The most fundamental characteristic of the modern Bahamas isn’t tradition, ambition, or national pride as we like to pretend... ...but rather shame

A Look Into The Shadows

“What happened to these masses, to this people? For forty years it had been driven through the desert, with threats and promises, with imaginary terrors and imaginary rewards. But where was the Promised Land?”

– Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon

 

 

By PACO NUNEZ

Tribune News Editor

pnunez@tribunemedia.net

 

 

 

THE pervasive sunshine for which this country is known casts deep shadows where over the years, poisonous secrets have accumulated.

 

So accustomed are we to our description in the vacation brochures – a welcoming, exuberant, God-fearing people – that even we have come to mistake this mask for our own face.

 

But under its official, picture-postcard skin, the Bahamas has a troubled soul.

 

It has become a place filled with pain, rage and despair. A place where the sunlight blankets the surface but does not penetrate.

 

And who are the people who live in these shadows?

 

They are the fatherless young and the mothers of dead children. Victims of sexual predation and hostages in their own homes.

 

They are participants in unspeakable acts, in a constant struggle to live with themselves.

 

People who spend their whole lives paying for mistakes they were never equipped to avoid.

 

They are the wrongfully condemned and the zealous executioners. The murderers and the next of kin.

 

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it means you are one of the privileged few.

 

Thanks to wealth, status or just plain luck, so far you’ve been spared contact with the tide of destructive social forces that is shaping the modern Bahamas.

 

But it also means you’re in the minority, out of touch with where this country is really headed.

 

The unwelcome truth is that 40 years after Independence, we find ourselves farther than ever from the Promised Land which was promised to us then.

 

And, what do we really have to show for it but an arsenal of superficial explanations, skilful deflections and short-term remedies?

 

Very few are willing to soil their hands tugging at the roots of our deterioration; willing to remove the mask and look the truth in the face.

 

One such is Dr David Allen, for whom brutal honesty is a necessary ingredient in a workable solution.

 

The Bahamas, he says, is being taken over by an “ominous and pervasive culture of violence and destruction”.

 

Reporting on the findings of his research in 2010, he said: “We found a powerful sense of anger amongst us Bahamians. Throughout the three-year study participants talked about ‘outting’, which was the word for killing; poisoning – women particularly – and suicide.

 

“A few months ago we had a young girl commit suicide. We have five of her friends who want to do the same thing right now.

 

“Bahamians are saying I don’t feel the murders anymore; it’s just what is supposed to happen. They build a wall in their heart.

 

“In a group of 10 to 15 year olds, they don’t expect to live long. As a result (they think), you do what you can, get as much money, and then if you get killed or kill somebody, that’s it.

 

“Most disturbing is we found a number of young girls who had no compunction about giving their bodies for money. They pay for their education, but they also pay for their parents’ air conditioning, refrigeration and also their cable.

 

“The point is they had no feeling about it. They said, ‘Doc, that is what you call survival in the Bahamas.’ That was very, very disturbing.”

 

For Dr Allen, the difficult economic circumstances of the last few years did not beget an upsurge in crime and violence, as politicians like to claim.

 

Rather, material hardship unleashed forces that have been building in the shadows for more than three decades.

 

These forces were born and nurtured during the drug crisis of the 1980s, when more than two-thirds of the cocaine that made its way into the United States passed through the Bahamas, leaving in its wake a multitude of hopeless addicts and converts to the cult of easy money.

 

The toxins have been in our system ever since, slowly poisoning our sociocultural values, giving rise to ever more destructive behaviours and adding to the tally of silent victims.

 

The result is that the most fundamental characteristic of the modern Bahamas, the thing that really makes it tick, isn’t tradition, ambition, or national pride as we like to pretend, but rather shame.

 

We have become, Dr Allen says, a shame-based society, and the things we love to condemn in our neighbour – dishonesty, callousness, aggression – turn out to be necessary consequences of this fact.

 

Shame, he explains, is caused by “impacted hurt” – pain that has been trapped or blocked from being worked out along its natural course. Abuse that is swept into the corner, neglect that is hidden away.

 

“The shame response to this kind of hurt leads to self worthlessness, helplessness, hopelessness – depression and feelings of victimisation,” he says.

 

“We defend from intolerable shame through anger and a false self that is concerned with self absorption, ego gratification, revenge and aggressive control.

 

“This ultimately manifests as passive or overt aggression, and finally violence.”

 

He notes that nearly every person he interviewed who was involved in a serious crime had suffered some severe form of physical or sexual abuse.

