Bahama Pundit

The Price of Poverty in the Bahamas

by Craig Butler

Last time I discussed some of the reasons contributing to rising poverty in the nation rather than spending the time shedding light on the actual problem.

The problem as I see it is that far too many of our brothers and sisters are going to bed hungry every night. In the past, although things were hard there was in most instances some sort of food on the stove. That is not the case any longer as many people can’t afford the basic necessities of life, especially if they are on minimum wage or not working at all.

World food prices have spiked this year due to shrinking harvests, burgeoning demand and skyrocketing fuel prices. When you consider that we are a service-based economy, rely almost exclusively on imports, and get our revenue from the duties on those imports, the future does not bode well.

The Dead Hand of the State

by Simon

•Simon is a young Bahamian with things on his mind who wishes to remain anonymous. His column 'Front Porch' is published every Tuesday in the Nassau Guardian. He can be reached at frontporchguardian@gmail.com

A friend recently opened a letter sent to her father by the National Insurance Board. It seems that the Board is quite upset with her old man for not sending in his contributions for quite some time. So upset that they’re threatening legal action.

To help get her dad out of this jam, she intends to forward NIB her father’s new address: Woodlawn Cemetery. He’s been domiciled there now for over a decade.

Unfortunately, it seems that it’s not only the dead who are not allowed to rest in peace. Most pensioners receiving retirement benefits are required to travel to an NIB office every six months to confirm that they are still alive.

We Must Help People to Make Ends Meet

by Craig Butler

Many of us are familiar with the TV commercials promoting feed-the-children efforts in poor countries. The pictures turn my stomach and make me feel guilty. Well I have news for you, there are many people in our own country who can’t make ends meet.

When I discussed this on a recent radio talk show, many people contacted me to recite their own tales of horror. I have been moved to the point of tears a few times as a result, and I believe the time has come for us as a nation to address this issue.

There are many factors at play here, so we must be careful in apportioning blame to any individual or institution. None of us in the Bahamas could have foreseen the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States, but it is a fact that we have to deal with.

Crime, Hope and Fear in the Bahamas

by Simon

•Simon is a young Bahamian with things on his mind who wishes to remain anonymous. His column 'Front Porch' is published every Tuesday in the Nassau Guardian. He can be reached at frontporchguardian@gmail.com

Even as violent crime declined in Britain, then Prime Minister Tony Blair captured the usually visceral public reaction to crime: “It is not about statistics; it is about how people feel … the fear of crime is as important in some respects as crime itself.”

While Bahamian officials battle the complex phenomenon of crime, they also face a complex response of both reasonable and not so reasonable public and private fear as they respond to the national insecurity violent crime engenders.

A frustrated public has lost considerable confidence in the criminal justice system. Vigorous action to repair it will help reduce both the crime rate and society’s fears by restoring trust in the country’s ability to cope with violent crime.

Bahamas in Throes of High-Stakes Debate

by Simon

•Simon is a young Bahamian with things on his mind who wishes to remain anonymous. His column 'Front Porch' is published every Tuesday in the Nassau Guardian. He can be reached at frontporchguardian@gmail.com

A high-stakes debate on gambling has been shuffled back near the top of a thick deck of national issues as a variation on a basic theme: society’s attempt to balance liberty and social harm; or between how individuals exercise their freedoms and the resulting effects on society.

A broad range of analogous – yet not identical – issues fit within this ethical counterpoint, including debates over drinking and drug use; seat belt and motorbike helmet laws; as well as casino and lottery gambling.

“You can’t legislate morality,” is a wearisome cliché employed to short-circuit the necessary tension between liberty and social harm. Of course we can; as well we should. Murder is illegal.

Legalizing Gambling in the Bahamas

by Craig Butler

Sometime ago Peter Tosh wrote a song entitled ‘Legalize It’, referring to the use of marijuana. Presumably he was speaking about Jamaica but his thrust could have been for a wider audience.

I spent two years in Jamaica and the number of people (professional and otherwise) who smoked ganja was unbelievable. I’m not trying to pick on Jamaicans or seeking to add insult to injury - I am merely drawing an analogy.

Jamaica has refused to legalize marijuana, and probably for good reason. But on a visit you would be forgiven for believing that marijuana was legal because of how freely it is smoked.

In the Bahamas we have the same problem and I’m not speaking about marijuana, although we have developed the same nonchalant attitude towards rolling up a joint and taking a hit. That is a story for another day.

What I speak about is our illegal gaming houses, and the remarks made by Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham in Parliament recently.

On Justice

by Nicolette Bethel

I'm a big fan of Law and Order -- the television show's that's been running for almost twenty years. I watch it religiously. It never gets old.

Recently I had the opportunity to watch a rerun I've seen dozens of times. The thing is, I couldn't remember what happened in it -- I know what the opening was all about, I knew where the case was going to lead, but the core principles I couldn't recall. So I watched it again to find out what they were.

I was glad I did. The main theme of the show was justice vs. politics. In a nutshell, it's the show where a man who organizes tours, in a moment of weakness, shoots at his travel agent to stop her from depositing a cheque. The idea is just to wound her, to give him time to put the money in his bank account. The plan works, all too well. The travel agent deposits the cheque late and the cheque doesn't bounce -- but two other people are killed as a result of the shooting, and the man is caught and charged.

What to do About Crime in the Bahamas

by Larry Smith

With all the shock-horror at our skyrocketing crime rate, you would never believe that the causes and progress of the country's social breakdown have been fully documented over the past 20-odd years by a series of special reports.

