Celebrating the 34th Anniversary of Bahamian Independence

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

We have observed another anniversary as an independent state in the world community of nations and we have much to celebrate. Independence itself was only a milestone -- an important one to be sure -- but still only a milestone.

The milestone we have just passed says 34 but we have, in fact, a great history of centuries of struggle and progress. And those two elements – struggle and progress – as the American civil rights crusader Frederick Douglass so eloquently reminded us, always go together:

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favour freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning.”

Many of those who agitated and plowed up the ground were not even around when the great day came. Some, like the slave Pompey, were long in their graves, and others just missed it by a few years, even months.

So it is fitting that this year we acknowledge the nation-builders who went before us, who did the agitating and plowing, who sowed the early seeds for the growth of a nation. And we became a nation long before we became an independent state.

Precisely when that was is hard to say. Older nations have the same problem. Most of the nations of Europe were at one time or another subject to an imperial power, from the Romans to the Ottomans, but all of them celebrate their nationhood on days other than independence.

Constitutionally and legally, there were no Bahamian citizens prior to 10 July 1973. We were citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies and some of us could vote in Britain before we were able to vote here.

But long before that, the people living here started to think of themselves more as Bahamians, and less as Africans or Europeans.

In the years before independence we had a large measure of control over our internal affairs, and way back we had the rudiments that would develop into the institution upon which our parliamentary democracy would be built.

We were more fortunate than many other colonial territories in this respect because many of them had no -- or only very late -- institutions upon which to build stable democracies.

Our parliament goes back to 1729, and although it was created for the settlers and not their slaves, the descendants of the salves were wise enough not to destroy the institution but to struggle for its control.

All of this – the institutions and our assimilation of them – stood us in good stead when finally we became an independent state.

Many great Bahamians had agitated and plowed and had put to the test the inherited institutions and our commitment to them, so that when July 1973 rolled around we had already become a stable nation.

It is important that we remember, that we celebrate, that we communicate all of this to present and succeeding generations so that no one will dare tamper with our heritage of parliamentary democracy and the rule of law in this Commonwealth of The Bahamas.

To take this heritage for granted or to assume that it will survive without constant nurturing would be to court disaster. But if we remember and are inspired by the example of those who agitated and plowed before us, then there will be in every generation Bahamians who will fiercely guard our heritage.

* * *

The world in which The Bahamas became independent was far different from that in which Haiti fought a bloody war and on the battlefield wrested its independence from the imperial power. The Haitians paid and continue to pay a terrible price for their audacity.

Then, and for many years afterwards, as Stanley Kubrick put it in 1963, “The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.”

Some great nations still have difficulty resisting the temptation to act like gangsters and some small nations still feel that they have to act like prostitutes to survive in this world.

But the tide started to turn with the establishment of the United Nations after World War II and it is still advancing slowly and painfully despite attempts to push it back.

So a small independent country like The Bahamas does not have to prostitute itself, nor is it likely to pay an awful price like the Haitians for asserting its independence and sovereignty in the world.

Still, the sovereignty of a state in the international community is something like the freedom of the citizen in a society. The state must abide by international law just as the citizen must abide by the law of the land in which he lives.

Also in today’s world, the tide is in favour of pooling -- not surrendering -- sovereignty for the common good of all nations. The great thing is that in this process small nations now have a voice and a place at the table.

So The Bahamas must not only look inward but outward as well, because the only way its security and independence can be guaranteed is if the nations of the world, big and small, agree to justice for all under the rule of law.

We must join with all those around the world who are working towards the realization that all humanity shares a common citizenship and a common destiny.

“No nation,” said Mohandas K. Gandhi, “can find its own salvation by breaking away from others. We must all be saved or we must all perish together.”

It is not easy to overcome ignorance and prejudice and to love other human beings who are different, to love not with the condescending sentimental love of a master who loves his dog but with the love and respect of an equal who sees himself in the face of another.

If only Israelis and Palestinians, Americans and Iraqis, Bahamians and Haitians could look at each other like this. Perhaps if the peoples who constitute the nations of the world were to practise acting as if they loved, they may actually come to love.

“All we need,” said Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “is to imagine our ability to love developing until it embraces the totality of men and the earth.”

Comments

[Feeeeed Me!]

I'd like to start a petition that once a week for 5 minutes all radio and tv stations (all cable channels) must play a recording of something written by Sir Arthur Foulkes.

We live in a day and age where people graduate high-school not knowing the difference between 'their', 'there' and 'they're'. I think it's time for some mandatory nation-wide education, history, and inspiration.

[no name]

Good idea if you could find 5 minutes of something written by him that was not politically bias and accurate. Maybe a answer to Mr. Wakins open letter to him would be a good place to start.