 

One of his colleagues added that shame is “like a hot potato” – impossible to hold for long, hefted onto someone else at the earliest opportunity in an effort to seek temporary relief. And so the cycle of shame and violence is perpetuated exponentially.

 

If acts such as murder and suicide are not events but rather processes, it follows that to end the cycle of violence we must interrupt its progression before it manifests itself in action.

 

But if this is right, our after-the-fact, retribution based approach to justice is probably doing more harm than good – injecting even more anger and incentive for revenge into the cycle.

 

The same goes for efforts to stem the destructive tide with job creation, funding grants, and training programmes.

 

These are all helpful to an extent, but economics alone can’t heal shame.

 

Simply throwing money at the problem often does nothing but fuel a shortsighted and corrosive consumerism which itself arose as a strategy to conceal shame.

 

“Love is the antidote to shame,” Dr Allen says. “If we can apply love to the hurt, then we melt shame and stop the cycle of murderous rage and violence.”

 

His ground-breaking strategy for doing so, “The Family”, is named after what he believes was one of the most calamitous casualties of the drug years – the stable two-parent household.

 

The group has been running for six years and now has around 60 adult members, the majority of whom simply walked in one day feeling compelled to unburden themselves of the pain that was threatening to consume them.

 

A guest at their weekly meeting last Wednesday, I was profoundly moved not just by their testimonies of suffering, but also the disarming atmosphere of openness and honesty.

 

In a culture that has become dominated by self-denial, where everyone wears a disguise, I witnessed people giving voice for the first time to deep anxieties, profound hurt, closely held secrets.

 

And I watched them being welcomed with sympathy and understanding into a group of fellow travellers; into an organically developing support system in which positive emotions like gratitude and benevolence can flourish; into a Family.

 

The group is at once a microcosm of the problem – the full range of torments that afflict our people is represented – and a testament to the solution.

 

Dr Allen’s impressive results speak for themselves. But the programme as it stands is far too small to hold back the tide on its own.

 

So the real question is, do the rest of us have the courage to support his efforts?

 

Are we capable of facing up to what we’ve become, or will we continue to pretend that all’s well in the land of sun and sea, hoping thereby to attract sufficient tourist dollars to paper over the cracks?

 

 

What do you think?

 

Email questions or comments to pnunez@tribunemedia.net, or join the conversation at: http://www.tribune242.com/news/opinion/insight/

 

March 04, 2013

 

Tribune242

 

Caribbean Blog International

 

The Bahamas 2010 Census Report provides innumerable opportunities for government agencies, private researchers ...and the general public ...to better understand our Bahamas

The Bahamas in numbers

The Nassau Guardian Editorial

Our census, a vital and complicated undertaking, describes the identity of The Bahamas through numbers.  It is also indicative of trends and analysis of data based on successive census reports.

For The Bahamas this not only means comparison on a regional scale, but also between our islands.  Remarkably, this is the 19th decennial census to be conducted in The Bahamas.  Early census counts are not likely to be comparable to recent data due to likely discrepancies in survey methods, but they nonetheless provide value to the history of The Bahamas.

Interestingly, the census report makes note of the first census in 1722 whereby 74 percent of the population was white and 26 percent black, compared to the 2010 census whereby 91 percent identified themselves as black, five percent white, and two percent as of mixed race.  Such an extreme reorientation of the racial makeup of a country identifies the need to reexamine assumptions about who we are.

Population statistics are perhaps the most widely recognized outcome of a census.  For those living in New Providence, it is all too obvious that the island accounts for 246,329 people or 70 percent of the total Bahamian population.  With an additional 35,497 people since 2000, it is all too apparent that the roads are more congested, lines a bit longer and the housing prices just a bit higher.

But herein lies the importance of data availability.  While New Providence may have experienced the greatest increase in people, several other islands had a much higher percent change in population growth – take Abaco, which experienced an increase of 4,054 people or nearly 31 percent to a population of 17,224 compared to 2000.  Though such an increase would be nominal for New Providence over 10 years, in Abaco the additional people stress local infrastructure from power generation to road maintenance.

The Bahamas’ greatest challenge is providing and maintaining basic infrastructure across the populated islands.  Even with all the controversy, Abaco needed a new power generating facility and still suffers from countless power failures.  While the population congregates in New Providence, growth and a retraction of growth on some islands must guide government expenditure and planning.

Likewise, the government must accept the diversity of residents living in The Bahamas and amend its immigration policies.  Seventeen percent of the population claims citizenship elsewhere, the majority or 64 percent were from Haiti.  Though the census claims to account for residents regardless of immigration status, it is difficult to imagine that the census was able to account for all residents of known Haitian communities such as those found in Abaco.

