So what developments have we witnessed in our national symbols since that first Independence government? ... Unfortunately and shamefully few!

Our national symbols

By Philip C. Galanis

“We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Bahamas attained its independence from Great Britain 38 years ago, a very short time by any measure. During that period, much has been accomplished as a nation, but much more work remains if we are to advance as a mature democracy.  One of the obvious manifestations of nationhood can be observed in the national symbols that we erect around us. Therefore, this week we would like to Consider This… what about our national symbols?  Have we distinguished ourselves in developing our national symbols or in like so many other ways, have we failed to rise to the occasion?

Generally, national symbols are supposed to help to uniquely define who we are and what our values are. These symbols are considered to be a manifestation of a people, embodiments of a nation’s unique culture, history and values. They are intended to unite a people by creating visual, verbal, or iconic representations of national pride and goals that would make them stand out among other nations. For example, when we see the “stars and stripes” or the “hammer and the sickle” we immediately and automatically recognize which nations are being represented.

The most common national symbols are the flag of a nation, its coat of arms, its motto, national colors, and most importantly, its national anthem. These symbols are often rallied around as part of celebrations of patriotism or aspiring nationalism such as independence, autonomy or separation movements and are designed to be inclusive and representative of all the peoples of that community.  National symbols are essential to the development of patriotism and national pride.

The Bahamas has its own national symbols, most of which were adopted with the attainment of national Independence in 1973. Prior to our liberation from the British, our coat of arms bore the Latin insignia “Expulsis Piratis, Restituta Commercia" which every pre-Independence Bahamian student knew translated that once we expelled the pirates, trade was restored to The Bahamas.  We replaced both with the coat of arms and the motto for a new Bahamas with “Forward, Upward, Onward Together”.  Our Founding Fathers also liberated us from the pre-colonial national anthem of “God Save the Queen” to a far more indigenous “March on Bahamaland”.

So what developments have we witnessed in our national symbols since that first Independence government?  Unfortunately and shamefully few!  With the exception of recognizing a few of our national heroes on our Bahamian currency, all of whom, incidentally, were male political luminaries, woefully little progress has been made in this regard. And that is a real tragedy.

To make it a bit clearer, just think about the major countries around the world and how you can almost learn their history and their values by walking the streets of their cities where you are greeted by statues of their heroes and patriots, those individuals whose contributions are inextricably intertwined with the patrimony of that country.  Now cast your eyes on our Bahamas.

With a lengthy history that spans over 500 years on the world stage, the most prominent statues commemorate the contributions of foreigners to the Bahamian story.  First we have an Italian, by way of Spain, Admiral Christopher Columbus, a controversial figure but one whose name and that of The Bahamas are forever joined.  The statue itself, designed by world famous author Washington Irving, very out of place in its rather inappropriate location on the steps of Government House, was a gift in the 1830s from Governor James Carmichael Smith, a man whose dedication to the idea of abolition made him very popular with the enslaved people he championed and reviled by slave owners.

Then we have the statue of Woodes Rogers, former privateer and the first Royal Governor of the Bahamas Islands, which stands commandingly outside of the British Colonial Hilton, built on the site of Fort Nassau, reminding everyone of how he earned his fame as the scourge of the pirates by hanging nearly a dozen at one time at that Fort.  Finally, there is the statue of Queen Victoria, seated since the early 1900s in her marble glory in Parliament Square, in front of our Houses of Parliament.

Indisputably, these three individuals made contributions to The Bahamas.  But so did many others who, other than Sir Milo Butler, whose bust presides over Rawson Square, are uncommemorated and uncelebrated by tangible bronze or marble representations that would stand forever to remind Bahamians and visitors alike of who was responsible for the creation of the modern Bahamas.  The only other statue that graces our downtown hub was created by the same person who created the bust of Sir Milo, Randolph Johnston.  Ironically, it is a bronze statue that stands on Prince George Dock, nicknamed “Bahamian Madonna”, depicting a nameless Bahamian woman carrying a child.  She is a strong national symbol of how Bahamian mothers have stood strong over the centuries, often in the face of adversity, raising generations of children whose contributions are unknown and, like the “Madonna’s” name, long forgotten.

