Contemplating how a lot which means has been connected to the gesture, it’s exceptional how little it says concerning the nature of man. Whereas a handshake can shut offers, say hey or goodbye, seal guarantees, it suggests little greater than that hand shakers are typically gregarious, like to socialize, are chatty, take pleasure in exterior stimulation and interplay. At any price, so say a number of ostensible college students of human conduct.
There may be ample proof {that a} handshake isn’t any assure of affection or friendship. Or that it may be used as a distraction, a sign, a instrument to disguise dangerous intentions. Think about the well-chronicled events when a few of the strongest world leaders had been photographed urgent the flesh and smiling from ear to there within the blessed presence of trusted evangelicals and different rich promoters of Peace and Love—conceivably God’s failsafe deterrent to battle, starvation, galloping crime, poverty, varied abuses of girls and kids, and different inhumanities to man.
Lower than a yr after a British prime minister Chamberlain was photographed pumping arms with Adolf Hitler their respective international locations had been engaged in a battle described as “the deadliest battle in human historical past,” with army and civilian casualties estimated at 70 to 85 million. Then there’s Ronald Reagan’s Particular Envoy, Donald Rumsfeld, captured on movie as he pumped Saddam Hussein’s bloody hand in 1983. Who may’ve then imagined future photographs of a raveled and filthy Saddam being dragged out like a rat from a gap within the floor by U.S. troops, finally to be tried and hanged by his personal folks, now converts to the American Means.
Not too long ago, God’s lead agent in Saint Lucia delivered on the Gros Islet Catholic church a sermon that centered on the sooner cited divine deterrent to every little thing depraved and ungodly: Love. In the course of the mass, to which representatives of each political events had been specifically invited, the celebrant recommended it would look good within the eyes of the Lord, to not say set a wonderful instance for bizarre mortals, if congregants, by no means thoughts their private or political variations, would all neglect their troubles and shake arms. Conceivably in one of the best pursuits of what’s summarized in Matthew 22:39 as “the second of the 2 nice commandments”—Love thy neighbor as thyself—many of the congregation appeared to put aside no matter entrenched hatreds they harbored. At any price, in the course of the hand-shaking ceremony. Right here was a miracle worthy of detailed protection. Alas, to borrow a line from the previous prime minister Kenny Anthony (he was not among the many day’s worshippers!): “In politics, something can occur.”
Evidently nobody anticipated the sudden. By a number of publicized accounts, Allen Chastanet, the chief of the Home opposition, tried a number of instances to be neighborly towards the nation’s prime minister, Philip J. Pierre. As many instances his efforts at displaying some love in the home of God had been not-so-subtly rebuffed. Nothing new. It will be troublesome to recall a time when the social gathering leaders had found frequent floor. Not when contemplating the ominous potentialities in relation to post-COVID tourism. Not when the opposition answered the federal government’s enchantment for concepts prone to curb the escalating murder price. And positively not when a sure Mr. Phillippe Martinez turned Saint Lucia’s seldom mentioned CIP operations into a world scandal—which can or could not have contributed to the Trump authorities’s new angle towards vacationers wishing to go to the US on Saint Lucian passports. (It happens to me that the wannabe peace maker would possibly’ve had higher luck had he invited the social gathering leaders to hitch him on his altar and there carry out as required. However then maybe the priest was following a divine plan!)
Yessir, what appeared to seize public consideration was not a lot the deceitful face of sworn enemies shaking arms on the holy orders of a extremely embellished priest as that two warring politicians couldn’t deliver themselves to take part in a love gesture that will properly have been designed additionally to enhance the church’s public picture. For a number of months, common folks had been pleading with the top of the native Catholic Church and its illegitimate brethren to talk out in protest towards the a number of every day homicides—to no avail. As for Babonneau’s resident rock-star clergyman, Father Albert, he has all the time sounded way more involved concerning the surreptitious proclivities of disguised supernatural baddies amongst his common congregations. He preaches incessantly about boloms, gens gagé, chembois, high-priced obeahmen and Haitian-style zombies—matters that, a lot to the priest’s expressed annoyance, assured him solely stuffed pews. By no means stuffed wallets.
Within the meantime, Prime Minister Pierre is off-island, reportedly preoccupied with extra urgent issues. Little doubt he shall be required to press international flesh not in contrast to the opposition chief’s.
A private observe: I’ve identified Pip lengthy sufficient to counsel he’s as near being a germaphobe as I’m. The place most individuals would lengthen a hand to be squeezed, caressed or grabbed, I’m extra prone to voice my thank yous and my so good to satisfy yous. It’s no accident that the prime minister is usually pictured along with his wrists crossed at his crotch? His solely public touch upon the Gros Islet rebuff has been: “Shaking arms is a voluntary factor.” Observers are invited to make of that what they are going to. And now I’m considering the quilt of my e book, Silly Virgins, which options Prime Minister Allen Louisy (sure, one other Allen!) shaking arms with an over-ambitious radical George Odlum in silhouette. The untold particulars behind that seize shot quantities to a very unhappy story about man’s lust for energy, extra exceptional by far than the Gros Islet episode. Would that our clergymen may acknowledge the necessity to pray Saint Lucia is spared a repetition of what transpired instantly following the strategic gesture of affection and unity at Mindoo Phillip Park on a Labor Day again in 1979!