They were produced by the 1984 commission of inquiry into drug smuggling and the task force on drug abuse, the 1994 task force on education and the consultative committee on youth development, and the 1998 national crime commission.

What did that last report conclude? Well, the commissioners (a judge, a psychiatrist, a criminologist, social workers and clergymen) warned that Bahamian society was threatened by "a pervasive culture of dishonesty, greed and a casual disregard for social norms and regulation."

Four years earlier, the education task force had pointed to a "deterioration of traditional values and accepted standards of behaviour", which had produced "the scourge of teenage pregnancy and substance abuse." And previous reports had detailed the rise of lawlessness caused by narcotics trafficking.

A Salacious Story at Christmastime

by Craig Butler

This last week we had a salacious story about the Member of Parliament for MICAL. On Monday last the Punch alluded to former cabinet minister V. Alfred Gray. But the story in the Tribune on the same day was just plain nasty and the lowest form of journalism.

Now I can’t imagine that such an old and distinguished paper would want to tarnish a reputation that took many decades to establish or seek to change their format to tabloid sensationalism. I can only hope that this story is an aberration.

In their favour I can also say that I don’t think the Tribune would publish such a story without being able to defend the same.

Alfred Gray has responded with a brief public statement, which I feel was a bad move on his part. He would have been better served to have kept his mouth shut. However, he has a family to think of, and God only knows what they must be going through to see him dragged through the mud like this.

Is this the level of journalism we can now expect from the Tribune and are they going to dispense it evenly despite party affiliations? Or is it, as some have said, a way to destroy Alfred Gray as he was being far to verbose. I for one would hate to see this become the norm.

Is Bahamas Paradise Lost?

by Craig Butler

In the epic poem Paradise Lost by John Milton the central theme is about the fall of man; the temptation of Adam and Eve by Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. It was originally published as 10 novels in the 17th century and is complicated to say the least. Milton's purpose - as stated in Book 1 - is to justify the ways of God to men and elucidate the conflict betweens God's eternal foresight and man's free will.

Today in the Bahamas we are that 'Paradise Lost'. Our free will has left us on the brink of chaos. Murder is out of control. Although the official figures now state that we have had our 70th murder for the year I honestly feel as though the figures have been manipulated as I can distinctly remember being in the 60’s about four to six weeks ago.

Some modern interpretations have said that Milton cast Satan in a sympathetic light and displayed him as a proud being who defied his creator and waged war on heaven only to lose and be cast down.

From a Christian perspective Satan is still waging war, and has decided to fight his creator for the very soul of man. The battlefield of that everlasting war can be seen in places of turmoil and despair, and today unfortunately this includes the Bahamas.

O J Simpson's Confession

by Larry Smith

Then something went terribly wrong, and I know what happened, but I can't tell you exactly how...The whole front of me was covered in blood, but it didn't compute...Any moment now I would wake up at home, in my own bed." -- O J Simpson, If I Did It.

I just closed the cover of one of the most bizarre books that has ever been published.

Former football star O J Simpson was acquitted a dozen years ago of killing his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend Ron Goldman, with a knife. The case was watched by millions around the world, and it polarised racial emotions in the US like no other before or since - something that has puzzled blacks and whites equally, given Simpson's willing identification with white society.

The following comments are instructive:

"For many, Simpson’s not-guilty verdict was perceived as a victory that far too few blacks accused of crimes -- particularly those with smaller bank accounts and less fame than Simpson -- were given the opportunity to have." - Blackamericanweb.com

"[In] the trial, everything is about race. Black people deal with race everyday. Whites who said it's not a trial about race speak that way because they haven't been on the receiving end of injustices at the hands of a white person," - Marc Watts, a black reporter.

"[Johnny Cochran, Simpson's lead lawyer] suggests that racism ought to be the most important thing that anyone of us ought to listen to in this court ... and set his murdering client free." - Fred Goldman, father of one of the victims.

And at a barbershop in Los Angeles 10 years after the trial, the PBS investigative show, Frontline, determined that none of the black customers believed Simpson was innocent. But they did agree that the police behaved as expected: "They framed a guilty man -- that's all it was," said the barber.

The Bahamas and The Extreme Future

by Larry Smith

As Winston Churchill used to say, the future is just "one damn thing after another."

And prognostication has been called the world's second oldest profession. In fact, it's about as old as the human race - and found in every age and culture.

The Oracle of Delphi in ancient Greece was the most successful prediction business in history, prophesying about wars and matters of state for about a thousand years, although recent research suggests the visions were produced by hallucinogenic gas seeping from a volcanic fault line.

Today the future-predicting business is a multimillion-dollar industry - and we are not talking about telephone psychics here. There are tens of thousands of futurists who make a living forecasting how things will stack up in the future. Perhaps the most famous among them is Alvin Toffler, who wrote a book called Future Shock in 1970 that has sold millions of copies.

Frustrations at Nassau International Airport

by Craig Butler

I travel quite a bit on business so I am accustomed to the mess that we call our international airport. On Friday last I was on American’s 10:45 am flight to Ft. Lauderdale. I arrived early and was looking forward to a leisurely check-in before getting to the departure lounge to send some emails and read the newspaper.

Having been away the week before, I was aware that the parking lot in front of the arrival terminal was partly closed due to renovation, but it was an inconvenience that had to be borne.

