In the USA, currently a process is unfolding to appoint a Supreme Court Judge. Justice Brett Kavanaugh is the nominee and a vote in the Senate for his appointment has been delayed at least by a week to allow for the FBI to investigate allegations of sexual assault made against him. Prior to that, President Donald Trump said he didn’t see the need for the FBI to investigate. Around then Kavanaugh’s appointment might have been a done deal given the Republican majority.
As a matter of fact, just last Friday, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary voted along party lines, 11-10, in recommending the nomination to the Senate floor with an expected confirmation vote as early as the next day. The latter did not happen as the Senator from Arizona, Jeff Flake, even though voting in the Committee in support of Kavanaugh, insisted on the FBI investigation before a vote to confirm in the Senate.
The Republican-majority Committee agreed fearing that Senator Flake, along with one or two others, may vote no on confirmation. In other words, they realised they may not have the numbers to confirm Kavanaugh if Flake’s demand was denied. It was a risk they could not take and they didn’t.
Noteworthy, is what may have led to Flake’s insistence. On the day, shortly before the Committee voted, he was confronted in an elevator by two women imploring him to listen. One said, “I was sexually assaulted and nobody believed me…. You’re telling all women that they don’t matter, that they should just stay quiet”. She insisted he looked at her during the exchange.
When asked afterwards, Flake said everything led to his position on the FBI involvement. While the elevator incident could not be linked specifically to his decision, it cannot be discounted and it must have had some impact on him given what transpired. For the women; Flake listened and the elevator doors were left ajar throughout the incident. They felt that their cries were heard since a confirmation, which should have been over with, is now delayed.
A few days ago, this newspaper carried a story in which a 25-year-old mother of four was quoted as saying, “Sometimes my children wake up in the night hungry and all I can do is cry. Right now, I need a lot of help. I am punishing a lot, because it isn’t easy to raise four children without a job”. She and her thirty-five-year-old husband were former workers at the Skeldon Sugar Estate which has been closed.
No mother or father can bear the cries of hunger from their children. Those cries are daggers to the heart which worsens when there is no means to offer them a morsel. Her heart-shattering story is just a microcosm of the harsh and cruel reality hundreds of sugar workers are now forced to endure following the closure of some estates over the past two years. That reality may not have fully resonated or understood by others and maybe by those who made the decision to shut the estates.
Before and after that decision, workers and their families pleaded for it not to be implemented or reversed over fear of the devastating impact it would have on their lives and on thousands more who are indirectly affected. As time elapses, the cries have not gone away, for many are still forced to resort to protest action to receive what is rightfully theirs; severance pay.
That mother who has to hear the cries for food by her children will be broken and traumatised; rendered helpless and stripped of her dignity. It’s similar for others like her and for the fathers who become emasculated in such circumstances. That reality has telling effects on the mental state of those affected. Enduring that daily exacerbates that very troubling mindset and the seeming hopeless situation.
How is this in anyway relevant to the Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation? Senator Flake listened. He also demonstrated a willingness to do his part in trying to mitigate the cries he heard. Many here had spoken about the economic broadside the closure of estates would have on the workers and the surrounding communities of which many have been economically ravished. Fears have since been realised as exemplified by the story of that 25-year-old mother.
The impact has not spared the social fabric of those communities as poverty, crime and depression rise. Many have decried the decision to close the estates without an impact assessment been conducted. It could have provided a similar voice to the ones Senator Flake heard in that elevator and which may have been the proverbial straw that precipitated the responsible position he took.
Senator Flake may be seen as one, but with his influence, it made a difference at that point. His action also exposes those here who boast of their concern for the welfare of sugar workers and who now have influence, but unlike the Senator, they close the elevator door to block the cries from reaching their ears; hence it is still painfully heard in the media.
