In reality, the Vote Yes lobby lost the gambling referendum because it had a number of powerful forces ranged against it: certain churches ...the official opposition party ...the most successful third party in Bahamian history ...and a former prime minister who commands an enormous personal following

A Victory For The Pharisees

By PACO NUNEZ

Tribune News Editor

pnunez@tribunemedia.net

 

 

 

IN botching the gambling referendum, Perry Christie and his Progressive Liberal Party dealt a serious blow to the prospects for liberalism and progress in the Bahamas.

 

The overwhelming “no” vote did more than ensure gambling remains illegal for Bahamians; it empowered a religious movement that is on a mission to suppress certain personal freedoms and insinuate itself into everything we do – from what we watch on TV, to what happens in our bedrooms.

 

Forget all the talk of preserving the country’s Christian roots. Those at the forefront of the Vote No movement represent a fundamentalism which harks back to a past that never existed, which seeks to establish something entirely new – a moral police state.

 

And now, even more than before, the “Save our Bahamas” pastors, the Christian Council, and their followers will believe they have a mandate to push their views on the rest of society.

 

In reality, the Vote Yes lobby lost the referendum because it had a number of powerful forces ranged against it: certain churches, the official opposition party, the most successful third party in Bahamian history, and a former prime minister who commands an enormous personal following.

 

And, those who either voted “no” or stayed home, did so for a variety of reasons. Church loyalty was certainly one of them, but there was also party loyalty, resentment that the promised gambling education campaign never materialised, and suspicion the referendum was really a reward for certain web shop bosses who donated to the PLP’s election campaign.

 

Also, a certain degree of apathy was in hindsight probably inevitable. Many Bahamians who might support legal gambling didn’t see the point of going to the trouble of voting for an activity they already engage in on a daily basis with no hindrance whatsoever.

 

But the pastors won’t see it that way. To them this will have been a victory for forces of conservatism and coerced conformity – proof that Bahamians overwhelmingly want to live under a religious regime.

 

Now that gambling is defeated, we can be sure that other pet peeves of the Christian Council will be next in the crosshairs; issues such as homosexuality, the showcasing of “immoral” films, performances by “unchristian” musicians.

 

We may even have another campaign defending the right of a man to rape his wife.

 

A few years ago, when the Bill to make marital rape illegal was introduced by the FNM administration, only to be denounced as immoral by the Christian Council, INSIGHT noted that “The public statements of Council members over the past several years have made it clear they feel social progress – defined by most of the western world as having to do with rights and democracy – threatens much of what they hold dear. After all many of them have become exceedingly comfortable in their roles as the self-appointed moral arbiters of the nation.”

 

Back in 2006, when the Play and Films Control Board banned the film Brokeback Mountain at the request of a group of pastors, local theatre director Philip Burrows said: “You have a group of people who are telling grown men and women what they can and cannot watch. I cannot understand denying people the right to make their own choices.”

 

Neither could the rest of the world. An Associated Press story about the ban was reprinted by hundreds of newspapers around the world, and brought widespread condemnation down on a country that has nothing to rely on for survival but its international reputation.

 

Then, as now, it was the government – the very entity charged with safeguarding our reputation – which opened the door to this kind of nearsighted and dangerous fundamentalism.

 

The fact that the abetment was unintentional this time around is no excuse.

 

Had there been a proper education campaign as promised, had the arguments for and against casino gambling at least been discussed, or had Mr Christie committed to banning anyone who broke the old gambling laws from ownership in the new industry, things might have been different.

 

Certainly, he would have neutralised the strongest arguments for voting “no” put forward by his political opponents, thereby making it a real liberals-vs-pastors referendum.

 

As it was, those of us who support the expansion of rights and personal freedoms were left with an impossible choice: vote “no” and support continued discrimination against Bahamians in their own country, or vote “yes” and run the risk of allowing the government to form a gambling cartel of campaign donors, to the exclusion of all other citizens.

 

Either way, you were voting against equal rights.

 

In making it so, Mr Christie and his colleagues are guilty of squandering a priceless opportunity and retarding the cause of progress for who knows how many years to come.

 

Gambling is in many ways, the last frontier in overcoming our colonial past.

 

Gambling is in many ways, the last frontier in overcoming our colonial past. It is the modern theatre of our civil rights struggle.

 

Amid all the moral, economic and other arguments, one fact is undisputed: a foreigner can come to this country and do something a Bahamian cannot.

 

That is no different from any other form of discrimination, be it assigned bus seats, separate schools, restaurants reserved for a specific group of people.

 

The Save Our Bahamas crew do have a point in this regard - if we really believe gambling is morally wrong, we should ban it outright, for foreigners as well as locals, and have the courage to suffer the economic consequences of taking a stand against hypocrisy.

 

The pastors, it should also be said, make no apologies for what they believe and do not hide what they stand for.