But Friday morning was different because those in control had now decided in their infinite wisdom to close the entire parking facility. This has to be the most ridiculous decision I have seen in a long time.

Road Rage in the Bahamas

by Larry Smith

Today I'd like to indulge in a little road rage.

Over the past eight years I've been riding a bicycle for both exercise and enjoyment. Not competitive cycling, I hasten to confirm, just casual bike riding.

For a long time I was able to ride from Fox Hill Road to my office near St Matthew's Church. I was able to do this a couple of times a week, just outside the peak traffic hours, without much risk. I was also able to ride downtown on Sundays and holidays with no hassle at all.

But lately the traffic situation has become so chaotic that it is too dangerous (for me anyway). And that applies to most routes, most times of the day, and all week long. I truly sympathise with those who are forced to ride to work through all kinds of traffic conditions.

Besides the crowded intersections, there are two principal road hazards today: speeders and idiots (you know, the kind who think nothing of passing within inches of you - whether by design or stupidity - as if you simply didn't exist).

On the Neighbourhood

by Nicolette Bethel

In Winston Saunders' quartet of plays, The Nehemiah Chronicles, the main character, an old man who has remained in his neighbourhood throughout a number of decades, talks to an invisible reporter about the rise in crime around him and how he feels unsafe in the home where he once was secure. In the past he's always known his neighbours. He disciplined their children, and helped to raise a society of youngsters who respected authority and one another, and who made sensible contributions to their country and countrymen.

He blames the current state of the nation on the growth of the sudivision, where fences and walls and back gardens have replaced front porches and shared yards, where the entire population leaves their houses standing empty during the day, and where at night no one knows the people who live next door.

In the suburbs, he says, crime flourishes because nobody knows or cares enough about one another to prevent or stop it. People can be burgled or attacked or murdered in the home next door or across the street without the knowledge of those nearby. In the inner city -- in the ghetto, Over the Hill, or in what was once the neighbourhood, people can be burgled or attacked or murdered in the home next door without the interference of those nearby, because all the connections that once existed have been broken.

And he has a point.

On Homos and Sapiens in the Bahamas

by Larry Smith

Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion--several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. -- Mark Twain

This past summer thousands of people fled their homes amid severe flooding across England and Wales. The British prime minister said it was an "extraordinary and very serious event".

So extraordinary, in fact, that soon afterward one Anglican prelate was very seriously calling the floods "God's judgment on the immorality and greed of modern society." The Bishop of Carlisle claimed that laws that have undermined marriage, including the introduction of pro-gay legislation, provoked God to act by sending the unprecedented storms.

This drew laughter even from fellow clergymen. As one reverend wrote tongue-in-cheek to the Anglican Church Times: "Is there no end to the talents of Church of England bishops (who) have suddenly acquired expertise in meteorology (and) declared that the rains are a punishment from God?"

According to Christopher Hitchens, an ex-communist British expat who is now a columnist for Vanity Fair and has been described as "the quasi-omniscient Johnny Rotten of political journo-intellectualism" (my idol), this leaves open the question of why heaven should have decided to punish the County of Yorkshire (where much of the flooding occurred) rather than the fleshpots of London.

The Homeless & the Street beggars

by Craig Butler

I don’t know if it’s just me but there seems to have been an increase lately of people aimlessly wondering the streets. Some are suffering from various addictions and have lost heir way. But the number of others who don’t have a home and travel with their belongings appears to be on the rise and is of greater concern.

I say this because when individuals resort to living on the streets it could indicate that the economy is faltering; that there is a lack of jobs; that people have just given up; that the education system is not producing the right calibre of person. We need to determine what is going on here and soon.

Most of us who drive around have come to recognize these street people and many of us stop and give them change. By and large we have accepted them, and to some extent feel sorry for them. Not that we ever really try to alleviate their pain or their station in life, but I guess we do what we do so as to make ourselves feel better.

On Patronage

by Nicolette Bethel

In the opening of the film The Godfather, Don Vito Corleone is visited by Johnny Fantone, a young singer who is trying to make a name for himself in Hollywood. Don Corleone has already helped Johnny to get where he is in Las Vegas, having made his band leader the offer he couldn't refuse. Now Don Corleone agrees to help him break into movies. Everyone who has seen that film knows what happens next: the blood in the bed, the terror in the night. Don Corleone has ways of getting what he wants.

Now The Godfather is a movie, and what's in it may not be the exact truth. But what interests me today is not so much the glamour or the horror of specific incidents, or even the tragedy inherent in those who (like Michael Corleone) are destined to be Dons, but the circumstances in which mafia-like organizations arise.

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.

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.

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.

On Race

by Nicolette Bethel

Before I begin, let me make one thing quite clear. I'm writing about race, not racism. The first one is the idea that human beings, like animals and plants, are members of different groups that are physiologically and genetically different. The second one is making distinctions — social, political, economic and otherwise — based on these differences.

I'm writing about race.

It's an idea that has been around for a while, but not forever. It's an idea that can be traced back to a specific political point in history — and by history, of course, I mean the history of the world, and not of the Bahamas. The idea of "race" was invented, and its invention had a function. That function: to conquer the world.

You see, it's a fundamental human trait to organize in groups and to create some cohesive group identity. It's also a fundamental human trait to look at other groups and define them by how they are different from our own group. Anthropologists call that ethnocentrism, the belief that every group does things in the best way possible, and every other group's way is inferior.

