The gender equality issue is a civil rights matter ...as was slavery, as was the right to vote in The Bahamas ...for both men and women

An argument before its time

Gender equality a civil rights issue

By CANDIA DAMES
Managing Editor
candia@nasguard.com

A package of controversial constitutional amendment bills appears set to get the approval of members of Parliament today, but the reform effort continues to face serious opposition among Bahamians.

Among the arguments now being advanced against gender equality is that the constitutional framers must have had good reason to agree to the provisions they agreed to at the independence conference in London in 1972.

There are some who believe that “tinkering with” or “messing with” the constitution would be tantamount to altering the Holy Bible.

This, however, is among the weaker arguments being made ahead of the November 6 referendum.

Our framers were men. They were not infallible.

If we follow the logic that is being put forth now, then we would all still be slaves. The U.S. constitutional framers encoded in their document that a person of African descent was three-fifths of a human being. Are we to place those words above challenge?

The gender equality issue is a civil rights matter, as was slavery, as was the right to vote in The Bahamas for both men and women.

Anticipating that the constitution would be changed one day, our own framers put provisions in on how to change different articles. That move established that the constitution is a living document. Indeed, no constitution in any country is cast in steel.

The most important articles, those dealing with citizenship and provisions for the protection of fundamental rights, require a three-quarters vote in the House of Assembly and the Senate and a majority vote in a referendum.

On November 6, Bahamians are set to vote in what will be the second constitutional referendum since the current constitution came into effect on July 10, 1973.

Former Governor General Sir Arthur Foulkes is one of six signatories to the constitution who are still with us today.

Sir Arthur told National Review that not all the framers of the constitution thought discrimination against women was the best course, but it ended up being the agreed position at the end of the 1972 talks with the British.

“Some of us argued for full equality for women even though I see some attempts are being made to rewrite history in that regard, but some of us argued at the conference and even before the conference that women be given the same rights as men,” said Sir Arthur, who was a part of the opposition delegation that attended the independence conference.

“That argument was before its time, I guess. The practice at the time in matters of citizenship and marriage, was the woman followed the man. The British government took that position.”

Today, that remains a strongly held view among many people.

While saying he is not opposed to women having the same rights as men, A. Loftus Roker, who was a member of the government delegation in 1972, does not appear too comfortable with the idea of constitutional change, although he is not staunchly opposed to it.

“Men themselves should be feeling bad when they find that their children have to take the citizenship of his wife and not his citizenship and that he now wants to take the citizenship of his wife. That sounds funny to me. Maybe we know better,” Roker said.

The first constitutional amendment bill seeks to give a child born outside The Bahamas to a Bahamian-born mother and non-Bahamian father the same automatic right to Bahamian citizenship that the constitution already gives to a child born outside The Bahamas to a Bahamian-born father and a non-Bahamian mother.

The second bill seeks to enable a Bahamian woman who marries a foreign man to pass on her Bahamian citizenship to him. However, the bill will still outlaw marriages of convenience. As it stands now, a Bahamian man is able to pass on his citizenship to his foreign wife.

The third bill seeks to reverse the law that prohibits an unwed Bahamian man from passing his citizenship to his child if he or she is born to a foreign woman. It would require proof of paternity.

The final bill seeks to make it unconstitutional for any law or any person acting in the performance of any public office to discriminate based on sex.

Support

Sir Arthur supports the measures.

“I support any legislation, the object of which is to give Bahamian women full equality with men. That has been my position all my life and that is still my position today,” he said.

“If there are any legal defects in the bills then it is not beyond the ingenuity of all those involved, including our very competent Constitutional Commission, to deal with them, but I certainly hope that we will not miss this opportunity to make this right in our constitution.”

He added that success at the polls on November 6, “would finally remove the last vestiges of discrimination against women and that refers to the provisions for citizenship, primarily”.

“That was the outstanding area in which women are discriminated against in our constitution and I would be very, very happy to see the end of that,” he said.

George Smith, who at 30 was the youngest member of the bi-partisan delegation at the conference, said he has no doubt that if the late former Prime Minister Sir Lynden Pindling were alive today he would support the current reform effort.

In his recent series of articles entitled “Constitutional referendum: Correcting an historical error”, former Attorney General Alfred Sears noted that Sir Lynden, at a colloquium on political reform of the constitution at The College of The Bahamas in June 1998, presented a paper entitled “Refining the Revolution”.

Sears recalled Sir Lynden, with the perspective of 25 years of the independent Commonwealth of The Bahamas during most of which he was prime minister, implicitly challenged us to correct this historical error of discriminating against Bahamian women and their children when he posed the following question: “While defining the rights of Bahamian citizens for the 21st century, don’t you think favorable consideration will have to be given to the question as to whether children born outside The Bahamas to Bahamian mothers and foreign fathers should become Bahamian citizens on the same terms as children born outside The Bahamas to foreign mothers and Bahamian fathers?”

