Rough Cut,
By Felix F. Bethel
“…is still me…”
The Bahama Journal
Pindling told me to tell you that no matter who is nominally in charge of today’s Bahamas; is still me – Ping- who is large and in charge.
Here I tell no lie when I tell you that, Pindling himself gave me this message via dream pumped in from God-Knows- Where.
Indeed, just the other night, I had a long series of talks with Pindling.
Not only were these conversations with the Chief long; but in truth, they were all quite strange in that when I talked to him, I got the impression that while I was seeing and hearing and talking with him as one man could ever talk to another, I was quite convinced that somehow or the other, I had figured out how to cross over, have conversations not only with him but also with some of my friends, like Chris Symonnet, who –some years ago – made that cross-life journey to where God-Knows-Where.
Now since, just this morning, I woke to find myself still clothed in a semblance of my right mind, I must conclude that, I did the crossing over; that I did speak to Pindling and Chris and some other people – some of whom I know are currently half-dead.
Incidentally, that happens- you can be half-dead and of course, your demented parents can beat you half to death in their paranoia induced decision that since you are their child, they could go to heroic lengths to beat the devil out of you.
And so they tried with me.
Just the other night; that is to say just the night after one of my boys came back from a journey to a far country; I dreamed a dream; and in that dream, I found myself in the company of a mighty host of people who –interestingly- must have already been dead and gone a long time ago.
In the dream, I recognized Pindling and strangely, the old man recognized me.
Indeed I had the awesome task of presenting and introducing the beloved Pindling to a number of the people he helped make; and so in the dream I dreamed, I saw men and women in a host of guises and disguises.
These men and women – some of them now dead and gone – were alive enough in the dream I dreamed; and strangely while in the dream, Pindling was real enough to me and alive enough to me; in the dream I dreamed, no one but your beloved professor could hear or see him.
Here I can tell you that in one set of encounters that took place in the dream I had, I remember Pindling’s insight to the effect that while he might be gone in the flesh; what he had left behind on the ground in the Bahamas had now come to full fruition and flourish.
And perhaps thus: the arrival of the Aga Khan; the mercilessness of poverty and the plethora of deaths throughout our country and Kerzner and Baha Mar and the opening to Cuba and the opening to China and the wider Pacific; and the deepening of ties to the Caribbean and to the pomp and pageantry that comes with being King George VI Negroes in a time when such types constitute a fast-vanishing species.
But notwithstanding this fact of life in the real world, there they were in their serried series as I saw them eating, drinking and picking their teeth; and for sure, in the dreamscape, I saw people who are – in the new guise of their polished children – today’s movers and shakers.
While I will not name them here and now, you will recognize them by virtue of the fact that they do move and they do shake.
I suspect that, when I saw Pindling just the other night, he wanted me to deliver a message to as many of his fellow-Bahamians to the effect that they should have as little fear of the present or the immediate future because for better or worse; Is still me, [Pindling] who is large and in charge.
But to make this aspect of the story as short and as painless as possible, take note that Ed Moxey was in the dream; and so was another of my friends, Chris Symonnet; who inquired as to how his family was doing on this side.
From this I surmised that the late Pindling was caught making a surprise visit –via whatever zombie express- to share something with the professor – a something that, he just knew the professor would share with you.
And so it goes again; just the other night, I dreamed a dream and in that dream, I caught up with Pindling.
And as I caught up with a then old Pindling, the talked turned to things both personal and political; and the thing that I remember most vividly – thus this typing in the early morning of the day that came after the night when I dreamed the dream whereof I now pluck some nuggets from what seems the depths of my mind.
And now, my fellow Bahamians, we march forward to the dreamscape itself –as I can even now espy that happy terrain; and as you can imagine, the matter involving Pindling and the man he was and the shadow he left are in and of themselves stories sufficient for any number of life-times as lived by any of mine who come after and who would like to know about the days that followed in this man’s mighty wake.
As I saw in and concluded and as Pindling himself concluded in the dream I had, no matter the fact that he was dead and gone, everything in the place and space where he once ran things, continues to be run as if Pindling had never left; that he – in truth and in metaphysical fact of the matter, could not and did not leave office even though he told the Parliament that he was finished with it.
But for sure, it must have dawned on him that while he might have thought he was finished with the House and the Senate and with the pomp and with the pageantry that would come with being Caesar Pindling.
And so it has been - So said; So done ; that, in all the years between the time Pindling died and the time he came back to see me as I slept and dreamed the dream I dreamed; this country has been run by Pindling himself; but this time around in the form of two of his most loyal men – Hubert Alexander Ingraham and Perry Gladstone Christie.
Hovering somewhere in my waking consciousness is the fact – now metaphysical – that Pindling did in truth and in fact have a political brother in the guise of Cecil Vincent Wallace-Whitfield who – yet again- in the world where I would have liked to live, was the best prime minister this blighted land of mine has never had.
That is what was fated to be when Cecil died at the age of sixty in that dread year that was 1990.
As the archival record and records throughout the land and throughout the world attest and do so solemnly affirm, Pindling – the mortal man- died on August 26th. 2000.
Dust to dust; ashes to ashes.
But evidently, things do not work as neatly and as simply in the world where Caesars are made and fashioned from the materials that come with politics; namely media, money and machinations and what these can and do achieve for the people who own them and to the people whose souls and minds are so routinely bought and sold for a pittance.
And so, while this or that Bahamian might aspire to change; the fact of the matter remains: no matter how the next general elections turn out: is still Ping who is large and in charge.
December 2nd, 2010
The Bahama Journal
Hubert Alexander Minnis ruled for a bit more than four years. He totally abandoned what was left of the FNM base – and ran The Bahamas like a lone, wild and crazy man.