The idea of race, however, takes this tendency and solidifies it, makes it universal in application. No longer does the idea of each group doing things its own best way have currency. Different groups are categorized according to their physical appearance, and slotted into place on a ladder of superiority. And of course the people who do the slotting (who happen to be Europeans) put themselves at the top. By doing so they are exercising the fundamental human practice of ethnocentrism.

But it doesn't mean they're right.

A Short History of the PLP's Long Lie about Race

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

When the PLP came to power in 1967 many in the hierarchy of the party looked forward to exorcizing the demon of race from Bahamian politics once and for all.

The leader of the party, Sir Lynden Pindling, seemed at first to be more strongly in favour of that than some of his colleagues.

Miriam Makeba, the celebrated black South African singer, was among a number of prominent blacks in America who wanted to do business in the new Bahamas. But Sir Lynden stopped her when he heard she was romantically linked with black power firebrand Stokely Carmichael.

She left Sir Lynden’s office in tears and never came back. The new Bahamas was having nothing to do with that.

Does the War on Drugs Make Sense?

by Larry Smith

Last week's article on the baggage handler controversy drew calls from some readers for the legalisation of drugs - which may not be as crazy as it first sounds.

Today's moralistic attitude towards drug use developed in the late 19th century, when religious reformers pushed for a law enforcement approach to what previously had been a matter of personal choice.

These crusaders were able to criminalise the possession of opium and its derivatives morphine and heroin, as well as cocaine, around the time of the First World War, with cannabis following soon after.

Before then opiates were freely available in Western societies, both on their own and as an unregulated ingredient in tonics and medicines. Morphine was a popular painkiller, heroin was produced by Bayer in 1895 as a "safe" cough remedy, and cocaine was an early ingredient in Coca Cola.

Is History of Government Neglect Repeating Itself in the Bahamas?

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

“Prime Minister, the country is going straight to hell, and I am not aware that anybody is doing anything about it.”

That was an opening statement by a perceptive and worried PLP Cabinet Minister as the party’s parliamentarians huddled in a garret at the Stokes Thompson Cabana on South Beach in November 1970.

For months the Minister had been muttering much the same to anyone who would listen. This time he directed his complaint directly at Prime Minister Lynden Pindling in a conclave convened by Anthony Roberts.

In the country many were still in a state of euphoria following the change in January 1967 and the massive consolidation of PLP power in 1968. The economy was doing fine, there was high employment and some positive changes were taking place.

Origins of the Cultural Relic of Junkanoo

by Larry Smith

"It is now the month of December, when the greatest part of the city is in a bustle. Loose reins are given to public dissipation; everywhere you may hear the sound of great preparations."

This is not a description of the lead-up to Junkanoo. It was written by a Roman not long after the death of Jesus. The writer, Seneca, was referring to the celebration of Saturnalia, a time marked by “drinking and being drunk, noise and games and dice, appointing of kings and feasting of slaves, and singing naked.”

During this time the slaves also had licence to ridicule their masters - something scholars mistakenly refer to as 'social inversion'.

But Saturnalia has even more ancient roots. It was all about the winter solstice - which has to do with the tilt of the Earth as it spins on its axis. As someone once said, "The cycles of nature have been here since before there were people to even mark their turning."

The midwinter celebration of the solstice is perhaps the world's oldest and most universal cultural event. It is the time after which the days get progressively longer and warmer. It is a calendrical hinge -- the day that the sun returns, or is reborn.

Violence and the Pronouncements of Bahamian Politicians

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

The fight in the Cabinet room between two Members of Parliament was a shameful episode in Bahamian politics, but it was also a great opportunity for Prime Minister Perry Christie to make an effective statement about the rising tide of violence which plagues Bahamian society.

Mr. Christie takes pride in his ability to communicate, and he is indeed one of our most articulate politicians ever. On this occasion he had the attention of the whole nation.

Everybody -- including many young Bahamians who are at risk of being seduced into a subculture of violence -- was waiting to hear what he had to say.

It was a chance for him publicly to lecture his offending colleagues on the unacceptability of violent behaviour. Keod Smith and Kenyatta Gibson should have made an immediate and unconditional apology and should have offered their resignations to the Prime Minister.

History can be Changed with a Word

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

Events over the last few weeks have been interesting, exciting and sometimes depressing. At home the nation was shocked beyond words by the brutal attack on a six-year-old child and we are still wondering where we are going as society.

Yet another PLP Government Minister was under fire, this time for using his office to secure very special treatment for a close friend. Shane Gibson is one of those ministers who seem not to have the foggiest idea of how a Cabinet minister ought to conduct himself.

On the world stage there was high theatre with a session of the Non-Aligned Movement in Havana and the opening of a new session of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York.

On Nine to Five

by Nicolette Bethel

I was sitting in traffic the other day. Sitting in traffic, by the way, is something I would prefer not to do. It's a supreme waste of time, particularly on this island which is only twenty-one miles long. And a question bubbled up to the surface of my mind. It was this. Why am I sitting in traffic?

The answer, on the face of it, was so simple one would have to be simple not to get it: Because it's a quarter to nine in the morning.

It was far too simple an answer for me, I can tell you. My mind is an unruly thing. Another question came burbling up. But why?

The answer came from Out There, wherever That might be: Because people work nine to five.

My response was: no, they don't. And I meant it.

