On Independence

by Nicolette Bethel

When I was a little girl, my mother used to tell me: “If you aim for a star, you might hit a tree.” Being a rather literal-minded child, I used to imagine myself in a gigantic catapult, aiming at Polaris, and crashing into the dilly tree in our back yard on the way.

The point is you need to dream big dreams to accomplish even a little bit of them. The bigger your dreams, the higher your goals, the further you are going to go. But if you begin with small goals, you will go nowhere at all.

I want to tell you a couple of stories about dreamers and their dreams. The first one is about my mother herself. Her mother was a woman for whom the word “no” did not exist. She was born in the first decade of the twentieth century, and had three big strikes going against her: she was brown, she was a woman and she was poor. But she had dreams. She decided to send her children, both of them, to the best university she could think of: Cambridge, England.

Now sending her son was a big deal. Sending her daughter was even bigger. When she told the woman in the Colonial Office that this was her dream, that good lady looked at this Afro-European woman and her Afro-European girlchild, and laughed. When my mother got into Girton College, Cambridge, my grandmother showed that woman the acceptance letter.

The second story is about a group of men and women who in the 1950s and 1960s began a revolution that would change the face of the Bahamas for good by imagining that black people could rule themselves.

They couldn’t know how revolutionary their action was. They could only dream, but not predict, that one day Bahamians of African descent would unite behind heroes of their own skin colour, and they certainly could not possibly have imagined that within twenty short years, The Bahamas would become an independent country. But they dreamed nevertheless, and the was the creation of a nation.

The third one is about a book, written by Patti Glinton-Meicholas, A Shift in the Light. It is a tribute to the generation that produced her – that nameless generation of people who made it possible for the fathers and mothers of our nation to succeed. These people had the courage to dream about a better Bahamas, and to act on their dreams. Because of them, this July we celebrated the thirty-fourth anniversary of our independence. They were far less blessed materially than we were; but what they lacked in possessions, the characters in Glinton-Meicholas’ book made up for in integrity, honour, and a vision that many of us don’t have.

So I’m led to ask myself: now, thirty-four years after Independence, where are our dreamers? Who among us are the madmen who have the gall to imagine the impossible, and who are willing to make sacrifices to see the impossible through? There is no doubt that we have come a long, long way since 1973. Economically, we’re far better off. Politically, we’re maturing. Educationally, we’ve created a system that gives every Bahamian the opportunity to finish high school, and we’ve built a college that offers excellent value for the dollar.

But just how big do we dream?

Patti Glinton ends her novel with the suggestion that we, the children and grandchildren of a whole nation of dreamers, of the people who dared to vote for the absurd — a group of black and brown men who had the effrontery to think they could run a country — have let our forefathers down.

I’m not so sure she’s wrong. We’ve abandoned the habit of dreaming; these days, all we can do is cling to what we've got. We’re far more interested in keeping our riches than in creating or buying into any dream that we fear could threaten our way of life. Instead of aiming for stars, we turn our backs on them because to reach that high might cost too much. And so we crawl along, our eyes never leaving the ground.

Instead of imagining true social independence — an independence that allows us to think for ourselves, to come up with our own indigenous solutions to our own indigenous problems — we hire consultants from the USA, Britain and Canada to find the solutions for us.

Instead of imagining true intellectual independence — an independence that allows us to view the world through our own eyes — we discourage Bahamians from becoming writers and filmmakers and artists and musicians. We import information from abroad, and are happy with the idea that others will form our opinions for us.

Instead of imagining true material independence, where we recognize what it is that we do that is better than other people’s (we grow better oranges and bananas and pineapples, for one thing, we grind better grits, and our tomatoes have taste, our cabbages are huge and our onions are strong), we prefer to buy food that have stickers on them to assure us they were imported from abroad.

And instead of imagining true individual independence, which requires us to recognize how special each one of us is, we set up rules and regulations and trammels that help us pinpoint the failings in one another; we spend a lot of time magnifying motes and knocking one another out with planks. And secretly, inside us, we tell one another by our actions that because we’re Bahamian we are not as accomplished, as innovative, or as creative as those people who live in Europe or America or anywhere else.

Thirty-four years after Independence, and fifty years after the foundation of the PLP, our houses and our wallets and our cars are bigger, but we have grown smaller than our fathers. Where they dared to dream the impossible, we appear to be unable to dream even the attainable. We refuse to aim for the stars, because we believe that even the tree is too high for us. And so we cling to the status quo, we offer no challenge to what is around us, and we stifle our dreams.

Comments

[Bloggy Boyz]

We have reached the limit of our dreams -- a fat wallet, a shopping trip to Miami, a house and a car. We cannot go any further, because after 37 years of independence, we Bahamians do not own our own economy. We do not own the means of production. We do not reap the larger fruits of our labours.

There are young men at COB who dream of owning their own successful global computer company. This will not happen here because of a closed economy, currency restrictions, interminable waits for approval for business licenses, and 'hidden' policies that give precedence to apparently high net worth foreigners.

Until Bahamians are totally economically free, on par with other countries with a free economy and freely convertible currency, dreaming only brings the heartbreak of failure.

The last theatre of war for civilised men (and women) to fight for honour and success, is the business milieu, and for Bahamians it is the impossible dream -- as things stand.

[Bob Knaus]

Good article, and good comment. But what do you want? Independence, or integration?

Integration into the world economy is the only way for a small nation to prosper. But doing so risks losing even more of the Bahamian national identity. Economically, the Bahamas would be a mid-sized county in the state of Florida. With barriers to travel, investment, and commerce removed... how long will it be before the Bahamas is culturally indistiguishable from Florida?

Don't misunderstand, I'm not in favor of trade barriers, capital controls, government-sponsored cultural boondoggles, or any of the other hoo-ha from Central Planning. I'm just pointing out the basic conflict between the desire for insular sovreignty and participation in the world economy. Some valuable cultural artifacts could get lost in the transition.

[nicob]

Bob, I don't believe that the two things are mutually exclusive. The problem is not limited to The Bahamas; it is shared by all small and not-so-small nations, and has been discussed in earnest for the better part of the past decade in relation to free trade agreements and so on. And there are solutions -- if people are willing to create them.

Our only enemy is our own lack of faith in ourselves. Countries like Israel and Singapore and Switzerland and Luxembourg have found solutions to the issues you raise. We can, if we believe in ourselves, do the same.

[Monique Mason]

Thought provoking article.

I know little of some of the points raised except that they sound like notables to be appreciated and not ignored. And, some of the words used send me to a dictionary. That's not a bad thing.

I do know (we all know) of the power of dreaming. Nicolette has made mention of historical results of some dreams just to name a few. We do not even have to search for other results of dreams of a better quality of life sought by those who came before us. We live lives daily dreamed and made possible by others who came before us. Yet, few among us dream with such magnitude. Nicolette's question is valid..."Who amongst us..?"

I often say, "Back in slavery days, the days of the Freedom Fighters and other days of despair, mistreatment, and being outnumbered, I doubt I would have had the power in me to fight under such conditions." It is hard for me to imagine the power in me as seen in our forefathers who were in a time more discerning than ours. And, I do feel like we have let them down.

I live in the shadows of the strength and valor of our forefathers. Who amongst us, indeed?

First, the dream must be had. Then, the notables dealt with and not ignored.

Again, we must first have the dream. Thought provoking, indeed Nicolette.

[Rhapody]

I am a dreamer.

I dream of the day that I can be proud to be a Bahamian and not have it be a burden upon my soul that I must admit to being a part of the embarassment that could have been a great nation.