Update on election results - final numbers

Votes CastTotal Registered Voters: 150743Total Votes Cast: 137578Percentage: 91.27%Popular Vote by PartyBDM 1186 0.86% IND 3208 2.33%PLP 64684 47.02%FNM 68500 49.79%Difference: 3816 2.77%Total SeatsFNM 23 56.1%PLP 18 43.9%Difference: 5 12.2%*Why am I posting these? you may wonder. The strife is over, the battle won. Why care about numbers?Precisely because they are numbers. There have been so many words, most of them nonsensical, written or spoken about these elections, that it seems to me that the more information -- the more facts -- we have the better. We can play with the numbers any way we like. They are open for analysis, and analysis leads to spin. But I believe that it's important that people get to create their own spin.Spin away, peeps.More at the links below.

More Election Results

A most fabulous site, just online:http://www.bahamaselectionmap.com/A most useful resource.Of course, it would have been even more useful if it had been made available before the election -- then people would have had some idea about where they were situated and what their constituency looked like. But it's good to have it now, for analysis and discussion.edit:  Here's another link, just as interesting, possibly a bit more accurate (the official results) but without the map:http://bahamaselections.com/matchups.aspx

The Results of the General Election

The governing party has changed.Apart from my cynicism, as expressed below, what this means from the point of view of posterity is that the PLP government of 2002-2007 has made history by being the first one-term government to hold office in the independent Bahamas.There is something else that is historic. This is the first non-landslide victory since 1968. The unofficial results as they are being reported are as follows: Free National Movement 24 seats, Progressive Liberal Party 17 seats. This gives us the first opposition that is considerably larger than one-third of the House of Assembly. The win is a decisive one, but not an overwhelming one. This spread may not seem tight to people outside of The Bahamas, but it is a new thing in our democracy, where swings tend to be major. How this will work remains to be seen. It is not likely that it will change the outcome of legislation hugely, but it does provide more scope for sensible debate on issues, rather than hot-airing of personal differences.At least, I hope so. This is the kind of opposition for which I have been waiting and watching for all my life. Whether it will do its job remains to be seen.

On Elections

Before I start, let me say three things.First, I am a civil servant, for better or for worse, for my sins. As a civil servant, I am obliged to serve the government of the day, no matter whose initials they wear.Second, as a writer, I prefer not to politicize (in terms of superficial party politics) the issues I choose to discuss. If our political parties can be said to have ideologies, I imagine that my opinions might align with one or the other. However, as none of them appear to have any true ideological bent these days, I imagine I'm pretty safe.Third, I happen to believe that the value of party politics for the nation has eroded. I don't believe that blanket support of any group of people is going to benefit The Bahamas in general as we move forward (perhaps I ought to say if we move forward). Moreover, as the political parties who are contesting these elections have eschewed every discussion of relevant issues in favour of ad hominem attacks, I really don't see much point to them at all.That said, let me add that I chose, in December, to quit writing Essays on Life until after the elections. The main reason for that choice was that no matter what I chose to write about, I thought it would acquire a political spin. Anything remotely critical of government policies or actions might be construed as supporting the opposition (whether the opposition had chosen to be critical in that direction or not) and anything remotely critical of opposition positions could be construed as supporting the governing party.Turns out I needn't have worried; none of the political parties are talking about specific issues. Had I written articles, apparently, I would have been perfectly safe.So what I want to say, on the virtual eve of election, is this. This has been the most insipid and empty campaign period I can remember in a generation -- or more, because in every other election year there has been some discussion of issues that mean something. I'm not talking about vague psuedo-issues like "trust" (come on, really, how often does one meet a politician one can trust anyway?) or "corruption" (the flip side of "trust", and, well, come on). I'm talking about real issues, like governance -- are we being well served by the form of government we have, where the first man past the post wins the whole pot, and where fifty-three or four or five per cent of the voters can bring about a landslide victory? Has the two-party political system outlived its usefulness in the country? Is it doing something meaningful for our development, or is it simply prolonging long-standing divisions in our nations, divisions that took place along racial lines mostly? Is the choice that our last two governments have made, pretty uncritically, to provide material development by foreign investment something that is either sustainable on a long-term basis, or even desirable in the short run?Or smaller, but equally pressing issues, like the question of traffic congestion on New PRovidence, or the need for local government in Nassau, or the need to enforce laws about campaign spending and advertisement, or the question of breaking the back of patronage?Or major philosophical issues, like what it means to be a prosperous nation populated primarily by people of largely African descent, and what our responsibility is as a nation to those around us and to our citizenry?Or what national identity is all about, and how to make Bahamians proud to be who we are?Because it seems to me that all we are achieving through politics and the politicians who play them is stripping away all that remains that is good and honourable about the Bahamian people and pandering to the basest of impulses -- greed. We hear bleating about the buying of votes; but the fact that candidates and their generals have to resort to hopeful bribery suggests that all that elections do for us as a people and as a nation is turn us into money-grubbing beggars in a land of plenty. That is corruption of a kind that cannot be forgiven, and that it is the norm suggests that it has nothing to do with the initials one wears or the colours one waves, but with the practice of politics itself.And we should be ashamed -- ashamed on behalf of all those upstanding Bahamians generations ago who sacrificed their paychecks and their jobs to ensure that we could vote, that we could represent ourselves, that we would no longer have to be obliged to Bay Street for whatever crumbs were thrown our way. We should be ashamed for replicating, and expanding, the corruption that has governed us as long as we have had representation, and for doing so while at the same time we are imagining ourselves to be free. No matter who we think we support, or what party we will elect on May 2, we should be ashamed for allowing our so-called leaders to engage in such a widespread denigration of who we are, and for insulting us and the democratic process by reducing the gift of universal suffrage to a competition between who can throw the most mud the fastest, who can lie the best, and whose bankroll is biggest.

