Saint Lucia: Politician Jeremiah Norbert shares heartfelt message!

Castries, Saint Lucia: Jeremiah Norbert, Saint Lucian politician and Deputy Speaker of the Lower House of the nation has shared his immense grief after hearing the news related to funerals in his constituency.

With immense grief and sadness, he took the social media and mentioned, “So, this morning, I was thinking to myself about the number of funerals held in my constituency for the week, the number of times either my staff messaged me or some other constituent called me to tell me, “Ou sav moun sa la more abien ich moun sa la malad epi e pa ka feh twop bien (excuse my spelling)”.”

He further expressed that sometimes upon reflecting, I even tend to feel a bit depressed. I ask myself questions, “Is there anything more I could have done for this particular individual? Then the “What if’s” start to hit you. What if I did this? What if I did that?

The Deputy Speaker added that sometimes upon reflecting, I feel a strong sense of purpose. A strong sense of purpose because, through some deliberate intervention, I could make the life of a mother, a child, a disadvantaged constituent or just another ordinary constituent.

Moreover, he noted, “There are good days and not-so-good days in politics and that’s how life is as well; we have good experiences and not-so-good experiences. Some of the good days result from our own doing, and some we have absolutely no control over, but we have to be thankful for both days because there isn’t any rainbow without rain.”

Jeremiah Norbert also conveyed that now, he knows people say all Politicians are the same, and he refuses to accept that. He refuses to accept that one will classify me or place me in the same bracket as a “Spider”. He listened to him probing the crowd into making degrading and disgusting remarks about “The Prime Minister of Saint Lucia” Yes, the man whom they thought could never lead this country and the man who has taken them by storm.

Norbert also claimed that “Suffice it to say, I was embarrassed listening to this; I was embarrassed because I “expected” that a man who has sat in the highest office of this land would have some level of professionalism, some degree of respect for “The Prime Minister”, but you decide to go down into the gutters because you cannot critique the policies of this administration. Your argument (not sure if you had one) was baseless and lacked any substance. It’s sad that rather than trying to review the policies of the administration, you’re taking the shortcut and trying to demean and attack the personal character of individuals.”

He added, “Not everyone will agree with some of the decisions which we make, and that’s ok; that’s understandable, and there are ways in which we ventilate our differences, but not like that, Pap. Pah Kohsa!!. The sad thing about all of this is that we have young people who would have been watching this, young people who may genuinely want to join the political scene, but when we look at how some so-called politicians behave, it surely doesn’t speak well for the future of Saint Lucian Politics.
On that note, I will leave everyone to enjoy their Saturday, we cannot change the past, but we can surely shape the future. We can be a man about a situation and agree that we fell short; let’s not let our egos get the better of us.”

In the end, he outlined, “I want to encourage all politicians from whichever side of the political spectrum to make a deliberate and concerted effort to improve the level of discourse that we bring to our people.”