Bahama Pundit

Tweedledum & Tweedledee in The Bahamas

by Larry Smith

“Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.” - Robert Louis Stevenson

Remember politics? Sure you do.

How can we forget? That ceaseless drip-drip drivel we have to put up with year in and year out.

And now that the political season has begun in earnest, the spigot has opened wide and we won’t be able to shut it off for quite a while.

Funny how Bahamians get so heated about politics when there are so few differences among those vying for our attention.

Politics & Religion in The Bahamas

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

The debate over free will and determinism is as old as the hills and there is no end in sight. Professor Paul Davies of Macquarie University of Sydney, Australia, observes that it is picking up steam and he is worried about it.

Writing in the magazine Foreign Policy, Professor Davies points out that belief in some measure of free will is common to all cultures and a large part of what makes us human.

“It is also,” he says, “fundamental to our ethical and legal systems. Yet today’s scientists and philosophers are busily chipping away at this social pillar – apparently without thinking what might replace it.

“… But even if they are right, and free will really is an illusion, it may still be a fiction worth maintaining.”

To most Christians, God-given free will is an article of faith. It was defined in the fourth century by the great North African doctor of the church St. Augustine of Hippo in his book On Free Choice Of The Will.

The vast majority of Bahamians claim to be Christian, yet there is in our national psyche strong elements of determinism and fatalism.

Will Development Kill The Bahamas?

by Larry Smith

The billions of dollars in development projects slated for the Bahamas could devastate our natural environment if we are not careful, experts say.

Tourism is the world’s biggest industry, and we are just off the coast of a huge, affluent market. Our relative safety, low population density and outstanding physical amenities make the Bahamas a prized destination.

As one Internet message board posting put it, “Winding Bay (on Abaco) is sold out. Emerald Bay (in Exuma) is sold out. Everybody wants to be in the Islands of the Bahamas. All the Sunday travel sections are regaling these developments. The Bahamas is HOT, HOT, HOT.”

Multi-million-dollar projects like these represent our only national development strategy. In fact, the policy of siting “anchor” developments on major islands dates back to the Pindling era, (when the Family Island Master Plan was drafted) and was hotly pursued by the Ingraham administration.

Breaking up the Internet

by Larry Smith

The Internet was under attack last week by hordes of politicos camped in Tunisia for the United Nations-sponsored World Information Summit.

Their attack was launched two years ago, when 175 countries agreed to build “a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented (global) Information Society.”

Their plan called for implementation of e-government, e-business, e-learning and e-health services, among other initiatives, around the world.

You might not know it, but our government published an e-commerce policy five years ago, and by next year we may have real government services online, like business and driver’s licenses. We are ahead of some countries, but way behind many.

While bridging the digital divide sounds wonderful, the real issue at last week’s conference was internet governance. The gloriously democratic World Wide Web is threatened with a takeover by a bunch of politically-directed bureaucrats whose first thought will be censorship.

New Political Leaders in Run-up to Election

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

The captains and the kings (and nowadays the warrior queens) may leave the convention floor but they do not depart. In fact, one of the purposes of a national convention is to help get the captains and the troops all fired up to do battle in the wider political arena. This is particularly important before a general election.

It is not likely that there will be an early general election despite the predictions. Even so, both major political parties will be watching each other closely to see if one will attempt to pull off a special convention to launch its platform and introduce candidates.

The 2007 encounter can go as late as the middle of the year, and the later it goes the more likely the parties will be to stage such events.

Race & Politics in Today's Bahamas

by Andrew Allen

One of the things that last week's convention demonstrated is that the PLP still has some way to go if it is to finally bury the divisive race card that served it well in the 1960's, but has served both it and the Bahamas badly since then.

To many of us, there was something frankly amusing about seeing Kenyatta Gibson, a man in his thirties, attempting to invoke the spirit of the early PLP pioneers by describing the career advancement of Mr. Symonette as a movement "back 300 years" for the country.

The Tribune was quite right to remind readers of a subsequent editorial column that this particular Mr. Gibson, who gives his address as Lyford Cay, would have been in his early infancy when Mr. Symonette's father last held office in this country. His invocation of the horrors of a return to 1705 (!) must then be read in all its stark ludicrousness.

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.

Protecting our Consitutional Rights

by Larry Smith

Eighteen years ago, a police squad led by Sgt Drexel Cartwright burst into a Freeport home and arrested a public school teacher from California who was visiting her crippled father.

Twenty-nine-year-old Tamara Merson was summarily frog-marched to the police station and held for three days with male prisoners in filthy, unsupervised cells.

According to a judge, “it was 57 hours of the most harrowing and excruciatingly degrading experiences a young lady visiting the Bahamas could possibly encounter.”

“The conditions were horrific,” Tamara told Tough Call recently. “Like the black hole of Calcutta. There were no toilet facilities and I was in a small space with a dozen men. One masturbated in front of me. One defecated on the floor. I was terrified of being gang-raped.

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.