Our public spaces need to be filled with the figures of those Bahamian men and women who fought alongside Sir Milo to make The Bahamas a stable, prosperous and independent nation.  We need to see statues everywhere of not only our political leaders but also those who led us in other areas. On the grounds of our hospital, how about a statue of one of our leading doctors or nurses or midwives?  And then, if ever we have a proper arts center, why not a statue of one or more of the Bahamian giants in the field of the arts?  Outside of our Ministry of Education, why not have a statue of one of our great educators?  In fact, each of our Ministries should have its own statue of someone whose contributions helped to advance that field. Our children should be able to point with pride at these statues that symbolize national excellence and tell their stories instead of merely knowing their names in connection with schools or roads or airports.

Moreover, our Houses of Parliament should be adorned not just with paintings of British personalities who had little, if anything, to do with The Bahamas.  We should commission artists – Bahamian artists – to paint glorious portraits of those whose voices reverberated in vigorous debate through those chambers and whose ideas shaped and produced our modern age.  Those are the familiar Bahamian faces that our current and future parliamentarians should see as they go about conducting the business of the nation, not those of strangers to our islands.

There is one other national symbol that we are lacking – and its lack is becoming a national embarrassment.  Just before Independence, a committee was formed by the House to identify a location for an official residence for the Prime Minister of The Bahamas, a place where he could welcome those dignitaries who would be coming to help celebrate our new nationhood.  A place was identified and everything was in place until an inadvertent and ill-advised slip of the tongue in a Cabinet meeting derailed the entire project.  But that is long past and today we are still without an official place where our Prime Minister can have his offices, his residence and show the proper respect to distinguished visitors by having state dinners in a place established by the state.

There is no reason why we have to take our visiting dignitaries to a hotel – and one not even owned by a Bahamian – to dine with our leaders on state occasions.  We are world famous as hospitable people, a nation that welcomes visitors from all over into our homes and our hearts.  Why is it, then, that our leaders don’t have a national “home” that would symbolize all of our homes into which to welcome those most important visitors who really merit the very best in Bahamian hospitality, not the cold impersonal welcome of a hotel?

It is time, then, that we develop these national symbols and surround ourselves and our visitors with commemorations of Bahamian pride, displaying for all the world to see those men and women of whom we are most proud.  And it is past time that we have a house that symbolizes the Bahamian House and is the home of our leaders and the place where quintessential Bahamian hospitality can be displayed.  It is time to rise to this occasion and, as we near our fourth decade of independence, start to develop true national symbols that will endure and celebrate all we believe in and all that make us unique for centuries to come.

Philip C. Galanis is the managing partner of HLB Galanis & Co., Chartered Accountants, Forensic & Litigation Support Services.

He served 15 years in Parliament.  Please send your comments to:pgalanis@gmail.com

Sep 19, 2011

thenassauguardian

Caribbean Blog International

Bahamas Independence: Rethinking the progress after 37 years

Rethinking the progress after 37 years
By NOELLE NICOLLS
Tribune Staff Report
nnicolls@tribunemedia.net:


WHEN the entire country stood at attention for the very first playing of the Bahamas national anthem and saluted the Bahamas flag for the first time in 1973, did these newly minted Bahamian citizens imagine the Bahamas as it would be in 2010? Thirty-seven years after independence, how would they answer the question: Have the gains achieved since independence translated into true progress?

Eighty-one-year-old Euterpie Thompson of Grants Town said for the first time ever she wished she could pick up her house and move somewhere else. She said she gets “no pleasure going out on the street.”

This year is the worst in her memory. She does not see how political representatives spend money in the community, and all she can see is “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.”

Ninety-seven-year-old veteran straw vendor Doris Grant-Strachan said the Bahamas is worse today than it was during the time of independence.

“I don’t think the country has gotten better. Too much stealing, killing. To me it is worse; since independence things have gotten worse. Children are going astray from small,” said Mrs Grant-Strachan.