Now, I'm not talking Sting-time here, though I could be. No; what I mean is this. People's brains don't simply turn on at nine in the morning and turn off at five. Thinking isn't something that knows the hours on the face of a clock; thoughts come when they come, and there's not a lot one can do about it. Contrary to what we've been trained to think, work — and particularly twenty-first-century work — is not best done in eight-hour blocks, with an hour in the middle for lunch.

So why do we insist that work involves reporting to a building at nine o'clock and leaving it at five?

On Emancipation

by Nicolette Bethel

In 1833, the British Parliament passed an Act to abolish slavery in the British Empire. As of August 1, 1834, all slaves throughout the empire were to become free to some degree — if they were under the age of six, they would become free immediately, but if they were over six, they were to be apprenticed to their former masters. Apprenticeship was finally abolished on August 1, 1838.

It is partly for this reason that Emancipation Day is a holiday in The Bahamas. It is a holiday throughout the former British slave colonies of the Caribbean as well — and the reason that Jamaica, for example, chose it as its Independence Day. We don’t celebrate our holiday on August 1, although we remember the date; rather, we have chosen to make the nearest Monday the holiday.

Here, then, together with hot weather, rain, and hurricanes, the summer months bring the twin holidays that commemorate our freedom. As a nation, we have the opportunity of remembering how far we have come, of honouring our ancestors who — slave and master alike — were dehumanized by the institution of slavery and indentureship.

Rules, Laws & Conventions are Indispensable

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

In a letter published in The Tribune last month, Cynthia Daley took issue with me on a number of things including my objection to the attempt by Prime Minister Perry Christie to have Health Minister Dr. Bernard Nottage address the House of Assembly in session.

I reject Ms. Daley’s criticism on that point because the separation of the two houses of parliament is well-established by law and convention and it would have been wrong, even if the Opposition had given its consent, for a Minister of Government sitting in the Senate to address the elected chamber in session.

If Ms. Daley were a regular reader of this column she would know that I do not hesitate to criticize both political parties on issues which go beyond partisan politics and have to do with the system itself.

On Instant Information

by Nicolette Bethel

In November of last year, my husband was offered a short-term job in Michigan as a guest director at a small liberal arts university. He went, of course. I stayed behind; I have my own job. But while he was gone, we were in communication on a daily basis – and we didn’t break the bank. The internet has made instant communication over huge distances possible, affordable – and commonplace.

We live in the Information Age. The ability to communicate instantly and cheaply over huge distances has revolutionized the way in which human beings relate to one another, and has revolutionized the way in which societies interact. These days, it is possible to link to other human beings anywhere in the world by using satellites, cell phones, and the internet. The world has changed, and – without realizing – we have changed with it.

But it appears we haven’t noticed this change. That this applies to us here in The Bahamas is not something that we talk much about. We conduct our business as though radio is the most efficient method of getting the word out, and appear completely to ignore the revolution going on around us.

But the in-your-face power of the airwaves pales in comparison to the internet, which is the most radical form of communication there is. It’s radical because nobody owns it. Yes, people (mostly Americans) own the access to it; in order to get online, you have to open the portal provided by the computer, your Internet Service Provider (a.k.a. ISP), and do a bunch of things that some people find intimidating. But once you have done these things, you will find yourself in the biggest democracy on earth.

On Land

by Nicolette Bethel

Over ten years ago I attended a lecture being given at the College of The Bahamas by Eris Moncur. His topic was, not surprisingly (as it was the Quincentennial year), the site of Columbus’ landfall. Now I’m not going to debate that now; anyone who knows Mr Moncur even slightly knows what his view on the matter is. What I am going to raise is something he said, somewhat in passing, in that lecture. It was this: Bahamians are millionaires.

Now many of us are fond of thinking of ourselves as “poor”: “So-and-so like to take advantage of poor people,” we say, or “The government job is to help poor people get ahead”. I am not entirely sure what the cut-off point for wealth is; I suspect that poverty is something we own, while wealth belongs to the other guy. Be that as it may (and that’s certainly fodder for another column), I want to argue Mr Moncur’s case, because I agree with him. Many, if not most, Bahamians are extremely rich.

Now understand me: I don’t necessarily mean take-it-to-the-bank-and-deposit-it kind of rich. In fact, the kind of wealth Mr Moncur and I are thinking about here may leave a person cash-poor; we’re talking about land. And specifically, I’m talking about generation property, an imperfectly understood but extremely valuable Bahamian resource.

Colonial Baggage Hinders Bahamas Development

by Andrew Allen

Someone recently took exception to a column, written some months ago, in which I argued that colonial baggage inhibits our development in many ways, including economically.

My critic’s point was that there can be no harm in retaining such odd vestiges (like the pleasant Octogenarian lady on our currency) that differentiate us from more functional feeling places, especially as we are a country concerned with tourism.

To some extent, my critic is right of course. In direct terms, much of the tradition that we are saddled with in The Bahamas does more good than harm in that it makes us more ‘quaint’ and keeps the tourists happy.

But for ex-colonial societies, the larger picture, which does not concern itself so much with the outward vestiges of the colonial legacy, is far from simple and not particularly rosy.

Bahamas Bucks Gay Agenda

by Larry Smith

Pastor Lyall Bethel (of Grace Gospel Chapel) and others recently drew our attention to the "Homosexual Agenda" to take over the world.

