by Sir Arthur Foulkes
Father Sebastian Campbell and his Heroes Day Committee have been campaigning vigorously for years for institutionalized recognition and memorialization of Bahamian national heroes. They have also advocated the institution of a Bahamian system of honours.
Many Bahamians support these objectives. I was privileged to serve for a short while on a committee appointed by former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham to make recommendations for the establishment of a national honours system. But the government did something else, and as far as I know the committee never completed its work.
Father Campbell and his colleagues go further. They demand an immediate end to the system of honours we now have and they berate those Bahamians who have accepted honours from the Queen.
Just recently, out-going Governor General Dame Ivy Dumont held an investiture at Government House when decorations were conferred on Catholic Archbishop Patrick Pinder, Baptist Bishop Neil Ellis and Cultural Commission Chairman Winston Saunders.
In an article in The Nassau Guardian, December 8, Father Campbell launches into a tirade condemning the existing honours system and scolding these distinguished Bahamians for accepting them.
“… The colonial shackles were once again imposed on the colonial subjects of an imperial power,” he says. “The vestiges of slavery live!
“It is not right for any people’s government to perpetuate this dishonour in a supposedly sovereign nation. It’s a downright insult for us to accept medals of honour from our colonial masters. …
“No, Bishop Ellis, the colonial baggage you guys received is not the people’s award, as you asserted. It’s the award of an enslaving colonial master who dehumanized us with the intolerable burden of colonialism for hundreds of years. We will not be fooled.
“We expected a liberating force to be ushered into our mindset from the Roman Catholic Church. However, this was not forthcoming … The good archbishop allowed himself to be drawn into the status quo so as to give public sanction to their paralytic state of national development. …
“In the current list of honourees to be dishonoured by the vestige of colonial awards is Mr. Winston Saunders, chairman of the national cultural development commission.”
After more such, including talk of being “hoodwinked and misled”, Father Campbell invites the honourees to join others, “great thinkers who have rejected these compromising offers in the past.” This is an ill-considered attack and a reflection on all who have received awards from the Queen.
The views of those who have refused to accept honours from the Queen in the past are to be respected, of course. But the same respect is due those who have a different perspective.
The late Sir Etienne Dupuch was once a thorn in the side of Britain’s Colonial Office. So much so that a British newspaper branded him “Rebel in the Caribbean”. Would Father Campbell deny Sir Etienne the accolade of “free thinker” because he accepted an honour from the Queen?
The late Sir Lynden Pindling led the country to majority rule and independence and some refer to him as the “father of the nation”. Would Father Campbell judge Sir Lynden as being enslaved by colonial shackles?
The late Sir Milo Butler fought against racism and colonialism and earned something approaching veneration by thousands of Bahamians, including Father Campbell. Would Father Campbell accuse Sir Milo of being dishonoured because he not only accepted a royal award but was the first Bahamian to be the personal representative of Her Majesty?
Imperialism and colonialism are twin evils and, fortunately, the old-style versions of them have almost disappeared from the globe. But genuinely unshackled and enlightened minds will recognize that even in that dirty water there were some babies worth saving.
In the Bahamas we were fortunate to inherit the concept of the rule of law which took bloody centuries to bloom in Britain and is having a protracted and equally painful evolution in many former colonial territories.
We also inherited parliamentary and administrative institutions which are much maligned by some but upon which we have been able to build a flourishing little democracy. This, too, took centuries in Britain and is proving to be difficult in many other former colonial states.
Through our former imperial masters we also received the religion which is still enthusiastically confessed by most Bahamians. Father Campbell should ponder the irony that the branch of the Christian church of which he is a minister still bears the very name of the former imperial power!
When the Bahamas was about to become independent, the constitutional fathers at a conference in London agreed that this former colony should become “a sovereign democratic state” (Article 1); that its parliament should consist of “Her Majesty, a Senate and a House of Assembly” (Article 38), and that “the executive authority of the Bahamas is vested in Her Majesty” (Article 71).
In other words, it was agreed that the Queen would be the Head of State of the Bahamas. That arrangement was not forced on us by the imperial power. It was the will of the Bahamian people as expressed in a general election and it will remain so until the Bahamian people should direct otherwise. The Bahamas is a monarchy.
After independence, the Bahamas continued to use the system of royal honours, and these are bestowed on Bahamian citizens by the Head of State of the Bahamas on the recommendation of the Government of the Bahamas.
I must concede, though, that the Order of the British Empire is, in my view, an anachronism that should have been abolished or at least re-named after the Empire became the Commonwealth.
* * *
I should like to say a few things to Father Campbell that I suspect others he has offended would also like to say to him.
I do not consider that my mind has ever been shackled by anyone or anything, not by an honour nor the absence of an honour, not by colonialism nor by the enslavement of some of my ancestors.
I am not hoodwinked nor misled by honours and I do not have an identity crisis. I know who and what I am as a native Bahamian, a citizen of the world and a child of God.
I am aware that many cultural and historical influences have gone into my making as a Bahamian and that those influences have flowed from all parts of the globe as well as from the island where my navel string is buried.
(What a wonderful practice that was: consigning one’s navel string to the ground instead of incinerating it with the rest of the trash from the hospital!)
Many in my generation and the generations before contributed mightily to the struggle against racism, colonialism and imperialism. Those battles have been largely won but the victories do need to be consolidated.
I should like to invite Father Campbell to join the struggle against today’s imperialism which takes many threatening forms:
The imperialism of religious intolerance and bigotry of various kinds; the imperialism of military power unrestrained by the rule of law; the imperialism of unfair trade and exploitation parading as liberalized free trade; the imperialism of subversive interference in the affairs of countries struggling for self-determination, and the imperialism of greed which threatens the very environment necessary for the survival of life in these islands and on this planet.
I know Father Campbell has the courage and the ability to oppose these malign influences. That would be better than berating compatriots who are just as loyal and liberated as he is.
It is interesting that they seek to discredit a system of honours that has stood centuries longer that we have existed, let alone been an independent country.
Perhaps they would be well advised to a) find their honour and b)devise an accepable way to recognize it! Further, many different countries around the world recognize citizens of other countries to recieve their countries honours.
It seems to me we are developing a phobia of our own history, pre 1973 Good and Bad. We would do well to remember All history makes us who we are as a people and as a nation.
Posted by: Christopher Lowe | December 13, 2005 at 07:25 PM