Young, Hosein apologise for offensive crosstalk in House

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West, Stu­art Young, yes­ter­day re­luc­tant­ly apol­o­gised to Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein for us­ing the pro­noun “she” in ref­er­ence to Ho­sein.

Ho­sein al­so had to apol­o­gise for re­marks he made to­wards Young.

The sit­u­a­tion de­vel­oped af­ter a stand­off on the gen­der-bias de­scrip­tion ini­tial­ly oc­curred in Par­lia­ment dur­ing the com­mit­tee stage ex­am­i­na­tion of the Pa­role bill.

Young stuck to his guns, as House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh or­dered, urged, ap­pealed and ca­joled him, be­fore he fi­nal­ly apol­o­gised for us­ing the pro­noun.

The is­sue arose when Young asked about prison of­fi­cer num­bers. Ho­sein said in com­mit­tee stage, dis­cus­sions were on claus­es of a bill, not pol­i­cy, and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MPs had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ask be­fore.

Young in­ter­ject­ed, “You feel is Ramhit here or what?”

Ho­sein re­tort­ed, “This is not Chin Lee ei­ther or yuh broth­er who get...”

Young asked, “My broth­er?”

Ho­sein added, “And none of my fam­i­ly geh lock up for drugs or am­mu­ni­tion! So, re­lax yuh­self.”

Young re­tort­ed, “And which of my fam­i­ly got lock up for drugs or am­mu­ni­tion?”

Com­mit­tee chair­man and House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh or­dered both: “We’ve had enough of that...”

Young con­tin­ued com­ment­ing (re­gard­ing Ho­sein), “... Be­fore she woke up from her slum­ber.”

Singh said, “That’s un­ac­cept­able, PoS North: with­draw that!”

Young asked what he’d said, then added, “With­drawn...”

Singh told him, “And apol­o­gise.”

Young asked, “For what?”

Singh said, “For what you said, you know what you said.”

Young mut­tered, “I not apol­o­gis­ing for nuthing...did you ask him to apol­o­gise for his ut­ter­ances? Un­til he apol­o­gis­es, I’m not apol­o­gis­ing!

“This one-sid­ed­ness, I’m not apol­o­gis­ing. I’m not apol­o­gis­ing!”

Singh said, “No. I heard what you said.”

Young re­butted, “Did you hear what he said, call­ing fam­i­ly name, you heard that?”

When Singh said he did, Young said he should call on Ho­sein to apol­o­gise first in the se­quence of things.

Singh said Ho­sein spoke in re­sponse to what Young said first.

Young in­sist­ed, ask­ing what he was apol­o­gis­ing for, to which Singh said he knew the “of­fen­sive and prej­u­di­cial pro­noun” he’d called Ho­sein.

Young mut­tered, “Me ent apol­o­gis­ing for nuthing.”

Singh ap­pealed, “Come on, with­draw it and apol­o­gise, you know what you did.”

Young said he had with­drawn it al­ready, adding: “I’ve said I’m not apol­o­gis­ing and I’m not apol­o­gis­ing...”

Singh again urged him to apol­o­gise for us­ing that “Gross ...”

Young in­ter­ject­ed, “Gross what? Pro­noun?”

Singh con­tin­ued, “...Pe­jo­ra­tive, you know what you did, I heard you. The re­sponse by (Ho­sein) was in ex­change to you hurl­ing state­ments to him. What you re­spond­ed there­after and de­gen­er­at­ed to and you know what you did: you made a high­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate sex­u­alised com­ment to­wards the MP. You pur­port­ed to call the MP by the wrong pro­noun...you were trad­ing barbs be­fore—I can ig­nore that. But the mis­char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion of the mem­ber by a gen­der of­fen­sive name and mis­de­scrip­tion is un­called for.”

Young said he’d with­drawn it and asked if Singh would ac­cept the hurl­ing of in­sults to one’s fam­i­ly.

“Al­so with lies... I’ll apol­o­gise if he apol­o­gis­es...what grabbed your at­ten­tion is the use of a pro­noun?” he added.

Singh said it was an in­ap­pro­pri­ate, sex­u­alised mis­de­scrip­tion.

Young fi­nal­ly said, “For us to move on, I with­draw it and apol­o­gise.”

Singh said that Young call­ing Ho­sein by a “...high­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate gen­der bias and a pe­jo­ra­tive man­ner is in­ap­pro­pri­ate and un­ac­cept­able.”

PNM MP Ka­reem Mar­celle called for Ho­sein to with­draw and apol­o­gise al­so for us­ing of­fen­sive, in­sult­ing lan­guage say­ing Young’s fam­i­ly mem­bers were ar­rest­ed.

Singh asked Ho­sein to do so.

Ho­sein said, “I with­draw and apol­o­gise that I made a fac­tu­al state­ment that none of my fam­i­ly mem­bers have been charged with guns or am­mu­ni­tion.”