After much research we were able to confirm that this master plan does exist. Here’s an excerpt from the document that we were able to pull down from a secret web site:

6am - Gym
8am - Breakfast (oatmeal and egg whites)
9am - Hair appointment
10am - Shopping
Noon - Brunch
2pm - Convert all straight youngsters to homosexuality, destroy all heterosexual marriages, establish a global chain of homo-breeding prisons where straight women are turned into artificially impregnated baby factories to produce prepubescent love slaves for the gay leadership, and secure total control of the Internet for the exclusive use of child pornographers.
2:30pm - 40 winks of beauty rest to prevent facial wrinkles from stress of world conquest
4pm - Cocktails
6pm - Light dinner (soup, salad. with Chardonnay)
8pm - Theatre
11pm - Bed (du jour)

Actually, Pastor Bethel’s remarks are not as silly as the above parody makes out. They are drawn from the strong views of powerful religious and social groups in the United States, led by conservative preachers like Jerry Falwell (of Moral Majority fame) and Pat Robertson (of the Christian Broadcasting Network).

Bahamas Should Cultivate Tolerance

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

The idea of cruise ships bringing openly homosexual visitors to the Bahamas in recent years prompted some of our citizens, including a few religious leaders, to fly into an apoplectic rage. Rather ugly demonstrations greeted the so-called gay cruise passengers as they disembarked in Nassau.

In an attempt to cool passions and limit the damage done by negative publicity abroad in 1998, then Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham made a fairly exhaustive statement in which he assured his local and foreign audiences that:

“The Government of the Bahamas does not promote nor encourage homosexual lifestyles but neither does it condemn or exclude persons who reveal themselves to be homosexuals.”

Mr. Ingraham said he had been chilled by the vehemence of the expressions against gay persons. He admitted that there had also been expressions of reason and understanding but that these had been largely lost in a sea of bitter diatribe.

Bahamas Bans Brokeback Mountain

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

A half century ago – in December 1950, to be exact – the arbitrary banning of a movie by the Censorship Board caused an uproar in the Colony of the Bahama Islands and unleashed a chain of events that helped to change the social and political history of the country.

The movie, No Way Out, was about racism in America and featured black Bahamian actor Sidney Poitier in his first major role. It was a performance that launched the brilliant career of the 22-year-old from Cat Island.

Up to that time blacks were given mostly small and demeaning roles by Hollywood, so Sidney Poitier’s breakthrough also changed the history of American cinema. To his everlasting credit, Sir Sidney never accepted a role which conformed to the racist stereotypical image of black Americans.

The local Censorship Board, the white owners of the leading movie houses and the political establishment known as the Bay Street Boys regarded No Way Out as a dangerously inflammatory movie for a society in which blacks were routinely discriminated against socially, economically and politically.

A Return to Race and Culture

by Andrew Allen

A recent column elicited a welcome response from the Nassau Institute, which took issue with my describing Helen Klonaris' comments on racism as thoughtful and intelligent.

In its response to me (which seemed more directed at Ms Klonaris' original contribution than at my column), the Institute suggests that concentrating on white racism is a "dangerous diversion" for those looking for answers to the problems of blacks, American or Bahamian.

In fact, I agree entirely with this central thesis of the Nassau institute's response, as I stated (albeit briefly and parenthetically) in that column.

On Blacks in Uniform

by Nicolette Bethel

Just recently I had the privilege to spend considerable time visiting Paradise Island. In part, this was because I had several friends and acquaintances in town, and one of the sightseeing must-dos is to show them around Atlantis, as far as possible. In part, it was because of meetings that took place there over an extended period of time.

I have to say that I travelled there without much of a second thought. This occurred to the wonder of some of my friends, who asked me whether I needed my passport to go there. I told them I didn’t need anything except to toss one dollar of my money into the till at the tollgate. (Ministry of Tourism officials, I learned, are provided with passes, which probably means that the government puts its money directly into the tollgate. I don’t know where that money goes. Perhaps it goes back to the government, which would defeat the purpose of my putting the dollar in – but never mind that.)

There was the fact that in some places in the hotel my husband and I were asked for our room key or fat wads of our cash. As far as that goes, that’s fair enough; it’s the people hotel after all, and they have the right to charge for certain privileges. What you don’t pay for on the swings you’ll spend on the merry-go-round. No; within the confines of the four hundred walls of Atlantis, that’s fair enough.

I didn’t need a passport. Most of the time I wasn’t going to Atlantis, or to Kerzner land at all. But what interested me was what I saw in the open air. Other people, especially those who worked there, needed a passport of sorts.

The Impediment of Colonialism

by Andrew Allen

On the first of January, 1877, a small, middle-aged Englishwoman took the title "Empress of India", signifying her dominion over a huge, ancient land thousands of miles from her own.

Alexandrina Victoria, then in the 40th year of her reign in England, was said to have swooned when her favourite Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, delivered the anniversary present.

She certainly never forgot the honour, henceforth developing a quite inappropriate bias towards Mr Disraeli and against his great rival, William Gladstone.

But what to Victorian romanticists looked like good honest patriotism smacked to others, among them Mr Gladstone, as cheap politics.

Disraeli's answer to a rudderless, incompetent administration and flagging popularity was to flatter the English nation and its Queen with the notion that their great, benign Empire was somehow endowed with a mystic internationalism that separated it from such 'bad' empires as that of the Ottoman Turks.

In Celebration of Ceremony

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

The ascent of Arthur Dion Hanna to the highest position in the nation is a matter for celebration, and it was celebrated in grand style at Government House last week.

It is well that we observe such important events in the life of the nation with suitable ceremony and pageantry.

