BY PETER GREEN
The battle over Brian Manning’s public outburst is creating some bacchanal within the People’s National Movement (PNM).
Diego Martin Mayor Akeilah Glasgow-Warner put out a Facebook post which caused PNM member Dane G. Wilson to respond.
Mayor Glasgow-Warner in her post stated:
“It is time for constituency executives to start requesting general reports from ALL three of their representatives who attend General Council meetings. Because clearly, the facts and information coming out of General Council are not being carried back to the constituencies.
That comment section made me wonder if I does be in a different General Council yes.
As an attendee of the General Council, I can say that everything said at that Press Conference was the truth.
Come on man (with reference to Brian Manning). Have your tantrums, but don’t tell lies about the process that was followed, even if it was not fast enough for you.”
Dane Wilson responded to her:
“Akeliah, before lecturing the PNM about its internal processes you might want to become familiar with them.
Your declaration that it is –> time for Constituency Executives to start requesting reports from the three General Council representatives <– is rather amusing. You are presenting as some great revelation something that has been normal PNM practice for 70 years.
General Council representatives report to their Constituency Groups on what transpired at General Council the discussions, decisions and relevant developments. That is not a new idea. It is part of how the party’s machinery is supposed to function.
I know this because I am not a spectator to the PNM’s internal processes. I am a member of the PNM institution and I have served on General Council. So when you speak with such certainty about how General Council operates you should understand that there are people listening who actually know the machinery you are attempting to explain.
And attending General Council does not suddenly make you the supreme court of General Council truth.
You witnessed what you witnessed. You have your interpretation and your account of what occurred. Another representative may have witnessed the same proceedings and reached a completely different conclusion. That is called disagreement. It is called having a different assessment of events. It is not automatically a lie simply because it does not conform to your preferred narrative.
So when you dismiss Brian H. Manning concerns as a -> tantrum <- and declare that people are –> telling lies <– you are doing something far more serious than disagreeing with him. You are attempting to delegitimise his concerns without actually addressing them.
That is not accountability.
That is not leadership.
And it certainly is not the PNM tradition of robust internal debate.
Perhaps the more appropriate question is not whether Brian Manning is having a -> tantrum <- but why some people become so uncomfortable when a member of the party asks difficult questions about the conduct of a party process.
The PNM did not decline because its members asked to many questions. It declined because far too often people became more interested in defending the cabal than examining whether the party machinery was functioning properly.
So Akeliah by all means defend the cabal process. You are entitled to your view.
But don’t confuse attendance with expertise, disagreement with dishonesty or confidence with knowledge.
And please don’t mistake every PNM member who refuses to applaud the cabal process for someone having a tantrum.
Some of us have simply been around long enough to know the difference between genuine PNM loyalty and cabal loyalty. I’m just saying.”
