Bahama Pundit

More Post-Election Notes

by Craig Butler

The suspension of contracts awarded by the former PLP government before the May general election is a dangerous precedent being set by the new FNM government.

It matters not who the government is at the time of the awarding of a contract. What matters is that we must be confident in the fact that the government has the authority to enter into contractual negotiations with whomever they please.

The FNM stated that the PLP entered into some $80 million worth of contracts shortly before the election. They promised to review the same on taking office, and they have indeed attempted to do just that.

However, more accountability is needed for the Bahamian people to be fully informed as to why these reviews are being carried out. Senator Jerome Fitzgerald had accused the new government of creating an atmosphere of intimidation. As long as questions remain unanswered this statement will be seen to be meritorious.

On Images of Savages, Part Three

by Nicolette Bethel

Don't tell me -- the horse is almost dead, and there's no sense in flogging it much more. I know. The thing is, while you may think that I've made my point about race and related subjects (several times over), there's still one more contribution I'd like to make.

I'd like to catalogue the images that were associated with -- and that associated us with -- savages and savagery. The reason? They haven't gone away at all. We use them today. And we use them on ourselves.

A lot of the time, it's not a white-black thing at all. Most of the time, we're so comfortable with the images of savages we've inherited from our slave-ridden, anti-Enlightenment past that we take them for granted and think of them as fact.

By naming them, maybe we can begin to erase them once and for all.

Managing the City of New Providence

by Larry Smith

Government planning expert Malcolm Martini told a group of Rotarians last week that the future of New Providence was at risk unless some tough decisions are made soon.

He said there was very little land left on the island to service a rapidly growing population, and there were physical limits to what could be added to the transportation network.

In fact, if we exclude developed areas, partially built-out subdivisions, conservation sites and wetlands, there are only about 5,000 acres of vacant land left on this 86-square-mile island.

"Bahamians need to shift from a suburban land extensive culture to a land intensive urban culture," Martini said, "because population growth does not stop."

Martini, 66, is a top Canadian planner and economist who has worked on projects in China, Africa and Eastern Europe, as well as enjoying a stint as a Toronto city councillor. For the past 10 years he has worked on and off in the Bahamas, and since 2004 he has been attached to the Office of the Prime Minister as well as the (now disbanded) Ministry of Energy & Utilities.

“We have to think of New Providence as an urban centre – like New York," he told Rotarians. "The alternative is gridlock, and the prospect that this will become an extraordinarily unpleasant place to live."

An Open Letter to the Former Attorney-General of the Bahamas

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

Dear Mrs Gibson:

First of all, I have a public confession to make. It is a confession I have made privately to some of my readers who have accused me of having a soft spot for certain people in the PLP.

They have made remarks like “Why did you go so easy on Allyson?” and “Why do you never criticize Glenys?”

On those occasions when I felt I had no choice but to criticize you -- even if with great restraint -- for your actions in the political arena, someone close to you accused me of wielding a “poison pen”.

He obviously did not know that the definition of “poison pen” is an abusive or slanderous anonymous letter. I took it that he meant I had been too severe in my criticism of you, or perhaps he meant that I should not have criticized you at all.

On Images of Savages, Part Two

by Nicolette Bethel

The thing about writing about race and related stuff, it seems, is that it stimulates considerable discussion. I'm not at all sure that everybody who wants to say something has said it; but the number of comments I've received to my face and on the blogs where my essays appear suggest that there's a need -- if not exactly a desire -- to talk about this stuff.

Even when people claim that there isn't.

The thing is, though I started out by talking about race in the Bahamian context, this topic is far bigger than any of us. The real reason we have to talk about who we are, who we are assumed to be, and who we are expected to be is that what happens here in The Bahamas is one small piece in a huge global jigsaw. It's perfectly true that up to now many of our public discussions about this difficult topic have been politically motivated, and politically motivated on the most destructive level. One party says race is irrelevant, and this gains them points in some circles. The other party says race affects every element of our current life, and this gains them points in other circles. The problem is, a discussion such as this is not a discussion at all; it's a form of political campaigning that doesn't tell us anything at all about who and why we are.

And so back to the images of savages.