 

Meanwhile, the Progressive Liberal Party, by virtue of its very name, is supposed to be a force for progress and liberalism.

 

They have a lot of explaining to do.

 

What do you think?

 

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

 

February 04, 2013

 

Tribune 242

 

Caribbean Blog International

 

It's high time we do away with the pompous, fatuous, and self-serving Bahamas Christian Council

Time to 'do away with' the Christian Council
By PACO NUNEZ
Tribune News Editor



The audacity of the Christian Council's demand that it be placed in charge of blessing the airport's new US departures terminal on Friday is a perfect example of why it's high time we do away with this pompous, fatuous, self-serving organisation.

I don't mean "do away with" in the sense of outlawing or forcibly disbanding it. The satisfaction of seeing the council subjected to its own tactics aside, no one can or should infringe upon it's members' right to associate.

What I do mean is that the silly masquerade in which the council poses as the nation's moral authority should be brought to an end once and for all. The Christian Council has no right - none whatsoever - to this self-imposed title.

Its officials are not elected by the public, nor appointed by the country's executive, and they do not represent the general public in any other capacity. Their authority does not extend beyond their own respective congregations - and even then is only on a voluntary basis.

And, despite their constant appeal to the "spiritual principles" mentioned in preamble of the Constitution, two of the architects of our independence, Governor General Sir Arthur Foulkes and George Smith, have already made it clear this was not meant to privilege any particular group, or even any particular religion.

In short, the council is nothing more than a private association of religious leaders and should be treated as such - no more, no less.

There is, therefore, no reason why this group should be allowed to tell our Immigration Department which foreign performing artists can entertain us, what films we are allowed to see, or whether it should be illegal for a man to rape his wife. And there is certainly no justification for its president Rev Patrick Paul feeling entitled to demand that he be the one to bless a public building like the new US departures terminal.

According to its mission statement, the Bahamas Christian Council was founded in 1948 to promote "understanding and trust" between churches, to "further Christ's mission of service by joint action" and to "witness for the Christian community in the Bahamas on matters of social or common concern."

The first two aims are more or less self-explanatory; the third less so, and is perhaps the source of the modern-day council's hugely inflated view of itself, which has been used by certain prominent members over the years to spread fear, reinforce personal prejudices and indulge petty jealousies.

If so, this relies on quite a twisted reading of the phrase. The intransitive verb "witness" means to give or serve as evidence of; to testify. In Christian terms, this refers to spreading the message of Christ's Eternal Kingdom.

The council seems to have dislodged this term from its original meaning, appointing itself the official advocate of a make-believe homogenous Christian community with regard to far more worldly "social or common" concerns.

But the council does a great deal more than just "witness" on behalf of its invented community of like-minded Christians.

Over the years, its officials have done all they can to burrow their way into the actual decision-making process, with an eye to accruing as much power as possible.

In the last few years alone, they have: demanded the final say on musical artists being granted entry to the country, approached the Immigration Department seeking to "form a partnership" in an effort to curb "social ills" and insisted that the government work more closely with churches.

They also submitted their own amendments to the proposed Marital Rape Act in an effort to maintain control over what happens in the bedrooms of married couples, and did their best to deny adult Bahamians the right to gamble their hard-earned money if they so chose.

Yet for all its self-importance, the council is also very good at playing the victim. According to a report published in the Bahama Journal on Friday, the uproar over the new terminal began after Rev Paul was first asked to bless the building, then informed by the Nassau Airport Development Company (NAD) that it had been advised to invite Catholic and Anglican clergymen to conduct the blessing instead.

The report said NAD's decision was described as "nothing more than elitism at its worst" by the council, which accused some denominations of constantly disrespecting "certain groups." Never mind that the Anglican Church, trusted with official state funerals, has at least some claim to the unofficial status of state religion of the Bahamas, whereas the denominations represented by the Christian Council, including Rev Paul's Assemblies of God, have none at all.

The council's stance is laughable, not only because the term "elitism" would much better describe its own rank presumption in meddling in other people's affairs, but also because according to the report, after "pressure conditions" - apparently a series of phone calls - were brought to bear on the Anglicans and Catholics, the council got its wish.

The hastily re-invited Rev Paul blessed the terminal at Friday night's ceremony before 1,800 invited guests.

But why does the Christian Council enjoy this kind of power in the absence of any plausible claim to it? Simply put, because it is perceived as having the ability to command the behaviour of a vast number of congregants at the polls or in other crucial circumstances.

This is the "We've got the numbers" version of might-makes-right; the manipulation of the beliefs of a large number of people in order to aggregate power in the hands of a few men - in such a way that there are always only a few of them, and they are almost always men.

I believe this kind of power is inimical to the kind of society we have in name, and the one we are trying to build in reality. The Bahamas is a parliamentary democracy, a system created in specific opposition to the far older, far more autocratic forms of power with which the Christian Council deserves to be categorised.