These rituals speak in rich cadences about our good fortune to be living in a land where justice, law, order, democracy and peaceful transition are cherished; a land where some of the finest are still willing to serve in politics in spite of the hazards of that arena and in spite of their own human frailties.

Many other nations in this troubled world are not nearly so fortunate. They have no politicians to criticize and blame and kick out of office whenever they wish. Their lives are controlled by foreign occupiers or home-grown tyrants who dictate by the barrel of a gun or the edge of a machete.

On the Upholding of the Law

by Nicolette Bethel

This week, I want to write about the upholding of the law.

Now, given the fact that we recently suffered a breakout and riot at Fox Hill Prison, you will be forgiven for thinking that this article is about that affair. And I hope you'll forgive me when I tell you it isn't. In fact, what I focus on in this article may strike you as a little trivial, given the magnitude of the recent lawlessness we've witnessed.

But I don't think it is.

What seeded this topic in my mind, you see, wasn't the riot, or the general indifference to petty crime all around us, or even the fact that even before January's over we've had several murders to keep our police from growing too bored.

What seeded it was the fact that one day recently my father-in-law came to me and said, "I see they took the right house down."

He was talking, of course, about the house that was supposed to have been demolished that day last February that my grandmother's house was bulldozed. I found that very interesting, because to take that house down -- even though it was the so-called "right" house -- was in complete contravention of the law.

Of several laws, in fact.

Race in the 21st Century Bahamas

by Larry Smith

For much of our recent history, the Bahamas has come packaged in two distinct versions – ebony and ivory.

Although there was never any legal apartheid after slavery, our two communities co-existed separately – to a greater or lesser degree, depending on who you talk to, which accounts you read or what settlements you come from.

But you need only thumb through the pages of a few editions of Nassau Magazine to get an appreciation of what life was really like in the old days - on the surface at least.

From 1934 to 1948 this magazine was produced by THE leading citizen of the day - Guardian publisher Mary Moseley. It was mostly a society record, documenting the comings and goings of this colonial bigwig and that rich resident.

On Race, Class, and the Tyranny of Worldviews

by Nicolette Bethel

I had trouble with the title of this one. I wanted to call this article "On Hegemony". To be truthful, I almost did. What stopped me, though, was the vision that assailed me as my fingers hovered over the keyboard -- the vision of my faithful readers picking up the paper, seeing the title, and throwing it down again unread.

So I changed the title. But I still think that "On Hegemony" would be better. The word "hegemony" -- which sounds, by the way, like a cross between "hedge" and "anemone" -- refers to a way of seeing the world that's created by a small group of people who are in power. In the past, people might have called it "brainwashing", but it's far more friendly than that. Very specific and subtle ways of viewing the world are created by any number of means, from the spread of world religions to the sharing of philosophies to the coverage of news by the mass media. Hegemonies masquerade as truth, and they govern the way in which we see our world in ways that are often so subtle we aren't aware of them.

On Carts and Horses

by Nicolette Bethel

I've often thought that when we think or talk about Junkanoo in public we have a tendency to think and talk about things that are in fact incidentals. If we describe it to people who have never seen it, chances are we'll talk about the costumes. We may mention groups and performance, and we'll probably talk about the way in which all of Bay Street rocks when a big group comes down the road.

We talk about the costumes. Or the B-52s. Or the brass section. Or the choreographed dancers. Or the bellers. Or the bleachers, for heaven's sake, or the tickets, or the way in which the fans respond. Rarely do we talk about the heartbeat of the thing.

Rarely do we talk about the rhythm drum.

On Honour

by Nicolette Bethel

I once had a colleague at COB who gave his students questions like the following at the beginning of every semester and asked the class to discuss the answers together:

1. You find a wallet on the ground. In it are a BEC bill for $80 and four twenty dollar bills. What do you do?
2. You just came home from a long day at work and you are starving. Nothing is open, and you are far too tired to cook. You find that your brother has cooked dinner, and you ask him to give you some. He agrees, but says that he wants you to give him your share of your inheritance in return. What do you do?
3. You are a bright young person from a poor Family Island home. You want to go to university but you can't afford it. One day you meet a man who invites you to make delivery of a consignment of drugs, and promises you enough money to put you through the first two years of college. What do you do?
4. You have been accused of a crime you have not committed, and for which you will be put to death. So far, you have protested your innocence, but no one will believe you. Finally you are told that if you confess your life will be spared, and, even better, if you name your accomplices, you could be set free. You have no accomplices. What do you do?

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 Retrospective Commentary

by Larry Smith

From 1979 to 1983 I wrote a column for the Tribune in a different era (under the nom-de-plume ‘Monitor”). Those commentaries were focused on ZNS television news coverage, which at the time was strictly controlled by the Progressive Liberal Party government under Lynden Pindling.

But although some two decades have passed since these commentaries were written, the context is discernible, many of the personalities are still around, and the issues continue to resonate. Of course, since private broadcasting opened up the air waves in the early 1990s, younger readers may not appreciate the political censorship that existed when these pieces were written.

In fact, news management was so partisan back then, that the following comments may appear one-sided to some. But that is the fault of the politicians alone. These tongue-in-cheek excerpts offer some interesting parallels with current events.

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On the Tragic True Story of Sam Ahab

by Nicolette Bethel

There are times in a writer's life when realism just won't do. That's true even when that writer is an essayist who writes commentaries on what she observes. But the writing of essays isn't the only thing that God intended writers to do; and so I hope you'll forgive me if I take a moment to tell you the tragic true story of Mr. Sam Ahab, a relatively young man who, as a child, wasn't really trained up in the way he should go, and so who as an adult found himself a-wander in a wilderness every bit as hot and hostile as the Arabian Desert was for the old-time Israelites -- and blind as could be to the pillars of cloud and of fire leading the way.