The Once and Future City of Nassau

by Larry Smith

"Ya better see what ya looking at" --Emma Ritchie-Burnside

According to Emma's great-grandson, architect Jackson Burnside, "if we could see the value of what we look at every day, Nassau would have the same potential as Charleston, which has exploited its past to the point where even modest buildings are extremely valuable."

He was a panelist on Island FM's Sunday Conversation (hosted by Patti Roker) this past weekend. Other guests included fellow architect Mark Henderson, who is seeking to revitalise the Bahamas National Trust's historic preservation committee; financial consultant Dick Coulson, who is a member of the Nassau Tourism Development Board; and amateur historian Paul Arahna.

The discussion was sparked by a mini-supplement written by yours truly, which ran in the Tribune a couple of weeks ago. It was called: "Whatever Happened to Historic Nassau?" and most of the photos were by Dick Coulson, who had the idea of trying to shame the owners of some of Nassau's most valuable - and most disgusting - real estate.

Time to Leave the 2007 Election and Debate Burning Issues

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

Two friends – one Bahamian, one foreign – worked together for a while in a downtown office. At the end of every work day the Bahamian noticed that his friend cleared his desk and put everything into his briefcase. Nothing was left on the desk and nothing in the drawers.

The curious Bahamian questioned his friend, a peripatetic Jew, about this daily ritual, and he replied something like this:

“Perhaps it’s my genes or my cultural orientation, or maybe it’s just me. I don’t know. I do know that when I leave this place I may not be welcomed back the next day, and that will not be a problem for me. There’s nothing I have to come back for. I can easily walk away and never look back.”

Indeed, he was able to do just that. Despite his passionate involvement in certain aspects of Bahamian life, he would frequently over the years unceremoniously absent himself and, with equal lack of notice, simply re-appear months later.

Bahamas Post-Election Notes

by Craig Butler

I have noted now on a few occasions that there appears to be a serious carry-over since the May 2 general election. Specifically, I’m speaking about the ill feelings that exist in our society.

Ever watch a science fiction movie and see how the good guy becomes bad because he is infected or engulfed by a skin of evil? Well, that appears to be the case in the Bahamas. The difference is that here it seems as though a veil of anger and resentment is floating about and causing us to say and do things that we normally wouldn’t.

The Progressive Liberal party's headquarters in Nassau has experienced three fires within a few weeks. The last one apparently can be easily explained as an electrical fault. The other two are still in doubt as to their cause. Consequently the authorities have had to call upon the services of arson investigators from Florida to make a determination.

On Images of Savages, Part One

by Nicolette Bethel

Recently I've been exploring the idea of race. It's not because I want to cause trouble. It's because I believe I don't have much choice. Despite the happy-talk about there not being any real problem any more, ours is a society plagued by self-loathing. As "blacks", we hate ourselves for being descended from enslaved Africans; as "whites", we hate ourselves (or our ancestors) for our involvement in the slave trade. We have all, for worse and for better, been impacted by the institution of transatlantic slavery; and yet we refuse to discuss in any meaningful way the consequences of that fact.

I'm going to suggest that part of the reason for our silence on this matter -- and it's a silence that's as thick and as ominous as a summer day before a hurricane -- is that we have all been taught to believe the lies that supported the institution of slavery. These are the lies that were told to justify the enslaving of other human beings, and they are also the lies that were taught to the enslaved to keep them from fighting their state.

In Pursuit of OTEC in The Bahamas

by Larry Smith

Well-known shipping expert Bill Bardelmeier spoke to a group of Rotarians last week about getting power from the sea. It's something he's been touting since the 1960s.

A retired marine consultant, Bardelmeier has lived here for half-a-century and was a director of the Bahamas Maritime Authority for over a decade. One of his pet interests is something called ocean thermal energy conversion, and, curiously, there's a lot of local lore behind it.

OTEC is a 19th century idea that uses the sea as a gigantic solar collector, but it has proved difficult to implement - for both technical and economic reasons. Some experts are now saying that its time may have come.

They argue that technical advances and economic changes have made OTEC a cost-effective alternative to fossil fuels for many tropical island communities. And in addition to electricity, these systems offer the bonus of producing fresh water and hydrogen, as well as nutrients for mariculture and agriculture.