but if it isn't, it's all of us. The comment thread that follows the previous post (about tourism and its detrimental effect on culture) raised several points of importance, including the fact that agencies have to be convinced of the quality of Bahamian work before they engage Bahamians to do the work.Hm.
And by tourism I don't mean the industry; I mean the Ministry.The main reason -- and I will have to wait to cool off for a little while before I write about it in earnest -- is that the Ministry of Tourism appears to have very little real respect for Bahamian cultural workers.Granted, in the past two years, the Ministry has bought into the idea of cultural tourism. But in so doing they commodify our culture. They have not, however, invested in any appreciative way in the things that they wish to promote. The government as a whole invests precious little of its overall budget on culture in general, but that's another story; it's getting better. But Tourism -- the Ministry, and the people who pull the Ministry's strings -- don't spend their money at home.This story, I don't mind telling you, angered me this morning. It angered me because you can't tell me that there aren't Bahamian professionals who are perfectly capable of making a documentary about The Bahamas -- or, if the point is to have the documentary made in Italian (I don't know why), of working along with Italians to make such a documentary. It angered me because it is one in a long line of such examples. I learned yesterday of a Bill to be placed before Parliament -- apparently -- whose purpose is to give film crews tax breaks to come to The Bahamas; were Bahamian filmmakers consulted? I read the beautiful insert placed in yesterday's Guardian by BahaMar which outlines the plans for Cable Beach -- plans which pay lip service to Bahamians and their culture but plans which are clearly more geared towards creating Las Vegas on New Providence, complete with international performers, than towards building our culture.The tourist industry does not have to be detrimental to our culture. But it is -- simply because, as usual, the people who make the decisions about our culture are overwhelmingly either not-Bahamian (Italian documentary crews, foreign hotel owners) or not-interested (how many of the Ministry of Tourism personnel who make decisions about cultural tourism etc have taken the trouble to expose themselves to the local cultural scene?).The time has come for a major change in the way we do business. I encourage everyone who reads this blog (all three of you) to go download the Draft Cultural Policy, and make your input. Because if we don't, we will be defined, occupied and sold by people who know nothing about us and care even less.
I have the great fortune of being a subscriber to Time.com. Now that may not mean anything to many people, and it may mean something politically suspect to others, but for me it means that I have the opportunity to access and read a very interesting op-ed article on the political movement that has called itself "Christianity".It's a movement that has very little to do with actually loving and following Christ, apparently, which is a personal choice and commitment and which -- in part thanks to Gutenberg and Martin Luther and the Protestant revolution -- can be carried out in the privacy of one's own home and the privacy of one's own head. (Catholics, lest you get offended, admit that without Luther and Gutenberg most Christians would still be relying on clerics to tell them what and how they should believe instead of having the option of reading Scripture for themselves. Admit it.)  Rather, it interests itself in what people -- believers and unbelievers alike -- do, and opts (as it did here with Brokeback Mountain -- yes, I am still harping on that) to force everyone to behave as believers should choose to behave.Andrew Sullivan, op-ed writer for Time, has proposed that a distinction be made between Christianity, which interests itself in following Jesus Christ and in believers' personal responsibility to please him in their lives, and Christianism, which is a political movement. Here's what he has to say on the subject:
... let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.That's what I dissent from, and I dissent from it as a Christian. I dissent from the political pollution of sincere, personal faith. I dissent most strongly from the attempt to argue that one party represents God and that the other doesn't. I dissent from having my faith co-opted and wielded by people whose politics I do not share and whose intolerance I abhor. The word Christian belongs to no political party. It's time the quiet majority of believers took it back.(for fellow subscribers to Time.com, here's the rest of the article)
Of course, he's situated it in the USA and limited his observations to American political parties. He's American; can't kill him for that. That aside, though, his observation rings true for us as well, for those who believe that pastors have the right and the responsibility to set the agenda for all Bahamian citizens, regardless of their personal faiths and beliefs.I'm a Christian too, and I definitely don't believe that pastors have any such rights or responsibilities.But then, one of my favourite parts of Jesus' Gospels is the "Woes" (Matthew 23).
This was taken in Governor's Harbour earlier this month, during travels fro the National Arts Festival adjudications. It was a glorious day.