Bahama Pundit

A Whole New World—Part 2

by Simon

Whether a city, an island, or a country -- a place is about more than its geography.   Every place evokes some history and is a potential wellspring of ideas, offering individuals and the collective imagination opportunities for renewal and transformation.  

New Providence and our capital City of Nassau are undergoing such a transformation in terms of physical infrastructure and cultural renewal.  In many ways, New Providence is becoming a whole new world that will be enjoyed by Bahamians and tourists.  Much of this is a result of one of the more significant infrastructural investment programmes in Bahamian history. 

This multifaceted and ambitious infrastructural programme is in response to a complex of challenges.  These challenges are posed by on-going and rapid urbanization including long-standing problems in terms of water distribution and clogged roads.

Over time, the new New Providence will boast dramatically improved public amenities, services and utilities.  It will also include enhanced venues for cultural and sporting events as well as a host of entertainment activities, domestic and international.

In Search of Ft Lauderdale's Identity

by Larry Smith

The connections between Florida and the Bahamas are more complex than some readers might imagine. In fact, Bahamians were among the first settlers of many South Florida communities - including Coconut Grove, Ft Lauderdale and Key West.

Growing up in Nassau in the 1960s, I clearly remember what an event it was to visit Miami and eat at the fabulous Burger King on Flagler Street. We stayed at cheap downtown hotels like the Patricia, the Alhambra or the Columbus, and shopped in mercantile palaces like Zayre, Walgreen's or Woolworth's.

I'm not sure what black Bahamians did in Florida during those days of cracker-barrel segregation. It was only in 1960 that sit-ins led by the Congress for Racial Equality made it possible for blacks to shop and eat in Burdines and other department stores. And it was not until the following year that a "white" hotel (the Biscayne Terrace) accepted black guests for the first time.

Miami was always the Bahamian metropolis. But since the 1980s, many white Bahamians at least, have preferred Ft Lauderdale to the overcrowded and increasingly Hispanic conurbation further south. Since I attended the University of Miami in the early 1970s, the area's growth has been explosive, but Miami is far more congested than the rest of South Florida.

Usually a Bahamian trip to Florida is planned for purely commercial reasons, with little time to stand and stare. But after settling our daughter into college last week, we decided to take a closer look at a community we really knew nothing about.

Saunders Beach Park

by Simon

The marauding band of casuarinas that invaded and colonized Saunders Beach many years ago are now defeated after years of occupation of one of New Providence’s more accessible beaches.  The casuarinas pillaged considerable sand, eroding this precious treasure for decades.

Happily, this invasive species is being replaced by broad-leafed sea grape trees, providing form and function, rendering aesthetic value and shade.  There are other fruits they will render in time, including memories. 

Many of us grew up going on Sunday adventures and reconnaissance exercises out west searching for coco plums to savour or out east to raid tamarind trees.  Now, generations of children growing into adulthood, will remember Saunders Beach for sea grapes, as if the sea itself was the orchard for this fruit bearing its name.

Middle-Aged, Middle Class Humanitarians Gather in Montreal

by Larry Smith

MONTREAL, Canada - This week I attended one of the world's greatest gatherings of downright decent, mostly middle-aged, and thoroughly middle class folks.

It was a tough call for an old cynic like me. To borrow a quote, I usually lump organized religion, organized labour, and service clubs together. But Rotarians do get points for having the most entertaining meetings.

More than 18,000 of them from around the world clogged the streets of Montreal for their annual international conference this week. Everywhere you turned there were earnest Africans, Asians, Latinos, North Americans and Europeans flashing their logo shirts, badges, pins, flags and business cards.

A Tale of Two Restaurants—The Great Bahamian Seafood Festival

by Larry Smith

Fifteen Nassau restaurants are showcasing special dishes and offering fixed price menus this week as part of the Great Bahamian Seafood Festival, which climaxes on Friday and Saturday downtown.

My assignment was to review a couple of them. Options ranged from the casual (Da Fish Fry and Traveller's Rest) to the opulent (Greycliff and the Bahamian Club). I settled on Seafront Sushi and Aqua at the British Colonial Hilton.

For purists, the ultimate seafood experience is Japanese. Sashimi and sushi both require a variety of high grade, very fresh, raw fish - anything from octopus to tuna. And it's damn good for your cholesterol level. Sashimi is thinly sliced raw fish served with garnishes and soy sauce. Sushi pairs the fish with vinegared rice, and other ingredients.

The Two Arthurs & Majority Rule in the Bahamas

By Simon

Eighteen PLPs, a Labour Party member and an independent constituted the parliamentary team who ushered in Majority Rule in 1967.  Eight are still with us: Arthur Hanna, Clifford Darling, Arthur Foulkes, Warren Levarity, Maurice Moore, Loftus Roker, Elwood Donaldson and Edmund Moxey.  Five of these left the PLP. Three remained.

