{"id":493,"date":"2012-06-26T05:10:33","date_gmt":"2012-06-26T10:10:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/?p=493"},"modified":"2012-06-26T05:10:33","modified_gmt":"2012-06-26T10:10:33","slug":"martyring-our-saints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/?p=493","title":{"rendered":"Martyring our saints"},"content":{"rendered":"

Verna St Rose-Greaves<\/a> wasn\u2019t the biggest loser in Friday\u2019s Cabinet reshuffle<\/a>; we were. Fired from the post of Minister of Gender, Youth and Child Development, Verna\u2019s only sin was that she was too committed to serving this country according to her conscience, by seeking to protect our women and children<\/a>. Instead of being lauded for this, Verna was thrown under the bus by the PP government. Given the choice between the Christian\/conservative vote<\/a> and the smooth introduction of the Gender Policy Verna championed, the PP government chose the votes, going against what its leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar<\/a> had seemed to stand for before she became Prime Minister.<\/p>\n

I say without apology that this makes Verna a political martyr to the cowardice of the PP government and its failure to stand for what it seemed to believe in before it formed the government. There are those who feel Verna was fired because of the Cheryl Miller<\/a> episode. In March Millar was taken from her desk in Verna\u2019s ministry and committed to the mental hospital against Miller\u2019s will. It\u2019s possible this is what led to Verna\u2019s firing. However, it\u2019s more likely that the government saw too many protests against the Gender Policy, and the imaginary LGBT marriage lobby. (Surely it\u2019s imaginary, since most LGBT organisations in the country haven\u2019t said a peep about gay marriage, and have only asked for equal human rights for LGBT folk.) Verna, being Verna, stood up for what she believed in and presented a Gender Policy that wouldn\u2019t embarrass her as a longstanding women\u2019s activist. Would that the PP government had the same courage.<\/p>\n

I am not Verna St Rose-Greaves\u2019 friend, but I have interviewed her many times in my capacity as a reporter. She was always a straightforward, blunt advocate for the people she served as a social worker; and she was passionate and well informed about women\u2019s and children\u2019s rights and the wrongs done to them. In fact, Verna was the go-to interview on any such topic, because she was one of a very few public servants who would risk defying the public servant ban on talking to the media. She might have looked mad to play \u201cwarner woman\u201d<\/a>, complete with bell, during the Summit of the Americas in 2009 in Port-of-Spain, but I agreed with her choice to protest the then-government\u2019s holding of an expensive international summit and spending millions of dollars to spruce up the parts of the country the delegates would see while our women and children were being murdered and suffering egregious poverty. Jada Loutoo reported in the Newsday<\/em> at the time, \u201cAfter leaving her post on Wrightson Road, St Rose-Greaves [\u2026] walked down to the fountain at the Summit Village on the Port-of-Spain Waterfront promenade, where she was accosted by security officers who took away her bell [\u2026] and called for backup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s 2012 and once again Verna\u2019s bell has been taken away. She has been whisked out of government back into the shadows where her cries for justice and equality will be easier to ignore. She told the Guardian in an interview<\/a> published Sunday, \u201cI was offered an ambassadorial position in Costa Rica, which I chose not to take because I didn\u2019t come into government to go to Costa Rica\u2026 The one thing that I am sure of, my voice will not be silenced. Death will have to silence me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Ataklan sang, \u201cI\u2019d rather be a shadow in the dark than a big fool in spotlight.\u201d<\/p>\n

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