Smith told National Review that in 1972, there were many unknowns.

“So we took what was an acceptable thing at the time to pass the citizenship by virtue of the male,” he said.

“All of the people who went to the constitutional talks, with probably one or two exceptions, knew that in time we would have to look at the constitution and give to women that which the constitution was giving to men.

“We knew that, as other countries have advanced, we would advance to that point, and in other areas too, like the state. The state will become a republic eventually. We weren’t exactly unfamiliar with what was happening in other countries of the world.”

Smith added, “That is why I am very comfortable, once they guarantee the retroactive nature of these changes, I am comfortable with what is happening. I don’t think that men who had the knowledge that the founding fathers had and the wisdom that they had could possibly in 2014 have a difficulty with what is happening.”

But Roker told National Review constitutional change should be “a last resort”.

“I’m not saying you should never touch the constitution, but the constitution is supposed to be a sacred document and you only amend that if you have no other choice,” he said.

“I am satisfied that we have something called the Bahamas Nationality Act and I am saying somehow we should look at that and see if we can do what we say we want to do by amending the constitution.

“…If you amend the Bahamas Nationality Act and it turns out you did something wrong with that, it’s easy to fix. You just amend it again. The constitution though cannot be amended like that… Within days after it was presented to the Parliament, somebody came to introduce amendments (to the package of bills) and this thing was going on for so long you would have thought they would have at least had it halfway right.”

The reform process has been subjected to tweaking along the way. It fueled serious contention in the House of Assembly during the recent debate on the bills.

It appears now though that the bills will easily pass through Parliament.

While that will be an important hurdle behind the government and those groups pushing a “yes” vote in the referendum, bringing the public onboard will be a challenge that could prove insurmountable.

In the weeks since the bills were tabled in Parliament, we have heard repeatedly, “I believe in gender equality but…”

The arguments have been endless.

There are suggestions that the bills are “elitist” bills; there are those who still submit that bill number four would lead to same-sex marriages; others fear that allowing a Bahamian woman to pass on citizenship to her foreign husband, and an unwed Bahamian man to pass on citizenship to his child by a foreign woman, would change The Bahamas as we know it today, in ways we would not welcome.

There are also those who argue that the government cannot be trusted to abide by the results of the referendum, despite the fact it is binding; there are still ill feelings associated with the PLP’s campaign against a similar referendum in 2002, and there is a pervasive anti-government sentiment that could end up sinking the referendum.

The public debate thus far has been punctuated with misinformation, fear-mongering and illogical assertions.

These will all be hard to overcome.

August 25, 2014

thenassauguardian

...we Bahamians don’t have an issue with slavery... ...We don’t mind giving up our personal freedoms, our self-determination ...we don’t mind having to rely on other people to feed us ...to clothe us ...to determine our future... ...Like Uncle Tom, we don’t mind a Massa ...we just want a good one

Five Years Later . . .

By RUPERT MISSICK JR:

IF YOU were born with a disability, this is not about you.

 

If you are a child; this is not about you. If you are among the many who through no fault of their own were born here but remain undocumented; this is not about you. If you are sick and struggle everyday to determine whether the little money you have should go to buy medicine or food; this is not about you. If you struggle everyday to overcome the pain of abuse, or if you are still living under the threat of it; this is not about you. If you are an able-bodied, adult who enjoys all of the rights and privileges – real or supposed – of being a Bahamian, then this is definitely about you.

 

I want to tell you a secret. You are being lied to. You are allowing people to appeal to the laziest part of your human nature and you are giving people the power over you, your life and your children’s lives. Because in truth there is no white man enslaving us, no foreigners taking anything we don’t willingly give up to be taken, no secret society of “others” or “hidden forces” attempting to keep Bahamians down. And even if there is a black boss, a cabal of black bosses who, through either politics or social discrimination, have been able to keep the masses down, I congratulate them because they have subjugated 350,000 people without firing a single shot.

 

In the end, my friend, if you feel powerless it’s because you didn’t want the power. You worry about feeding your family because you have left it up to people outside of your house to feed you. You worry about not being able to compete with the ever quickly encroaching world because you have not prepared yourself to be marketable. You worry about the land being sold from under your feet because you have ceded the power over the land to a small group of people who would never have power unless you willingly vote them in. If you are unhappy, if you feel like The Bahamas is teetering on the edge of becoming some dystopian hellscape then it’s because you want it to.

 

I know I can’t do away with 40 years of excuses made on your behalf in 40 column inches, but I just want you to know, as a church is not the building with polished pews and pretty stained glass, neither is the Bahamas sun, sand and sea – it is the people. It has always been the people and its fortunes rest on the people. And when I say people I don’t mean those people, not your people or my people…I mean on you, the individual.

 

What upsets you? You don’t like the abuse of our environment? What have you done in the past 40 years, other than talk about it? You believe Bahamians are disadvantaged by an influx of foreign workers?

