Our Readers' Opinions
September 28, 2007

Is this New York trip a ‘family first’ outing?

28.SEP.07

Dear Editor: Prime Minister Gonsalves has led a family based delegation of four persons to represent our nation at meetings and for embassy succession in New York. He has his wife, his son and his deputy – the Minister of Foreign Affairs.{{more}}

There is something indecent and orchestrated about the “family first” composition of the team. Now I have certain kinds of respect for each member of the delegation, and each has a more or less plausible justification for being there. What is distasteful is the positioning of the immediate Gonsalves/Straker purposes in front of the nation’s honour (the idios over the ethnos). The New York visit at his time is a veritable international showpiece of high profile rhetorical, and diplomatic opportunities. It is dishonoured when it seems to be a first family outing.

O Allen.