The Nassau Guardian has reported on specific data tables such as Internet access and usage, health insurance and access to toilets at private dwellings.  There are numerous other tables where trends can be extrapolated on for use in education planning, the looming retirement of baby boomers and their future healthcare needs, marriage trends and reproduction rates.

A copy of the Census 2010 Report became publicly available online on Monday, October 15.  Such data provides innumerable opportunities for government agencies, private researchers and the general public to better understand our Bahamas.

March 07, 2013

thenassauguardian editorial

Dr. Myles Munroe, and the women who men are looking for...

The Watchwoman: Myles Munroe's Dangerous Doctrine For Women

 
By NOELLE NICOLLS




A sermon delivered by Dr Myles Munroe, president and founder of the Bahamas Faith Ministries International (BFMI), has been making its way around the social sphere generating a lot of debate. I watched the video because it was shared by a close friend, even though the online group “Meeting In The Ladies Room” posted it with a message stating: “All Ladies Regardless Of Marital Status Should Watch This!”

After watching the sermon the first, second, third and fourth time, with an open mind, I still could not bring myself to understand, why and how so many women were giving it rave reviews. One woman declared the message to be “profound and powerful!!”. Another woman said: “Amazing word. I can’t wait to show this to my sons.” And yet another called for the message to be played on a “bull horn”. She said it was so “absolutely wonderful” the mighty word had to get out.

I was completely perplexed by these responses, because the same sermon that brought these women to a spiritual orgasm made me want to go out gunning to slay the wolf. I was not completely alone, although certainly in the minority, for there were a handful of dissenting voices amongst the faithful flock who thought the message was outright offensive.

Dr Munroe’s sermon speaks to the story of Adam and Eve, the first marriage in history, according to the Christian creation story, and shares lessons on the role of men and women in relationships.

In the words of Dr Munroe: “The third thing God told the man - Genesis 2:15 - is cultivate. Cultivate means to bring out the best in everything around you, to maximise the potential of everything around you, to make everything fruitful. He only said that to the male. That is why God will never give a man a finished woman.

“The male was created by God to create what he wants. The woman you are looking for, brother, does not exist. She is in your head. Your job is to take the raw material you married and cultivate her into the woman in your head. So if you have been married for 20 years and you still don’t like the product you get, that is your fault,” said Dr Munroe.

When are we going to move away from following doctrines that make women objects in a man’s world. Not only is Dr Munroe explicit in referring to a wife as a product of her husband, he says men are entitled by divine decree to create the women they want.

Such is the conditioning that occurs in abusive relationships, where men tell their women what clothes to wear, how to style their hair, the friends they can maintain and the places they can go. These are the conditions that foster relationships of power and control, the foundation of all abuse. And while the message is gendered in Dr Munroe’s context, it has broader meaning in the context of healthy relationships, because the same doctrine applied in reverse creates the same conditions for abuse.

Speaking about Jesus’ relationship to his wife, Dr Munroe said: “Jesus Christ is a real man, a real man. He has a wife, a beautiful woman. Her name was Ecclesia. He said about his wife, he said husband love your wife like I love my wife. He tells us how to do it. He says you wash her with the word, and then you remove every spot, every wrinkle, every blemish and then present her to yourself. That is mine, I did that. I produced that. Look at her. Look at her. That’s my baby.”

Our leaders need to start using language to affirm the value of men and women and their equal standing in the eyes of God; to affirm the individuality of every man and woman. Our leaders need to consider the way in which their language socialises impressionable young girls and boys, who are trying to negotiate gender relationships in their youth. His message is dangerous not only because it objectifies women, but also because it lays the foundation for the subjugation of women.

Patriarchal religious doctrines have been used for centuries as reason to deprive women of their individual freedoms, and we must never forget. Male interpretations of religious texts have been used to justify some of the most persistent and pervasive human rights abuses. And while organised religion has evolved since its brutish origins, the church has not shed all of its misguided ways.

It is in the language used by church leaders like Dr Munroe that we see those lingering remnants of the patriarchal order, in which robbed men “twisted and distorted holy scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy”. It is this language that often provides the foundation and justification for the abuse of women throughout the world.

Human rights activist Jimmy Carter, the former US president, recently spoke to this very issue when he stated emphatically, along with elders from many faiths: “The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a higher authority, is unacceptable.

“At their most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.”

In Dr Munroe’s sermon, he speaks about God placing man in his presence. He was not referring to man in the sense of the human race, but rather men, represented in Adam. Eden, as in the Garden of Eden, he said represents an environment, a place of divine presence, an open door to God, where Adam was placed.

