Dear Editor,
I was happy to read about the passage of the 2008 Amendment to our traffic laws which bans cell phone use and driving while under the influence of alcohol. My second emotion was, however, sadness, because I saw no mention of Mrs Denise Dias of the Alicea Foundation and Mothers in Black in the reports on the Parliamentary debate, and I wondered whether the omission had been made in the way the debate was reported, or was a reflection of the Minister’s gracelessness and refusal to give credit where it is overdue.
For those who are unaware, the names Denise Dias, Lucille Bacchus, Mothers in Black, and Alicea Foundation should be household names. Denise, Lucille and the other women in Mothers in Black are mothers, daughters, grandmothers, aunts and other relatives of children and adults who lost their lives in the carnage on the roads. They are women whose grief at their loss was multiplied by the weak laws and the corruption and indifference of our justice system, but who rose above their despair to work tirelessly for the reform of traffic laws and dedicated hundreds of hours to a weekly demonstration to raise the level of public concern.
Mothers in Black continued to work on proposals for traffic law reform even when President Jagdeo jokingly (I think) said to a group of us as we demonstrated with the “mothers” outside his office that seat belt laws were not practical because even his official car had none (I hope the President does not break the law by riding without a seatbelt now). Mothers in Black was not discouraged from its campaign even when then Home Affairs Minister Gajraj dismissed a menu of proposed reforms by pronouncing that the changes were impossible because laws about speeding, seatbelts and drunk driving would inconvenience too many drivers.
In every sphere of struggle for improvement in our lives, when we get despondent about the possibility of winning change we can call up the example of the Mothers in Black, and set aside the frustration and the temptation to give up. It is possible to win just struggles. Hail up Denise! Hail up Lucille! Hail up all the mothers.
Yours faithfully,
Karen de Souza