People often dismiss the elderly in their recollection of the “good old days” as little more than nostalgic meandering, but given the level of crime and violence, the socio-economic inequality, the materialism, and the modern value systems that characterise the Bahamas today, perhaps there is credence to their claims.

When Sir Lynden Pindling spoke to the House of Assembly in March 1972, to present the green paper on independence, he said: “Only through independence will the country be able to fulfil its development ideals, completing the transition from traditional society to social and economic modernity.”

Former Bahamian Ambassador and agro-consultant Godfrey Eneas said in his recollection of the independence movement there was a fundamental concern about the social injustices and the economic inequities in Bahamian society at the time. He believes the founding fathers were concerned about “trying to level the socio-economic field.”

As to the level of progress towards achieving that vision, Mr Eneas said the country has experienced a lot of transformation, some good, some not so good.

“We are a society which responds to events. We are not in a position to dictate the course of anything. We are extremely vulnerable to the vagaries of industrialised societies, principally the United States. Because of our dependency on these societies; dependency on tourism as an economic engine; dependency on food, (computer) technology; on even how we think about ourselves, all of these factors have impacted the Bahamian since independence, hence the need for a new sense of self,” said Mr Eneas, who is also the author of, “The New Caribbean: A Region in Transition”, and “Agriculture In the Bahamas (1492-1992).”

Classist:

“Rather than a society which denotes ones standing based on race, we have now become more of a classist society. But yet we still have social mobility: one can be born anywhere and aspire or achieve a position of importance,” said Mr Eneas.

Mrs Grant-Strachan said some black people fueled the class divisions by seeking to disassociate themselves from the “poor black people.”

“The black people were trying to be like the white people, some of them. They would fight against their own people. They were mean to their own colour, so they could get more wealthy. They didn’t treat them nice at all,” said Mrs Grant-Strachan.

“I believe they looked up to the white people, because most black people was working for the whites. They would rather be with the white man, because you are black and poor. When these black people got a raise, when you had nothing and happen to get something, I am telling you, some of them were mean. If they had places on rent, or so much money in the bank that time they were big shot, you can’t talk to them, although you black and they black,” she said.

Mr Eneas said he did not subscribe to that belief, and thought it was only applicable to “some people who did not have any training, who were not socialised properly.”

“We have become a very materialistic society. I think that has impacted our view of one another. We see people in terms of what they own; whether they have a big house, big car and that is what people aspire to be instead of looking at the content of one’s character. So in terms of values we have digressed. Economically we have gotten better,” he said.

The country is better off in terms of women’s rights and economic growth, but “a lot of people have displaced values because of material gains,” said Loretta Butler-Turner, granddaughter of founding father Sir Milo Butler, and Minister of State for Social Development in the Free National Movement government.

“You have to weigh it. Whatever we do must be balanced. Bahamians have been people historically who have always measured things materially, from the days of pirates. We have always been geographically positioned where we have always had access to false buoyancy in our economy. So many times when we (compare) our GDP to our Caribbean nations we say we are better off, because we have more money, but when you look intellectually, we are seen to be not so intellectually inclined in the Caribbean,” said Mrs Butler-Turner.

On July 10, 1973, Mrs Butler-Turner said she was a 12-year-old girl. She transitioned from adolescence to adulthood in the two post-independence decades, and has “very vivid recollections” of the era, including the drug trafficking that defined that period. This was also a period of population growth and urbanisation. Mrs Butler-Turner worked closely in her family’s funeral business, and recalls the Bahamas going through “some very difficult years.”

Mrs Butler-Turner said she can identify with the sentiment that “we are not better off”, because as the country transitioned into economic modernity it brought about materialism and social degradation. Even still, she believes it is possible for people to “have very principled values and live a very good life without being compromised by materialism.”

“I still maintain we have made progress on many levels, but ... we need our value systems reinstated. It is the value systems that are out of whack that makes us such a materialistic country. Pre-independence we had much stronger moral values. Post independence we have lost some of those values to economic and material gains. That is my summation. People have to decide which one they prefer. Personally, I probably prefer pre-independence. I think we were more human in spirit,” she said.

