong disagreements are necessary for the sustained growth of democracy. The democracy arena is not a Pollyanna province. But hate speech is never acceptable. Speech which promotes revenge, discrimination, forms of especially material suffocation because of mere differences of opinions, violence, overt and or covert speech which label opponents as enemies, has no legitimate place in a democracy.

I believe strongly that the attempted assassination of Trump was partly a consequence of highly incendiary words spoken by him especially over the last six years. Those words are increasingly ‘crossing over into conduct’, more so violent and deadly conduct.

I believe Trump deserves a lot of blame for the toxic state of politics in the USA today. The fact is, Trump has put some rotten seeds in the ground. These are producing some awful fruits now.

Recall this banner headline in globally reputable The Washington Post of October 24, 2018: “Amid incendiary rhetoric, targets of Trump’s words become targets of bombs.”

The eye-opening piece by noted columnist Philip Rucker delivered these and related insights: “In the home stretch of the fall campaign, President Trump has called Democrats evil and argued they are too dangerous to govern. He has denounced Barack Obama’s presidency and demonised former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, inspiring chants of “Lock her up!” at his rallies.

The president has also used his bully pulpit to taunt Rep Maxine Waters (D-Calif) as a “low IQ individual”, impugn former Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan, and fan conspiracy theories about liberal philanthropist George Soros. And he has called the news media “the enemy of the people”, singling out
CNN’s reporting as “fake news”.

This week, these targets of Trump’s rhetoric became the intended targets of actual violence in the form of pipe bombs, many of which turned up Wednesday.

Investigators have not disclosed information about the origin of the packages, and no evidence has surfaced connecting the acts to any political campaign. Still, a common theme among the targets was unmistakable: Each has been a recurring subject of Trump attacks. Law enforcement authorities said packages containing pipe bombs and addressed to the homes of Obama and Clinton were intercepted by the Secret Service, while on Monday, one was found at Soros’s home.

Severely rotten seeds do bear severely rotten fruits. Remember the monumentally disgraceful attack on democracy and America’s capitol by supporters of Trump on January 6, 2021. A piece in The New York Times on January 11, 2021 recounted that, “A police officer was beaten, a rioter was shot, and three others died during the rampage.” Dozens were arrested subsequently and some are in prison. Recall too, this: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, okay, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?” Trump said at a rally in Sioux Center, Iowa, as the audience laughed. “It’s, like, incredible.” (NBC, January 23, 2016) I could go on.

BETRAYALS

Tragically, many who should know better have remained silent and allowed an awful sore to fester. Numerous intellectuals in the USA and elsewhere have, in fact, joined the bandwagon. Several media outlets have also become cheerleaders of Trump. They, too, need to share in the blame, I believe.

Eighteenth-century Irish philosopher and statesman Edmund Burke in his celebrated book Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770) famously said: “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”

Again, history has shown us repeatedly that those who have the knowledge and are faithful and true to the growth and development of democracy must speak up and speak out when bad actors in the pursuit of selfish and narcissistic objectives threaten to derail and destroy cherished principles. Again, I condemn the attempted assassination of Trump. The fact is when we feed the vulture of violence we are bound to lose a finger or two, someone said.

HARBINGERS ‘A YARD’

Here, at home, I have been warning in this space for many months that inflammatory statements by the Opposition leader and president of the People’s National Party (PNP) Mark Golding and other top-ranking leaders at 89 Old Hope Road are reminders of an unusable past and snapshots of a frightening future which our country need to desperately avoid. I hope the terrible attempted assassination of Trump will help to wake up those who selfishly and unwisely believe that the spewing of incendiary statements are an acceptable route to the retention and/or acquisition of State power in Jamaica.

We must “tek sleep and mark death”. Too many in America did not, and have not. We must not repeat their errors.

Statements like Golding’s “Get wicked pon dem” pre- election pitch must be repudiated by all well-thinking Jamaicans.

Recall a news item by Loop Jamaica on December 5, 2021 delivered details of this frightening low point in our politics. It noted, among other things: “Time to step up and get busy, and get wicked pon dem too, ‘cause it nah guh easy. Labourite nah give up dis ting easy. If yuh think dis ting a guh come easy, yuh fooling yuself!”

That was the charge given to Comrades by PNP President Mark Golding at a Thompson Town divisional conference in Clarendon North Western.

Golding delivered the call to action while on the campaign trail. He told Comrades that the next step is to ensure that the PNP wins the next local government election.

During his presentation, the PNP president also lashed out at Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Chairman Robert Montague. He described the JLP chairman and Cabinet minister as “di likkle bwoy Montague”, as he slammed Montague’s performance as a Government minister.

Recall, too, alarming utterances by Golding which seemed to encourage voter fraud. According to The Gleaner of July 25, 2023, Golding said this, while speaking during a St Andrew East Rural constituency conference: “Everybody, mek up unnu mind! Work has to be done. It not going happen so. We have to mek sure seh every Comrade who voted for the People’s National Party in 2011 and delivered the victory, if they’re still alive, dem haffi go vote fi Comrade Patrick Peterkin when the election call; and even some who not alive, you know if dem can deal with it, no problem.”

Recall the PNP subsequently put out a release which said, Golding’s statements were “reported on without proper context” and were “intended as humour” — the old blame-the-messenger dodge. There is a local saying: “What is joke to you is death to me.” I agree!

Jamaica has had a very torrid history of election violence. The editorial of this newspaper last Tuesday noted, among other things: “Jamaica still bleeds decades after the internecine party bloodshedding of the 1970-80s.” According to official police statistics some 800 Jamaicans were killed in the run-up to our bloodiest election on October 30, 1980. There must never be a repeat.

The sordid 1976 State of Emergency which the Smith Commission found was not about bona fide national security risk as then Prime Minister Michael Manley told the country, but rather the facilitation of political opportunism, saw the arrest and detention of dozens of JLP supporters and several campaign leaders. It must never happen again. I strongly believe that those who make utterances which amount to a resurrection of these ghosts must be avoided like the plague.

One of the good achievements of former Prime Minister P J Patterson is that his sedative-like style of leadership helped to take a lot of negative heat out of our politics. Prime Minister Andrew Holness, through his conciliatory approach, has also done yeoman service in the area of peaceful politics. Former prime ministers Edward Seaga and Michael Manley, when they started to realise that violence was a zero-sum game, helped to set up the Electoral Advisory Committee (EAC) of Jamaica in 1979, later commission in 2006. With the support of thousands of ordinary Jamaicans we have now past the worst.

RENUNCIATION UPDATE

After 42 days of dilly dally, if not hide-and-seek, Golding told the country he would renounce his British citizenship.

Has he done so?

Last week a reporter said on radio that he tried to contact Golding and the PNP’s hierarchy to get an update on whether the alternative prime minister had, in fact, started the process of renouncing his British citizenship. The reporter said he was greeted with a wall of silence. This is hugely unacceptable.

The matter of an update regarding whether Golding has started the process of renunciation is not a private matter. It is a public one.

Golding put himself up to be prime minister of Jamaica. Jamaicans, therefore, have a right to know who he is. The country needs to be provided with evidence that Golding is delivering on his promise. Nothing short of that will do.