Dr Munroe further described the spiritual hierarchy that exists between man, woman and God. Referencing scripture, he said God also gave the man his word. When God commanded Adam not to “touch the tree (of knowledge)”, God never spoke to Eve. The significance, Dr Munroe suggested, is that the male is the only one to have been blessed by God with the word (a direct relationship to God). A wife, though she too is created in the image and likeness of God, has to wait to be taught by her husband, for only he stands in God’s presence and was blessed by the word.

In response to a lonely dissenter on the video feed, one faithful follower wrote: “If you find this appalling or offensive don’t read the Bible.” Part of me believes there is wisdom in her response. Another part of me wants to believe there is hope for women of the Christian faith who reject male interpretations of holy scriptures that establish gender hierarchies and justify the superiority of men.

I will certainly question any doctrine that creates a foundation and justification for the abuse of women throughout the world, no matter how divinely ordained the messenger claims to be.

Noelle Nicolls is the Tribune Features Editor. Her Watchwoman column explores genders issues in politics and culture from a feminist perspective. Follow Noelle online at Twitter.com/noelle_elleon.

March 05, 2013

Tribune 242

Caribbean Blog International

Nassau besieged?

The dignity and equality of gays and lesbians
Front Porch
BY SIMON

Recall the hysteria and hate-drenched anti-gay demonstrations of the previous two decades protesting gay and lesbian visitors cruising to the country to experience our Bahamian hospitality.

Some of the gay-bashers invoked the narrative of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19.  Genesis, like other books of the Hebrew Scriptures, consists of numerous literary genres and devices.

Genesis contains not one, but two, creation accounts, literary renderings crafted by ancient scribes to convey theological meaning.  Today, literalists still believe these to be factual accounts, though the science of evolution demonstrates otherwise. Sodom and Gomorrah recalls an ancient Jewish prohibition against sodomy and homosexuality.  Today, modern science offers compelling facts and hypotheses on the nature, complexity and range of human sexuality.

Still, literalists have the right to entertain fact-free opinions on the genesis of life and the genesis of homosexuality much as racists of old utilized Christian Scripture, pseudo-science and bigotry to justify slavery and white supremacy.

Eventually, the homophobes will be written into history as intellectual cave dwellers whose primitive world views were exorcised by the evolution of human ethical consciousness and moral progress.

Antediluvian

Those who marched fervently in support of segregation, even in living memory for Jim Crow in America and apartheid in South Africa, have seen the judgement of contemporaries and of history on their antediluvian theologies and philosophies.

Which brings us back to the anti-gay demonstrations at the City of Nassau, and to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

While reflections on sodomy and homosexuality as referenced in Genesis 19 dominate the exegesis of the story in various quarters, there is another theological interpretation.

For various theologians and preachers, inhospitality is the great or greater moral failing at Sodom and Gomorrah.  This insight seemed lost on the unwelcoming protestors who gathered downtown, targeting a select group of visitors in a demonstration of inhospitality, and incivility by some.

It is revealing that the clerical clique and their claque of crusaders were more moved to demonstrate against gays in port for a few hours, than they have been to protest the sometimes orgy of nubile and half-naked, stoned and drunk, fornicating and gambling, straight spring breakers in town for several weeks.

Apparently, certain favorite “sins” give some moralists goose bumps, titillating and inflaming their moral loins more than other sins.  But back to our story.  It is April 14, 1998.  Here is LifeSiteNews.com’s read of the day’s events: “Besieged by gay cruise ships, Bahama residents held a protest Tuesday at the arrival of yet another gay ‘Love Boat’ on its shores. About 300 demonstrators from a group called Save the Bahamas crowded Prince George Wharf where the cruise ship SeaBreeze [sic] had docked with its 800 lesbian passengers.”

Nassau besieged?  One might have imagined from this report, that the pleasant sounding SeaBreeze, populated mostly by lesbian passengers armed with sun tan lotion, greenbacks and piña coladas, was another battleship in a gay armada intent on laying siege to “Bahama residents”.

Exaggerated

Thankfully, the cruise did not prove even as threatening as the exaggerated story of Colonel Andrew Deveaux Jr.’s brief siege of Nassau in 1783.  Still, there was a scuffle of sorts as reported by LifeSiteNews.com, revealing who was actually besieged and by whom: “When eight of the SeaBreeze passengers decided to brave the demonstration and headed toward the straw market, the crowd turned and headed toward them, yelling ‘Go back. Go back.’  Five of the women turned and headed back toward the ship; three charged ahead, and were followed for several blocks by a group of six protesters.”

Some years later, in 2004, following another gay cruise, and in response to Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe, then President of the Bahamas Christian Council (BCC) Rev. Dr. William Thompson offered a sermonette from the Mount of Ridiculousness.

