Imagine

Sometimes a woman Member of Parliament in the island patriarchy has to FREAK OUT and disrupt the House when presiding men are attempting to silence her because she is making a plea for justice on behalf of the mother of the teenaged boy hanged in a police station cell. Sometimes she is removed from the chambers by police, shouting to be heard, everyone around her in an uproar. "Tell the truth about a woman's life and the world splits open," Muriel Rukeyser said. MP Glynnis Hanna-Martin told the truth about a mother's grief and desire for justice in the death of her son. She couldn't think about the Budget, she couldn't think about anything but her chance to speak to the most powerful people in the land about this most urgent issue of excessive force by Bahamian police, (if I'm understanding the story correctly) to speak on behalf of all the grieving mothers who have lost their children under suspicious circumstances involving police in our country. This is a mother's issue, a woman's issue. Meaning that it is of serious, fundamental importance to all of us. Imagine if the all the women MPs from both sides had joined Mrs Hanna Martin on the floor of the House, locked arms with her as sisters, women united against violence, now that would have been a groovy sight, all of them being trooped out together, it would have been our generation's mace-out-the-window, a real, Age of Aquarius, Obama moment, it could have been a herstory-making moment in Caribbean politics, it could have signalled hope to all the grieving mothers that the women elected to the Bahamas Government really do care about stopping the violence.