Furthermore, if there ever was a time we needed an organisation to "witness" for us, it has obviously long passed. This is now a country with a far higher concentration of churches than schools, in which everywhere you turn there is someone imploring you to return to religion "before it's too late". We have become a society of prayer breakfasts, prayer lunches, prayer dinners, prayer meetings; of memorial services, long services, annual services, commemorative services.

Witnessing has gone viral in the Bahamas. And yet our problems persist.

What we actually lack is concrete structural and policy ideas for how to fix our broken education system, revitalise our woeful public services, reform our corrupt electoral process and give our young people a chance to succeed.

Perhaps this is because too many of use continue to listen to a group of fear peddlers, who tell us we cannot trust ourselves to make decisions, who believe freedom of expression is a dangerous thing, and that religion is not about one's personal relationship with God, but rather a question of one's willingness to submit to their will.

The irony is that in reality, the Christian Council has no concrete power at all. They depend on supporters whose allegiance they can't really guarantee, particularly if it comes into conflict with political tribalism or self-interest. They only meddle because we let them.

If everyone told them to get lost when they came demanding special privileges, as they did with NAD, we would soon see how silly the emperors looked with no clothes on.

* What do you think?

pnunez@tribunemedia.net

February 28, 2011

When Social Institutions Fail

The Bahama Journal Editorial



For want of a more comprehensive understanding of what national development should be about; the Bahamian people and their leaders now wallow in a mire of despond.

And as they wallow, we have a situation on the ground where the hard men and women with guns in hand and murder in their hearts, are doing their thing.

And in a sense – as if they were so very many lambs on the way to slaughter, tens of thousands of this nation’s youth routinely trudge to schools where they are patted down, searched and treated as if they were thugs in the making.

And then, there are all those other persons – with most of them being mature women – who spend the bulk of their time in the precincts of this or that Church-house in search of salvation.

As the killing continues; and as the stealing and marauding runs amok; there are those Bahamians who might be tempted to think that these phenomena are – for whatever reason- grounded in an economy that is struggling to get up from under the ravages of a truly Great Recession.

This is not the case.

Indeed, any examination of the record would show that, Bahamians have been killing each other in the best of times and in the worst of times; and so have they been known to steal from and otherwise rip each other off – this they have also done in good and in so-called bad times.

The explanation is far simpler: Bahamians have consistently failed themselves by clinging to the belief that it is money that matters most of all – thus their collective failure to cultivate things of the spirit; and thus the incipient failure of some of this society’s most basic institutions.

Here we would suggest that, the question is: when social institutions fail; then, so what?

Here the answer is simple enough: when institutions fail, people are left to fend for themselves; and as they fend for themselves, life –invariably- becomes harsher and harsher.

And as life becomes harsher and harsher, respect for the human person and for life itself is left in the balances. Thereafter anarchy and brutishness are seeded and in short order, they spawn a canker of distress.

In time, the law of the jungle takes root.

One of the more interesting aspects of this matter as it relates to breakdown and decay; the collapse of law, order and even the simplest of inter-personal decencies happens to be the fact that, as institutions crumble; those of the counterfeit ilk sometimes sprout.

Indeed, we see this phenomenon of the fake running rampant in a number of crucially important areas of our shared social life: we see it in our churches; our homes; in our schools; on our streets; at the work-place; and in our neighborhoods.

As regards the home and the degradation of a vitally important social institution; the evidence is clear that very many of this nation’s so-called homes are little more than domestic battle-fields where men and women routinely abuse each other; often to the despair and distress of their children.

Homes are failing men, women and children.

Sadly, this failure migrates from home to school; where –as the evidence reveals- very many students arrive armed to the teeth; with some of them as drunk as hell; and with the vast majority left to bide their time.
And so, school as an institution is failing the Bahamian people.

And whether this or that preacher-man, self-styled apostle or other religious believes it or not; very many of our nation’s churches have come to be seen as being simply irrelevant.

Were it otherwise, we would surely have less of the hate; less of the spite and less of the anger and rage that currently pervades the minds of so very many seemingly Godless people in a consumer-driven small island developing state such as ours just happens to be in this space and in this time.

And so, in a substantial kind of way, very many of our churches have already failed.

Evidently, therefore, this neatly explains how it now arises that our streets are spaces where one Bahamian or the other runs the risk of dying on the spot were he to somehow or the other offend another road-user.

And as we have noted on numerous occasions; failure is sometimes rooted in neighborhoods where this or that neighbor just so happens to [be] the thief who rips of all and sundry; this as he plays an infernal game of catch-me-if-you- can.

In addition, if reference is made to the work place; what we have – as opposed to teams pulling together – happens to be this or that clique working to undermine another.

Taken together, these failures illuminate what happens when the blind lead the blind; and so it remains, for the want of vision our people perish.

December 3rd, 2010

The Bahama Journal Editorial

Bahamas Blog International