The materialism that spread post-independence, may have been fed by the “sense of entitlement” people associated with independence. Some people say there was an expectation that independence would herald in a Robert Mugabe like transfer of wealth that would create socio-economic equality between whites and blacks.

A white Bahamian recalled mowing his lawn one day leading up to the independence celebration. He said a black man stopped in front of his wall and was staring at him. When he inquired about what was going on, the onlooker said “I was just looking at houses I wanted after the election.” The home owner said, “If you want this house you better come mow the lawn.”

Housekeeper:

Another white Bahamian recalled that her housekeeper ordinarily came to work dressed very conservatively. The day after the 1967 general election, she came to work wearing “bright red capri pants expecting to take over the house.”

Mrs Butler-Turner said “a sense of entitlement” could have been brought on unwittingly by the black government of the day, who sought to bring about socio-economic equality. She feels it may have been misleading for some to think that independence meant “we are going to be able to take everything over.”

“There was a feeling that everything that was controlled by the minority would come under the control of the masses with independence, not understanding it still boils down to whether we are prepared to work for what we have,” said Mrs Butler-Turner.

“My recollection was that we were unequal to our rulers before independence. After independence, we were not just going to become equal but entitled. It made a lot of people, who even may not have been prepared intellectually, feel like they had a sense of entitlement.

“Bahamians everywhere felt the floodgates were going to be open without truly understanding it was going to take a lot of hard work to achieve their dreams,” she said.

The question of how we measure progress is important to consider, according to Mrs Butler-Turner. She said the ancient scriptures offer a perspective on success, when they state: “What does it prophet a man if he inherits the world and loses his soul.”

The average Bahamian in their 50s or 60s who grew up in Grants Town, Bain Town, Farm Road, or Englerston had a very different experience growing up in those areas than Bahamians today. That is not the romantic memories of old people, past the age of promise. That is the living memory of many people in the working class, the black middle and upper class community, the political class and the elderly.

“People may have lacked certain material things but there was pride.

“It was reflected in the level of civility, the work ethic, the value system, the way people kept their houses, cleaned their yards,” said Mr Eneas.

Ms Thompson of Grants Town suggests that people today live beyond their means. She said mothers are too young and are having too many children. Ms Thompson had five children and her mother had twelve. Asked to explain why it was okay then and not now, she said: “Not all the time you have the means to take care of children.”

She said her mother with 12 children had “less in a way, money wise,” but “there was no scarcity.” She said they could find fruits all the time: tamarind, cane, mango, bananas, sapodilla. She said her mother owned land in the Family Islands and worked the fields, planting pigeon peas, corn and beans.

She said things are also “more backwards” for women in certain ways, specifically as it relates to reproductive rights.

She said women have to “spend money and do so much” to simply give birth. Four of her five children were born at home. Today, health regulations require women to give birth in the hospital or a registered birthing centre.

“Once you have trained nurses, nothing wrong with giving birth at home,” said Ms Thompson. Home births also have cultural significance in traditional African communities.

In the past 37 years, the influence of urbanisation has had a negative impact on the Bahamas, bringing with it social problems “in terms of the violence and the abuse, and the drug and alcohol addictions,” according to Mr Eneas. He said 85 per cent of the population live between Grand Bahama and New Providence. To this day, he said, “we still haven’t addressed (the urban crisis); there are still people who live in squalor.”

“We have a society where both parents are working; where the large majority are single mothers, and so the way children are brought up today is very different from the way my parents were brought up or your father was brought up. That has impacted us tremendously,” he said.

What are the lessons to be learned from the cries of the elderly, who have the perspective that comes with age. What can the past teach us about our present predicament, and where we are headed.

In an effort to create an independent Bahamas, did we chart a course for true progress or did we just change the face of the same colonial system?

The reality is, some in the modern Bahamas would say black people are free, women are liberated and we have money in our pockets, so who cares.

The question is, do you?

July 11, 2010

tribune242

Bahamas Blog International