In Families and Governments Things Sometimes Fall Apart

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

When the poet W. B. Yeats wrote his poem, The Second Coming, the world he surveyed looked quite gloomy and he was wondering if the end was near and some apocalyptic beast would soon appear.

Europe had just been ravaged by the Great War and was still in a state of turmoil, facing the threats of Communism in the East and Fascism in the West. The slouching beast with “a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun” never came, but the same year Yeats died, Europe was plunged into the even more destructive World War II.

Nearly 40 years after the death of the Irish poet, an African writer, Chinua Achebe, looked to this poem for the title of what was to be a spectacularly successful African novel, Things Fall Apart. It has sold millions of copies and has been translated into 50 languages.

Not everything falls apart, of course, although the human condition seems to have a built-in programme for that outcome. Sometimes things can be prevented from falling apart; history and everyday life are full of examples where wisdom and will can prevail.

But things do indeed fall apart from time to time -- in Europe and Africa, in families and communities, in commercial enterprises, churches and political parties. Sometimes things fall apart apparently out of the blue, with no warning, although some say that everything has within it the seeds of its own destruction, or the capacity to sow those seeds.

What is most fascinating, however, is when things start to fall apart and everybody sees them falling apart, knows exactly why they are falling apart, and knows just as well that there is nothing one can do to stop them falling apart. The wise can only wait to pick up the pieces.

There are many cases around the world and at home where things seem to be falling apart. Some seem unalterably set to run their course but others look as if they can yield to wisdom and will.

The British journal, The Economist, recently examined the case of Poland where a coalition government elected last year seems to be heading for the rocks. It says things are so unsettled in Central Europe that a conspiracy theorist might wonder if this autumn had brought something odd to the water.

Poland is unique among democratic countries inasmuch as two brothers – identical twins – hold the top positions in the country. One is president and other prime minister. Both seem to be rooted in the politics of the past and the result has been ineffective administration at home and a series of gaffes abroad.

The government was never well glued together in the first place, says The Economist, with an unlikely coalition of political parties with different agendas pulling in different directions. The economy is doing well but there are big long-term problems in the education system and the country’s roads and other infrastructure are clapped out.

The Economist believes that “many Poles are thoroughly fed up with the circus antics of their leaders and would welcome a chance to vote in a new government.”

The political situation in Poland is different from that in The Bahamas but there are some parallels. The Bahamas is certainly faced with problems in its education system and much of its infrastructure is clapped out. But it also faces other serious challenges including environmental threats and increasing criminal violence.

Instead of dealing effectively with the country’s problems, the ruling party seems to be falling apart and adding to the nation’s headaches. Like the Polish coalition, but for different reasons, the PLP was unglued when it came to power in 2002.

The PLP did not expect to win the last election after two successive defeats and having its elected parliamentary complement reduced to a humiliating five members. So its prospects of attracting a full slate of the best candidates were seriously impaired.

It had some experienced and qualified people, of course, but the reality of politics in today’s Bahamas is that it takes more than “the cause” to attract enough people so that the party can pick and choose; it also requires at least a reasonable hope of success.

The PLP came to office with a less than lustrous group of parliamentarians and with a leadership problem and that has continued for four and a half years. When he was elected Party Leader, Perry Christie was a popular politician and was well liked throughout the country by people of all political persuasions.

But those who knew him best were convinced that because of certain personality traits he would not make a good leader. There was one important exception to this and that was former Prime Minister Sir Lynden Pindling.

In a rancorous convention battle with Dr. Bernard Nottage, Mr. Christie had the support of Sir Lynden and that meant a majority of the rank and file of the party -- and victory.

Dr. Nottage left the party in a hasty move that he probably regretted before too long. If he had stayed and got elected, he would have been in a position, when things started to fall apart, to challenge Mr. Christie for the leadership and the job of prime minister.

Mr. Christie was left to choose a cabinet from party leaders who were overwhelmingly not his supporters and who, judging from their subsequent actions, seem to hold his leadership in contempt. Furthermore, Mr. Christie was forced to appoint to his cabinet a few persons whom Sir Lynden would not even have considered.

There are other pitfalls for a party that does not expect to win. One is to make extravagant promises in a desperate attempt to attract votes without the risk of being called upon to deliver.

Another is the temptation to accept money from contributors that would not otherwise have been entertained. The expectation is the same. Since the party does not expect to win, it never expects to be confronted by a patron with embarrassing demands.

Mr. Christie and the PLP did win and all these chickens almost immediately started coming home to roost. The foreigner from whom they accepted millions of dollars for their campaign came asking for a favour – or delivery on a promise -- that they could not grant.

Worse than that, the PLP Government from the very beginning descended into dysfunction, confusion and indecision. Matters the people expected to be dealt with by the government they elected were passed on to committees and commissions.

Ministers went about doing their own thing and in the process shattered many of the fundamental conventions of cabinet government, and the centre did not hold. The Prime Minister seemed powerless or unwilling to coordinate, much less discipline his team.

His response to one crisis after the other was, to say the least, inadequate. Allegations of conflict of interest went unaddressed, shady deals like the Korean boat scandal were exposed but with no definitive response from the centre.

Now Mr. Christie is reduced to making excuses or trying to justify the unseemly actions of some of his ministers, as in the case of the Anna Nicole Smith affair, or trying to laugh off bad behaviour on the part of other members of his team, as in the case of the two who resorted to blows in the Cabinet Room last week.

Things are indeed falling apart in the PLP Government and, as a consequence, in the country as well. There are intelligent people in the PLP who see and understand all this. There must be some wisdom there but the will seems lacking. In the words of the poet,

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Comments

[EB Christen]

Precise, clear and poetically succinct! It would be delightful if every Bahamian could read and understand these words you have written and then demand more from their government. A people get the government they deserve. If they don't call the government accountable...