Wilchcombe was quoted in The Tribune: “We live in a democracy, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and expression thereof.”  Reacting in a statement carried by this journal, the cleric attacked long-established democratic principles and the Constitution.

“Rev. Thompson said while The Bahamas is a democratic nation, ‘It is not true that everyone is entitled to express their opinion in any way they wish, this would result in anarchy...’”

Yes, there are limits to freedom of speech.  Yet he continued: “‘A democracy, while safeguarding the concerns of the minority, is committed to carrying out the will of the majority of its citizens.’”

He got it partially right.  But the part he got wrong, both on ethical and constitutional grounds, is appalling, the mindset of a theocrat, and not a democrat living in a pluralistic society.

Slavery was the will of the majority in the United States for centuries.  This did not make it moral that the majority approved of the denial of rights to a minority.

The tyranny of the majority has led to the persecution of minorities throughout history, including Christians, as testified to by St. Paul and the early church.  Religious freedom is dependent on the protection of minority rights, rights denied still in countries where Christians are being killed today.

If the world subscribed to Thompson’s views, the suppression of the views and expressions of religious freedom by Christian minorities would be acceptable in countries where there are non-Christian majorities.

Thompson, seemingly happily ignorant of the Constitution, thundered: “More importantly, we are not dealing with an opinion, we are instead dealing with a deviant lifestyle that is offensive to the majority of Bahamians.”

Whatever Thompson may think of the manner in which gays and lesbians live, they have as much right to voice their opinions, express their love, form associations and enjoy the freedoms that he enjoys.  While many find his opinions and actions idiotic and offensive, he has a right to appear foolish and uninformed.

Ignorant

Notice Thompson’s cleverly ignorant conflation of “opinion” and “lifestyle”.  What he seems to be saying to gays and lesbians is that their freedom of speech should be limited, that they should shut the hell up, because the majority doesn’t like their lifestyle.

Disturbingly, Thompson is now executive chairman of ZNS, overseeing a state broadcast media supposedly committed to a free exchange of viewpoints.

Bishop Sam Greene, another former BCC president, notoriously intimated that if the government sanctioned gay and lesbian marriages, he would follow the example of Guy Fawkes, who, in 1605, attempted to blow up Parliament.

While Thompson appeared unhappy with gays and lesbians expressing themselves, this writer does not recall his publicly rebuking Greene for comments that may have constituted an incitement to violence and anarchy.

Much of today’s rabidly anti-gay agenda is led by those whose world views are pre-modern and pre-Enlightenment, when gays and lesbians were persecuted and demonized, before the protection of minorities was codified in the rule of law and when the likes of Guy Fawkes were stoking verbal and literal fireworks.

The virulent anti-gay crusaders were historic throwbacks even when they were demonstrating their inhospitality to gay cruise ship passengers.  Today, as gays and lesbians are increasingly seen first and foremost as fellow human beings, and not as objects of derision, the homophobes appear even more dated.

Gays and lesbians are neighbors and co-workers; politicians, police officers and pastors; volunteers and role models; heroes and heroines, friends and family; parents and life-partners, who are owed mutual respect and basic equality by right of their citizenship as children of God and as fellow Bahamians.

The considerable shift in global consciousness continues to move in the direction of upholding the value and dignity of human beings based on the content of one’s character, and not the happenstance of race, gender or sexual orientation.

• frontporchguardian@gmail.com , bahamapundit

February 28, 2013

thenassauguardian

Caribbean Blog International

The Bahamas needs to determine its position on the death penalty ...says Bahamas Bar Council President, Ruth Bowe-Darville

'Time To Decide On Death Penalty'

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMAS Bar Council President, Ruth Bowe-Darville, is calling on the Bahamas to take a firm legislative position on the death penalty.

Her remarks came during a meeting of the Bahamas Constitutional Commission yesterday where she represented the Council’s position on several areas of constitutional reform.

“The country needs to determine its position on the death penalty,” Mrs. Bowe-Darville said, “We are being urged on by several international agencies that firmly pronounce against the death penalty and then there is the legal precedent of Pratt and Morgan vs The Attorney General of Jamaica that has reduced many sentences to life imprisonment due to the inordinate and excessive delay in carrying out a lawful sentence.”

She also warned against the haste of implementing the Caribbean Court of Justice to replace the Privy Council as the most influential body to advise the head of state of the nation.

“Regrettably, there is no firm resolve by Bar members for replacing the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice. However, whether we sign on to the CCJ or retain the Privy Council, the decisions of our final court must be observed by the Executive as well as the judicial and legislative branches of our country, so that respect for the Rule of Law is entrenched in our culture. Perhaps, now is not the time for the CCJ,” she said.

Mrs. Bowe-Darville also called for the establishment of several new appointments with the Judicial system, including an Office of an Independent Director of Public Prosecutions, an Office of Public Defender, and the establishment of an Ombudsman.

“In re-assessing the needs of our country and being forever cognizant of the prevailing social and economic ills in our society, the introduction of an Office of an Independent Director of Public Prosecutions as an entrenched provision of our Constitution is welcomed. Such an office should in principle alleviate the burden on the Office of the Attorney General in the area of criminal prosecution. However, such an office must be given the autonomy to perform the task, sans political interference,” she said.

“Further the proposition should also extend to the establishment of an Office of Public Defender. Such a department could ultimately be a boost to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, it will complement it. It is proposed there be a recommendation for the establishment of an Ombudsman. This office, like that of the independent Director of Public Prosecutor, will require the appointment of a person with a significant degree of independence who is charged with representing the interests of the public by investigating and addressing the complaints of maladministration or violation of rights. The Ombudsman generally seeks to promote and protect human rights,” she said.

February 26, 2013

Tribune 242 

Caribbean Blog International

Flip-floppers and double talk in Bahamian Politics

Double talk

An up close look at duplicity and hypocrisy in nat’l politics

BY CANDIA DAMES
Guardian News Editor
candia@nasguard.com

The political landscape is forever changing and with it comes shifting political positions.

For some politicians, their views on issues of national import evolve due to certain developments that cast new light on these matters.  In some circumstances, this is quite understandable.

But for others, their positions shift based on political expediency and opportunity.

These are the flip-floppers, the hypocrites, the duplicitous bunch who may be stunned perhaps if confronted with past statements lined up against current views.

Very rarely do their words come back to haunt them; not because the evidence of their duplicity is not there, but because it often remains buried on the dusty pages of newspapers that are clipped and stored away.

These politicians depend on the short memories of the electorate, perhaps, or the failure of media to do a better job at making them accountable for their utterances and actions.

The examples of double talk stretch back years, and really take little digging to be exposed, especially in the technological age.

In opposition, some politicians latch on to pet issues — crime, the environment, education and others.  But in government, they sometimes lose whatever ‘passion’ they might have had for these issues.

To be clear, the flip-floppers are not unique to any one party or philosophical grouping. They are on every side.  They use words to score points, assuage fears and grab headlines.

Often, they change positions based on what side of the political aisle they may be on at the time.  In opposition, a politician’s view on a subject may differ entirely from the view he or she might express in government.

The archives of The Nassau Guardian reveal more than enough flip-flopping, duplicity and hypocrisy to write many weeks of articles.

Consider these few examples:

Dr. Bernard Nottage on the Coroner’s Court

In opposition, Dr. Nottage was a passionate advocate for crime victims and strong in his concerns about alleged police abuse.

He seemed to have little trust in the Corner’s Court or in the police to investigate themselves.

But as national security minister, his tone is different.

After two men died in police custody just over a week ago, Dr. Nottage cautioned the public against making assumptions until all the facts are known.

“I can’t rush to judgment,” he told reporters.  “I hold the commissioner of police directly responsible for the conduct of his officers.  He knows that, he reports to me regularly and my experience thus far has been where justifiable complaints have been made against police officers, the commissioner has been resolute in pursuing the matter to its lawful conviction.”

Further expressing confidence in the police and the coroner to do their job, Dr. Nottage said, “It is my view that even without the coroner’s involvement if the matter could be investigated by police that a thorough job would be done.

“But I don’t think that would satisfy the public and so that is why the coroner, who is an independent institution, is very important in this matter.”

In September 2012, after The Nassau Guardian reported on several fatal police shootings, Nottage said criminals cannot expect to brandish weapons at police without facing consequences.

In December 2010, he was not a minister.  Back then he expressed little faith in the police and in the Coroner’s Court.

On December 1, 2010, he called for an independent public inquiry into the death of Shamarco Newbold, a 19-year-old who was killed by police.

“It is not good enough to refer it to the Coroner’s Court, Mr. Speaker,” Nottage said in the House of Assembly.

“Neither is it good enough for there to be an internal inquiry on the part of the police.”

These days, it is good enough as far as Nottage is concerned.

As an aside, Nottage has yet to use his position of power to push for ‘Marco’s Law’ or the establishment of a sex offenders’ register, things he called for while in opposition, after the murder of 11-year-old Marco Archer in September 2011.

“I believe that out of this sad event will come new policies and perhaps even new legislation... possibly a Marco's Law.  I shall push for that," he vowed back then.

The legislation would seek to strengthen the penalties associated with child molestation, he said.

Perhaps Dr. Nottage will use his weight before the end of this term to push for the things he called for in opposition.

Darron Cash and BTC

Free National Movement (FNM) Chairman Darron Cash has more than one example of being a flip-flopper, but for the purpose of this piece, I will focus on just one.

After Prime Minister Perry Christie told reporters last week that the government is considering appointing a select committee to examine the controversial 2011 sale of 51 percent of the shares of the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) to Cable and Wireless Communications (CWC), Cash lashed out in a statement.

He said, “The suggestion that [Christie] wants a probe of the BTC sale to Cable and Wireless first evokes disbelief, then laughter and pity”.

Cash then urged the government to “bring it on”.

He said probing BTC would be a “meaningless journey” that would waste taxpayer dollars.

Cash also accused Christie of trying to deflect attention away from his “nine months of colossal failure and ineptitude”.

And he said the prime minister was attempting to tarnish the legacy of former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham.

Stunning words from a man who was so critical of the BTC deal back in 2011 that he wrote a lengthy article on why the deal was a bad one.

In fact, Cash himself urged then Prime Minister Ingraham to “take the Cable and Wireless/LIME deal back to the drawing board and design a better deal”.

Cash wrote, “I disagree with the government’s proposed action.  I believe it is wrong for the country, this decision to sell the country short.

“It is a betrayal of future generations, and like a bad stock on BISX — in which you have little confidence — the government is selling the next generation (my generation) short.”

In that piece, Cash seemed to have suggested that the deal would have reflected poorly on Ingraham’s legacy.  His tone has changed.

How could Darron Cash expect anyone to take him seriously?

If it is the FNM’s position that Christie’s contemplation of a probe is laughable or evokes pity, Cash should have been the last person to say so.

His position on the BTC deal was clear at the time he stated it.

Defending himself yesterday, Cash said, “As to my personal position regarding the sale of BTC, let me make one thing abundantly clear to the chairman of the PLP; my position on the sale of BTC has absolutely nothing to do with whether the present government should waste public money on a meaningless inquiry into that sale.”

The mid-year budget statement

This week, the Christie administration will present its mid-year budget statement, revealing adjustments in spending and providing a progress report on the state of public finances and the economy.

The practice of presenting the statement was instituted by the Ingraham administration, and every year during the debate that followed, the PLP’s position was that it was a waste of time.

In a statement on February 23, 2011, the PLP said the mid-year budget was “a waste of time, a public relations sham like so much of what this government does by sleight of hand”.

It was the message of the PLP during each debate of the mid-year budget under Ingraham.

For example, during debate in the Senate on March 16, 2009, then Senator Allyson Maynard-Gibson repeated what her colleagues had to say in the House.

“The mid-year budget review is a waste of time, staff resources and money,” she opined. “The information in this mid-year budget could have been given in a one man press conference.”

A few days earlier, then Minister of State for Immigration Branville McCartney defended the Ingraham administration for bringing the mid-year budget.

“Our country should be forever grateful to our visionary prime minister, the Rt. Hon. Hubert A. Ingraham, for having the fore thought to introduce this concept of a mid-year budget report to Parliament,” McCartney said.

“…This exercise is critical towards our government’s effort to encourage and promote accountability, transparency, best financial practices and proper budget planning”.

This year, the mid-year budget statement will apparently not be a waste of time because the PLP is bringing it.

Such is politics I suppose.

Unemployment numbers

The Department of Statistics recently released new unemployment numbers that show the unemployment rate in The Bahamas decreased slightly from 14.7 percent to 14 percent.

The latest survey was conducted from October 29 to November 4, 2012. It showed that 165,255 were listed as employed and 26,950 were listed as unemployed.

The governing party welcomed the news, saying it is evidence that Christie and his team are moving the economy in the right direction.

While it was only a slight decrease, Minister of State for Finance Michael Halkitis said it was good news nonetheless.

But unlike August 2011, the PLP had no concerns that the Department of Statistics did not count discouraged workers — that group of people who are willing to work but who have become so discouraged they have given up looking for work.

Back then when the department released numbers showing that the rate had dropped from 14.2 percent to 13.7 percent, the PLP criticized statisticians who had conducted the survey.

In fact, the party staged a demonstration. That’s right, a demonstration, placards and all.

During that protest, Elizabeth MP Ryan Pinder said unless discouraged workers are added to the unemployment figure, the overall statistics are “misleading”.

At the same protest, Halkitis said the Ingraham administration was excluding those numbers in an effort to show that the economy is turning around.