Half or nine of these 18 PLP parliamentarians left the party, including a Dissident Eight.  Eventually, Edmund Moxey also left.  While the PLP remained in power for 25 years, the split among the core political leadership who ushered in Majority Rule came fast and furious.  

And it came faster than that of most majority rule parties in the Commonwealth Caribbean.  Despite an overwhelming parliamentary majority in 1968, the ruptures in that PLP Government came within approximately 24 months.

In 1970, a group of Free PLPs left a party that they concluded was increasingly more preoccupied with power and personalities, and less so with many of the principles and policies which inspired the struggle for Majority Rule.

One of the ironies of modern Bahamian politics is that their departure left an often perceived liberal and progressive PLP, more conservative and reactionary.  It left the party less tolerant of dissent and more prone to crush dissidence in the service of a cult of personality and a sense of an entitlement to rule. 

Searching for a New COB President – Pt. 1

In the opening chapters of 2010, two Caribbean intellectuals featured prominently. Following Haiti’s devastating earthquake in January, Sir Hilary Beckles, principal of the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill, Barbados, penned the brilliant commentary, the Hate and the Quake. 

In early February, cultural icon Rex Nettleford died suddenly.  An intellectual and brilliant dancer, Professor Nettleford was still serving as a lecturer and vice chancellor emeritus of UWI when he passed away at 77.

These men were not singularly administrators. They were also academics whose visionary voices resonated in the academy and beyond.  Both men produced exuberant bodies of work, including a number of books.  Both proved to be beautiful thinkers, beautiful writers and beautiful citizens of the Caribbean.

Professors Nettleford and Beckles appreciated that the life of the community, both national and pan-Caribbean, requires a cultivation of the life of the mind, of the imagination and of the human spirit -- with a Caribbean flavour.  They dedicated themselves to these tasks through a fierce commitment to rigorous critical inquiry.

An Enduring Revolution – Part 1

by Simon

Asked his assessment of the 1789 French Revolution, a mid-20th century Chinese leader cautioned, perhaps apocryphally, "It is too soon to tell!"  Just 34 years after his death, China is significantly different from the isolated and economically anaemic state Zhou Enlai governed as premier from 1949 to 1976.  He appreciated that history is best measured in centuries rather than in decades.  

There is a narrative in some post-independent former British colonies in the Caribbean that majority rule has failed or is failing.  This line of reason ploughed its way into last Wednesday’s Nassau Guardian editorial: “A failing revolution”.  The editorial was based on obviously false premises and historical revisionism.

It was also typical of that genre of editorializing which believes that the problems in one’s own country are worse than those of much of the rest of the world.  Such narrow viewpoints are best expanded by a broader perspective of the contemporary struggles of other countries. 

Bahamian Ayatollahs on Homosexual Warpath Again

by Larry Smith

One is hard-pressed to discern what drives people like Lyall Bethel of the Coalition of Evangelical Pastors to become so obsessed with an imaginary plot to take over the world that he and others like to refer to as "the gay militant agenda".

This conspiracy theory is just as incredible as those variants of the 911 Truth movement which seek to lay the blame for the terror attacks in New York on Jews, who all stayed home from their jobs in the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001 to watch the destruction on TV.

One would expect that the multitude of social ills afflicting our small population would be enough to occupy any self-respecting religious leader from now until the second coming, without having to resort to punitive campaigns over non-issues like sex and gambling. But Bethel believes the so-called gay agenda is such a grave threat that he periodically submits pompous faux scholarship to the newspapers to "prove" his point.

"We will fight vigorously to defend this country from further infiltration," he wrote in a letter to the Tribune last week. Bethel is convinced we are at war, and the enemy are those vile homosexuals in our midst. He cites "studies" which claim that gays threaten public health, social order and the safety of our children - conclusions that are generally at odds with legitimate published research, not to mention everyday experience.

Andros Island -- Big, Long & Strong

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.

Andros Island, the fifth largest island in the Caribbean, and larger than many Caricom countries, is big and long.  It boasts one of the largest national parks in the region, one of the world’s largest barrier reefs and a magnificent Tongue of the Ocean with a 6,000 foot drop-off.

From the Bahamas National Trust: “As one of the least populated regions in The Caribbean Basin, Andros Island and its myriad of tidal creeks, interconnected lakes, mud flats, and mangroves support some of the largest populations of underwater life in the region.”

Both the Central Andros National Park and the west side of Andros are areas of phenomenal natural beauty and diversity.  Dr. Philip Kramer, the Nature Conservancy’s Caribbean Marine Program Director, enthuses: