Bahama Pundit

Bahamian Education Reform

by Larry Smith

Education is one of today’s celebrity issues. The question of how to fix our failing schools appeared on the radar earlier this year and has become even more controversial lately.

Government held a “secret” national education conference last summer (the 18th so far) and a coalition of private sector employers and trade unions finally released a disturbing report on educational failings after spending months unsuccessfully trying to present it directly to Education Minister Alfred Sears.

We drew attention to some of their conclusions last August. The coalition report (titled the Untapped Resource) was one of several research papers included in the Ministry of Education’s conference journal, which has never been publicly circulated.

Not surprisingly, there has been no word from the government on the results of last July’s expensive conference. But the general idea was to come up with a strategic plan for education in the 21st century, recognising that “knowledge is the most important factor in economic development” today.

Assessing 2005 in The Bahamas

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

Was it a good year? Or a bad year? Or is this arbitrary measurement of time utterly indifferent, like the chalice that is filled with fine wine one moment and deadly poison the next?

As the year races to its close many will be doing their personal calculations to deliver a verdict on 2005. For some it will be easy.

Great personal loss, such as the sudden passing of a loved one, or a string of adversities will clearly dictate the answer.

It will be equally decisive if everything went well: the last payment on the mortgage was made, the youngest child ceased to be a dependent and good health prevailed.

For others – perhaps the majority – the year will have been filled with the usual ups and downs, successes and failures, pleasures and pains.

Bahamas Should Look to Hawaiian Model of Tourism Development

by Andrew Allen

A five-minute taxi-ride from the Hawaiian capital, Honolulu, lies the resort area of Waikiki, one of the principal hotel/condominium destinations in the world.

As intensively developed as Paradise Island, but on an altogether different scale (Waikiki comprises thousands of acres and boasts a Hilton, a Hyatt and a Sheraton among many, many other recognisable resort names) it differs from our tourist product in a number of respects.

On Service

by Nicolette Bethel

I've got a question. Why is it that in this country, service is a dirty word?

I'm not talking about the kind of service that we charge money for, the kind of service that makes us a "service" economy — though I could be. I'm talking about the kind of service that regards it as an inherent part of any blessing to give a bit of it away — not to the pastor who hooked us up to the Good-Things Pipeline, but to people who have given us nothing, because they have less than we have.

I'm talking about loving our neighbours as ourselves.

A Bahamian Political Review

by Larry Smith

Make fun of politics, everyone says.

Ok, you got me. Nobody really asked me to write a tongue-in-cheek, end-of-year political piece that could get me into a lot of hot water with people who have an abridged sense of humour.

But someone did ask me recently to work out a development strategy for the country - obviously convinced that I would totally outfox the politicos (see feedback below). Although flattering, that seems like too much effort for
this time of year.

No doubt critics will call this attempt at lightheartedness, heavy-handed, or just not up to their snuff. But when you are staring writer’s block in the face, anything is worth a try. The quotations below are either excerpts from actual speeches or slight adaptations from press reports. Not even the names have been changed.

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Repercussions of Free Trade for The Bahamas

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

Last week the eyes of the world were focused on Hong Kong where the representatives of 149 countries were meeting in an effort to reach agreement on rules for the further expansion of global trade. The negotiations inside were accompanied by confrontational and violent demonstrations outside.

Not much progress was made in advancing new trade arrangements that would affect hundreds of millions of people around the globe. Indeed some of the complex issues and conflicts involved seem to defy resolution. The European Union’s Peter Mandelson described it as not a failure and not a success.

The Bahamas is not yet a member of the World Trade Organization but we are a member of the African Caribbean Pacific Group which interfaces with the European Union to promote development of ACP countries and trade with their European partners.

On Friday The Tribune published a story based on an interview with Bahamas Minister of Trade and Industry Leslie Miller. According to Mr. Miller, ACP countries have failed to get a further extension of preferential tariffs from 2007 to 2010.

Independence Requires Integrity

by Andrew Allen

In 1962, Prime Minister Alexander Bustamante announced that Jamaica, fed up with colonialism and tired of the ill-fated Federation of the West Indies, would "go it alone" straight to outright independence. In so doing, he set a tone for the whole region, with Trinidad, Guyana and Barbados following in rapid succession.

Today, Jamaica is charting its own independent course, handling its own affairs and managing its own institutions. Well, kind of. You see, with crime now virtually out of control, and politicians heavily compromised and lacking any credibility in their efforts to stop it, Jamaica has just contracted the services of a senior Scotland Yard officer to oversee the restoration of law and order to the island.

Of course, the crime wave is not exactly new. Halfway through its independent history, during the now infamous 1980 election campaign, Jamaica earned itself a reputation for political violence that it has never quite shaken. Back then, politicians on both sides made use of politicised gangsters, or "edons", in winning hearts and minds in the so-called "garrison" constituencies of urban Kingston.

Today, the dons (some of them still politically connected) are a sad symbol of an independent Jamaica. They control a global drug trade, sending forth cocaine-laden "emules" to countries near and far. Their reign has earned their countrymen the humiliation of visa restrictions for travel even to the UK (the ex-mother country) as well as the neighbouring Cayman Islands, which were once governed as part of Jamaica and looked upon her as a big sister colony.

Politics Prevents Nassau Redevelopment

by Larry Smith

“Can’t you see the sun setting fast? And just like they say nothing good ever lasts. Go on now and say your goodbye, to our town, to our town. Can’t you see the sun setting down, on our town, our town. Goodnight.” - Iris Dement

On September 4, 2001 a looneytune peanut seller named Gardiner walked into the downtown straw market and struck a match, putting hundreds of vendors and tourism personnel out of work and almost burning down Bay Street itself.

The event was a ”national disaster”, and officials scrambled to make good. Within months they were envisioning a state-of-the-art complex that would help to transform the downtown waterfront. A design competition was launched with much fanfare, and rebuilding was set to begin in 2003.

By that time the unfortunate arsonist had progressed through our molasses-like court system to begin a 12-year jail term, and the Ministry of Tourism had acquired posh new offices at a cost of more than $4 million.

But even now – more than four years after the fire – the straw market remains a vacant lot in the heart of the city, just a stone’s throw from the cruise port, with vendors still working beneath a makeshift tent.

Bahamians and British Honours

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.

On the Attractiveness of Exile

by Nicolette Bethel

It's said that one of the things that sets Bahamians apart from other West Indians is our tendency to avoid emigration. We travel a lot. But unlike Jamaicans, Haitians, Trinidadians, Barbadians, Guyanese and others, we always come home. We Bahamians have been fortunate enough to have had economic prosperity for so long that we've built a society out of people who travelled abroad for education and came back to contribute to their country. It hasn't hurt that most of us who have come back have learned that, to some degree or another, life is truly better here. We may pay more for a pound of butter or a leg of beef, and the cost of a gallon of gas may make us swear, but we have the unenviable advantage of being the architects of our own destinies -- a rare condition indeed for descendants of Africa, wherever they may be found.

I've lived long enough now to watch with some amusement the return of many of my contemporaries who made the final life move. The last ten years have brought with them the return to Nassau many of my friends and family who swore that they would never come home. But the air is cleaner, the drives are shorter (despite traffic), the views are prettier, and, for many of them, business is better in the Bahamas.

So it may surprise many of you who are reading this column that more and more I have been considering the attractiveness of exile.