Why is no one in the PLP demanding that discouraged workers be included in the latest calculation of the unemployment rate?  Could it be because they are now in power?

At the time of that 2011 protest, Director of the Department of Statistics Kelsie Dorsett fired back, saying both the PLP and the FNM too often use the statistics to gain political points.

“Both the Free National Movement and the Progressive Liberal Party have short-term memories when it comes to how the process works,” Dorsett told The Guardian.

With politicians flip-flopping on so many issues like unemployment numbers, it is likely that the electorate will become even more suspicious, jaded, skeptical and untrusting of politicians.

After all, nobody loves a hypocrite.

February 18, 2013

thenassauguardian

Caribbean Blog International

A prophetic Joe Darville warns:- “…If we continue on the present course, poverty, in its deepest and most abject state ...will be the heritage of our future generation ...unless we as adults in this nation assure every one of our young men and women meaningful occupation ...as they exit the halls of our high schools

Rank Hypocrisy

Jones Bahamas Editorial:




When it comes to hypocrisy-exposed, some of this nation’s religious and other so-called holy ones rank high. Sadly, when it comes to caring for the needs of the captive or bringing succor to those who are being exploited and distressed, these types are nowhere to be found.

By omission they refuse to love their neighbor as they clearly love and adore themselves; thus that river of pain that courses through the lives of so very many Bahamians.

Today, we find distress on the hoof; poverty on the march and any number of men, women and children obliged to live and die under conditions clearly not fit for creatures said to have been made in the image and after the likeness of God Almighty.

Clearly, then, we live in a day, in a time and in a world when things seem to be falling apart is a proposition that is self-evident. Indeed, any reference to the latest breaking news would find story piled upon story as to how this man or that woman has been murdered. On other occasions, the report coming in from the whirlwind speaks to how rage-turned inwards has led this or that troubled person to that dark place where suicide presents itself as the preferred way out of a life suffused with dread, hopelessness and despair.

This is intolerable. We can also tell you that there are occasions when we wake to find ourselves pushed to that place in mind where we feel constrained to note how much certain religious figures have to say about matters such as gay marriage; lesbianism; homosexuality and other such contentiously debated issues. And as the attentive public knows so very well, many of these Church men and others can and do routinely cherry-pick their favorite ‘issues’ for debate, concern and public action. Here the recent brouhaha concerning gambling, gaming and Web-shops comes to mind.

Indeed, we can and do remember the zeal with which they responded to this congeries of issues.
Sadly, similar demonstrated zeal is hardly ever focused on the state of this nation’s youth, the brutal conditions under which they are held when in the so-called protective custody of the state; or for that matter when – perchance – some of them die when in the precincts of this or that police lock-up.

These reverend gentlemen and their bevy of first ladies are hardly ever to be found or seen near any court house as this or that youth man or woman is frog-marched through a justice system which – on occasion – can be unbearably harsh on the poor.

As one of our fellow Bahamians [Joseph Darville] so sagely reminds:-“…Vatican II reminds us that God destined the earth and all it contains for all men and all peoples so that all created things would be shared fairly by all mankind under the guidance of justice tempered by charity…” As Darville explains: – “… In our use of things we are to regard the external goods we legitimately own not merely as exclusive to ourselves but common to others also, in the sense that they can benefit others as well as ourselves.

There is then the universal destination of earthly goods and every man has the right to possess sufficient amount for himself and his family…” Much of this seems to have been lost on some of the holier-than-thou folks who would essay designing Bahamian society after their own cramped interpretation of the Word of the Most High King as witnessed in the life and witness of Jesus Christ in that time when the Word became Flesh and dwelled among us.

A prophetic Joe Darville warns:- “…If we continue on the present course, poverty, in its deepest and most abject state, will be the heritage of our future generation unless we as adults in this nation assure every one of our young men and women meaningful occupation as they exit the halls of our high schools.

Without this assurance, we have failed them miserably and have set the stage for future, certain and guaranteed criminal activity… Devoid of financial opportunities for further education and with the scarcity of jobs, they can so quickly lose that pristine grace of youthful enthusiasm and motivation as they tread the beat of the unemployed and the dispossessed…” For some among us this is the reality they now live; thus the murder and thus the rapine and thus that ocean of misery into which so very many men, women and children have been thrown.

The wasteland beckons; thereafter the dread news in the wind and therefore and thereafter the insistent call for each and every Bahamian professing Christ to come on over and help. In the absence of action, nothing remains but the stench of a most rank species of hypocrisy.

February 19, 2013

Bahama Journal

Caribbean Blog International