Last rites or last word?

On Friday afternoon I looked down from Parliament’s press gallery at the  bowed heads of MPs paying a minute of silent homage to their former Speaker,  Hector McClean who had died the day before and I couldn’t help but wonder what was on their minds and in their hearts at that very moment. Was Dr Keith Rowley remembering and regretting that he had “forgotten” to shake McClean’s hand on the day McClean, the defeated United National Congress candidate for Tunapuna, was elected presiding officer in November 1995? Was Basdeo Panday still smarting over McClean’s refusal to carry out his, Panday’s prime ministerial dictate to muzzle the then Opposition People’s National Movement?  Was Eddie Hart, the man who had beaten McClean in the 1995 poll, looking back at the bacchanal of the mid-90s and musing that at the end of the day, the only winner was the Grim Reaper? Were the older ones among these men and women below contemplating their own mortality given that their contemporary had passed on two months before his 65th birthday?

My own contemplation moments before of McClean’s death had taken me back to another Friday afternoon, back to 1996. I was seated in the very press gallery. The Sergeant at Arms- not this present day sentinel of grim face and bearing, but his congenial, diminutive predecessor — was suddenly at my side. The usual smiling countenance of the guardian of Chamber security and decorum was serious. Just what sin against the Parliament’s Standing Orders I had committed to make the easy going Sergeant at Arms abandon his spot at the Speaker’s left to climb the steep, narrow staircase to the press gallery I could not imagine. I was however, slightly alarmed. “Excuse me, Miss Mills,” the Sergeant said softly, “but the Speaker has asked me to tell you that you cannot chew gum in the Chamber.”

I was stunned. Gum mastication? That was my offence? Well hang me now.  And how had the Speaker spotted me? Had I been chewing with an unusual amount of gusto or was it that like me, he was finding it taxing listening to this particular contribution and was easily distracted? I glanced to the front of the Chamber, to where Hector McClean was sitting erect on his throne. He was looking directly back up at me, almost daring me to defy him. I told the Sergeant to communicate my apologies to the Speaker and to let him know that I would forthwith dispose of the gum. I rose, exited the Chamber and found a bin. I was not messing with someone as stern as Hector McClean, at least not in his terrain. On Friday afternoon, as the minute of silence ticked to its end, I also found myself wondering if Hector McClean, a man elected in the most unconventional of circumstances, yet such a stickler for the tiniest of House rules, would have been entirely pleased with his parliamentary send off. I concluded that he would have been gratified by Hedwige Bereaux’s short eulogy, which save the end, avoided indulgence in sentimentality.

He would also have been satisfied with Ganga Singh lauding him for the “democratic Speaker” he was, though it would not have escaped McClean’s notice that Singh used the occasion to take a shot at the present man in the chair, Barendra Sinanan. But I couldn’t see how Hector McClean would have been amused by the conduct of the Prime Minister on Friday. I wondered if it had been McClean sitting in the Speaker’s seat whether he would have displayed the same patience Sinanan did. Let me explain. The Prime Minister arrived 15 minutes late for the sitting. When Patrick Manning took his seat in the Chamber, both Bereaux and Singh had already spoken on behalf of the PNM and UNC respectively. As Manning slid into his chair, Sinanan rose to honour the former Speaker. Now, custom has it that the Speaker’s is the last word before the usual minute of silence. Except that just as Sinanan finished his speech and was about to call the House to its feet, he was stopped in his tracks by the Clerk of the House. The Prime Minister wanted to speak. Sinanan had no choice but to sit back down. He had been upstaged and put in his place. The Prime Minister was the ruler of the congress and he was demonstrating his dominion without blinking or blushing. His message was clear: what he had to say on the passing of a former Speaker was more important than any homage the present Speaker had to offer.

Now, Manning may argue that had he kept silent, he would have been accused of slighting Hector McClean. He may claim that he is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. He may also say I’m making a fuss over a little thing. But I say that a man such as Hector McClean would have preferred respect for the chair and for Parliament any day over a discourse that served more as an occasion for the Prime Minister to remind everyone of his own political longevity and durability than to honour a deceased colleague. I say that the former Speaker would have expected the Prime Minister to know and respect that his late arrival meant he had forfeited his opportunity to make a contribution at that particular moment. I also say that if you are going to pay tribute to a man, you might as well go the distance and pay homage to him not only in word, but by deed. In other words, when you enter the Chamber on the day he is being honoured, you leave two things outside: your prime ministerial ego and your chewing gum.
suz@itrini.com