 

What have you done to educate yourself to replace the foreigner with the bachelors degree, the masters degree, the doctorate, the one with the second language, the one who has worked abroad or spent 10 plus years in the field?

 

Are you willing to take the cutlass out of the hand of your Haitian brother to work in your neighbour’s yard or the wash basket out of the arms of the Filipino maid of the lady down the street? And if so, are you satisfied with only being a replacement for the gardener or the maid?

 

Does crime upset you? Are you willing to call the police on your cousin? What about your uncle? Your son? What about your daughter’s boyfriend or your boyfriend? What about your neighbour? Your husband? Or is it just the crime you don’t benefit from that upsets you?

 

Does child abuse disturb you? Are you going to say “that’s nothing new” when you hear most of our sexually active teens are trading sex for chattel or say “that’s our culture” when you barely blink at a story of a man in his mid-twenties and the 15-year-old mother of his child?

 

But I understand. Bitching and whining, winging and complaining… there’s some comfort to that and actually doing something… well that would be something.

 

If we were honest with ourselves, I mean like really honest, we Bahamians don’t have an issue with slavery. We don’t mind giving up our personal freedoms, our self-determination, we don’t mind having to rely on other people to feed us, to clothe us to determine our future. Like Uncle Tom, we don’t mind a Massa, we just want a good one.

 

So every five years, as we have done for the past 40 we look to a group of 39-40 overseers who run the plantation for the massa we hope will bring us more food, softer work and nicer things. If they fail we sadly do not turn to ourselves and say what can I do to save myself from this untenable situation we turn to the Massa one plantation over and say: “Run, come Massa Pindling, save me from cruel Massa Symonette”.

 

And then 25 years later: “Run, come Massa Ingraham, save me from thieving-Massa Pindling.”

 

Then 10 years later: “Run, hurry come Massa Christie, the yoke Massa Ingraham put on me too hard.”

 

Then five years after “Massa Ingraham, I sorry I didn’t appreciate you better please help me! Massa Christie does run he plantations slack and let the overseers run through the pantry.”

 

Then another five years after: “Massa Christie come back, I forget how hard Massa Ingraham is be.”

 

On a side note, if I were the political powers that be in this country, I would be quick to teach self reliance and self determination because the years between the hand over from one massa to the next is getting shorter.

 

The sad, unfortunate – and I believe unintended – consequence of our practised version of our adopted European faith is that we continuously seek a saviour outside of ourselves – in a manger, in the sky, existing in some age other than this, in some realm other than the here and now instead of acknowledging the God that dwells within.

 

But the power of what it means to be Imago Dei – made in the image of God – cannot coexist with a system that needs you to be dependant, that needs you to need it. So we are encouraged to ignore that grace and abandon what could be paradise on earth for the Land of Should. And the land of Should is full of wonderful Should trees that grow big fat Should fruit.

 

One tree bears: The Government should, the other tree: The Church should, the next one over, the police should and still another, my boss should. But there is another little tree far in a cave in a dark corner in the Land of Should that everyone ignores. It is a very important Should tree, but it grows a bitter fruit that no one likes called: “I should.”

 

We all say that we want nothing more from these people than access to opportunity – but that’s a lie. Let’s be honest, it is. We want to be given something, a hand out. We’ve spent a generation getting used to it. We have forgotten what our grandparents’ knew: Opportunity doesn’t drag people up from the gutter it meets them half way on their climb out.

 

We have allowed politicians to tell us that we are poor, disadvantaged, that there is some magical secret bag of money, a whole boatload of stuff in some secret harbour that the other guys don’t want you to have, but only if we bring them into power and put them on the throne that the ship will let loose its moorings from its hiding place and come right into Potter’s Cay Dock. You know it won’t because there is no ship. There never has been, never was and never will be. The only ship that will ever come into port is the one you captain yourself.

 

There was a time when it didn’t matter that we were poor, that we were uneducated or under-educated, where great achievers emerged from yards with outdoor toilets and clapboard palaces. Why didn’t that hold them back? Because it didn’t matter that they were poor because everyone was poor and everyone had an outdoor toilet. They still had to achieve and they achieved with far less – most dying wishing they had one fraction of the opportunity that we just pass by today.

 

So the next time “they” are doing something to you that you don’t like, stop and think about how much of that thing you don’t like is being done to you with your permission. Much has been said about how some of our grandparents sold their votes for a sack of sugar, a pound of flour and some lard. Don’t allow yourself to regard this fact with self righteous indignation, we are no different. What is it now? A government job or contract? The protection of a politician? Sweet promises and sweeter lies?

 

Democracy is an exercise, capitalism is an exercise, that means that it requires effort, work, stretching, heavy lifting, it is a doing, it is not something that is done to you. But if you find that it is being done to you… then it is something else entirely.

 

May 13, 2013

 

Tribune 242

 

Caribbean Blog International