Now Mr. Sam Ahab was a man of many talents. In this he was rather like the servant who had been given talents by the master who was going away on a trip to a far land. But that's as far as it went. In this story, Sam Ahab inherited those talents from his father, Mr. Sam Ahab Senior, who had received the original five and invested them. Unlike his father, though, the wise investor, Sam Ahab Junior was too cautious or too careless to do much investing. Instead, he did what one should never, ever do with talents: he dug a hole in the ground and hid them in it, and went off to enjoy life's other treasures. Many of these, like the talents, he'd inherited from S. Ahab Senior; and off he went like the prodigal son to spend them in search of warmed beds, loot, and feasting.

Political Friendships in The Bahamas

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

I received a telephone call the other day which has prompted me to talk about friendship in politics and to do a little reminiscing. I hope readers will not mind since I also intend to make a few points.

The caller had been listening to a radio talk show on which Sir Clement Maynard was a guest and this is what she had to say:

“You heard Clement Maynard? He just said on the radio that you and he are good friends and that he talked to you on the phone no longer than yesterday.”

Apparently she was somewhat surprised that two people who have been on opposite sides of the political divide for 35 years could remain friends. I told her I was not listening to the show but if she had quoted Sir Clement correctly then that would be quite right.

On Immigration

by Nicolette Bethel

Much has been said of late about immigrants, especially illegal ones. By "illegal immigrants", by the way, we really mean people who come here on boats, not jets, people who sail here from the south, not the north, and people who speak a different language and who worship a different way from us.

In other words, we mean Haitians. Or Jamaicans, if we're feeling really expansive.

Send them home, we say. Even those who were here all their lives. Even those who were born here. If they illegal, they gattie go. We're a small country, after all. No space. No resources, not like our neighbours to the north. We are not the USA and Canada, with all that money up there ready to give away to the poor and tired of the world. After all, they pay no taxes, and they crowd up all our services. We cannot afford to be magnanimous. Suffering is not our business; send them home.

On the Taste of Sand

by Nicolette Bethel

The ostrich is a lovely bird. Big. Flightless. Beautifully feathered (as we should know, as many of their feathers adorn Junkanoo costumes). Fast.

And much maligned.

Ostriches, according to legend, ignore danger by burying their heads in the sand. (The fact that they do not do this in actuality is neither here nor there; what matters today is that people think they do.) So, according to legend, instead of running or fighting when they're threatened, they simply stick their heads underground and wait for the problem to go away.

The ostrich, not the flamingo, should be our national bird.

I'm not talking about the size of ostrich eggs, or the fact that an ostrich can outrun even Tonique Williams-Darling (they can apparently clock up to 31 mph in speed), or even the fact that an ostrich could be turned into a great Junkanoo costume. I'm talking about the head-burying thing.

On Merit

by Nicolette Bethel

Connections, they say, are everything in The Bahamas. They tell you who you are, where you stand in society, what you can do, how high you can climb. The person with connections is rich indeed. The person without --

Well, let's say they better have a Green Card.

There are many people who believe that a society built on connections is a corrupt society, one in which social ties lead to success. When who you know is more important to your positioning than what you know and how well you know it, a society cannot grow, cannot change. It's a sad truth, these people claim, but it's a truth anyway. The society built on connections is one that's bound to fail.

On Sin and the Refugee

by Nicolette Bethel

Okay, I admit it. The two, sin and refugees, don’t normally go together. At least, not officially. Sin is sin, and refugees are, well, they’re just unlucky.

But last month's events along the Gulf Coast of the United States, and the social fallout that has followed, seem to suggest something different. There's a subtle battle of terminology that's been going on under the surface, in the background, upstage, behind the main action played out by FEMA and the President and the Mayor and the Governor, and it's this: nobody's all that sure what exactly to call the people who have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent floods.

Some people want to call them "evacuees". Some people want to call them "victims". Some people want to call them "survivors". Some people want to call them "displaced". What is pretty clear, though, is that many people — most prominent among them prominent African-Americans — are resisting calling them refugees.

Jesse Jackson's one of those who think that "refugee" isn't the right word. Al Sharpton's another. Both believe that to apply the word "refugee" to the New Orleans evacuees is racist. Both justify their positions by making reference to the fact that the victims of Katrina who have been pushed from their homes are citizens of the United States of America. The very obvious implication: Americans are Americans, and not refugees.

On What Government's Supposed to Do

by Nicolette Bethel

I spent most of the end of August watching the coverage of what happened in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. I'm sure I wasn't alone. It was a hard story to watch, but compelling. For people in Abaco and Grand Bahama, the devastation was frighteningly familiar; for those of us in Nassau, it's instructive. Because there but for the grace of God go we.

The biggest problem, as I see it, wasn't the geography of New Orleans, or the intensity of the hurricane. Both of these are facts. They're facts with which the city of New Orleans, the state of Louisiana, and the federal government of the USA have lived forever. History has shown all of them what floods and storms can do to the city, and studies predicted just this eventuality. For people to claim that what happened in New Orleans was beyond their imagination is inexcusable; what happened was not only imagined, but predicted.

The problem lay with the failure of government at every level it existed.