Africa-Press – Lesotho. A few days ago, I listened to the online debate among the four contenders in the race for the post of PM – Kemi Badenoch, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt.
Simply by hearing their opening statements one was able to appreciate the level of debate that was to follow. There were no allusions to personal matters at all.
Every candidate spelt out their respective ideas, some focusing on principles, others on actual measures intended such as about cutting taxes, lightening the burden of consumers, as also about their own track record.
They then answered questions that came from a broad constituency, and were as open to questions as they were also able to respond with confidence and provide the clarifications sought.
Rishi Sunak, who had earlier won the highest number of votes (115) among his party members to qualify for this round, followed by Penny Mordaunt with 82, was clearly the one who articulated his programme most ably, in his crisp, almost squeaky clean London accent, a real pleasure to hear.
The Conservative Party has come a long way from the time in 1965 when Enoch Powell pronounced his notorious ‘rivers of blood’ speech. Britain has become more diverse, and more accepting of that diversity, giving opportunity to the second generation of migrants – which Kemi Badenoch and Rishi Sunak represent – to rise too.
Welcome to open-mindedness. Mind the language Language is a funny thing but, depending, can also be beautiful – or make us beautiful in our choice of words and the way we articulate them.
It can also reflect our nature, our level and degree of crudeness, or sophistication in its positive sense. Drawing from my profession of surgery, I can cite an example of what I mean.
Often the surgeon is faced with a problem which can be treated either by means of operation or without it. But some surgeons are what we call knife-happy: for whatever reason(s) in such situations they always opt for operation.
But ‘just because you can do it (the operation) doesn’t mean you have to do it. ’ When we are teaching budding surgeons, that’s how we will put it to them, in a direct way.
But an illustrious surgeon who was President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, pitched the same message at a higher level, when he said: ‘The feasibility of an operation is not an indication for its performance.
’ One can immediately picture what kind of a person we are having to do with. This also shows that when we speak, context matters. Nothing is said in a void, because our brains function by association, with people, events, memories, which all act as triggers.
Currently in the local media there has been an uproar about a proverb (or sirandane) in Creole cited by Member of Parliament Hon Joanna Bérenger in a Facebook post as a comment on Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth shown performing a puja during Shravan Maas.
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