Still More - Amazing Grace

Letter sent by National Commission on Cultural Development to Galleria Cinemas re: Amazing Grace:

ManagerGalleria CinemasNassau BahamasDear [Sir]:

Re: Commemoration of the Bicentenary of the Abolitionof the Trans-Atlantic Slave Tradeandthe Film Amazing GraceAs you are no doubt aware, 2007 marks the Bicentenary of the Abolition by the British Parliament of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.In 1807, following a decades-long struggle in Britain on the part of the Abolitionists, led principally by William Wilberforce, the British Parliament agreed to outlaw the capture and enslavement of Africans and their transportation across the Atlantic to the colonies of the Americas. The Act in question was signed on 25th March, 1807.It was with some interest and excitement that the members of the National Commission on Cultural Development noted that a film had been made, inspired by the life and work of William Wilberforce and the activities of the Abolitionist Movement in Britain at the turn of the Nineteenth Century. Even more than that, Amazing Grace examines the role of the Protestant and Evangelical churches in this movement. Given the strong Christian sensibilities that prevail among Bahamians, the Commission looks forward to promoting the film as an official activity of the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.Amazing Grace opened in the USA on February 23, 2007. It is set to open in the UK on March 23, 2007. The official date set by the United Nations for the observance of the Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade is March 25, 2007. However, to date, Amazing Grace is nowhere to be found in The Bahamas. We wish to inquire when your cinemas plan to bring the film to The Commonwealth, and invite you to join with us in commemorating this awesome milestone in the struggle of our ancestors towards Emancipation.We look forward to your response.Sincerely, etcTHE NATIONAL CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION

Stumbling towards freedom

I began this year with an observance about the date. In The Bahamas, years with twos, threes and sevens in them are likely to be major anniversaries of things; and as the twos and the sevens are five years apart, they double one another. Years with eights in them are extensions of the years with threes as well.I say all that to say this. The fact that this is a big year in terms of our history and our identity has been overshadowed by the rather grubby fact that it's also an election year. The result is that most things have been politicized. What hasn't been politicized has been put on hold until the election's over. Good thing that we have to hold it by mid-year; otherwise this entire year could become an exercise in water-treading for anybody who wants to get real things done.Perhaps this is why we aren't discussing abolition and what it means for us. This should, of course, be a source of shame for us all. When the United Kingdom is making a big deal out of this year, and out of the anniversary that's coming up on March 25, we're strangely silent. Is it because people on the PLP are afraid to make too much out of it because of the long years of invoking slavery in election years (the running of Roots on ZNS, in 1977, 1982, and 1987, the references to Exodus) have rendered the concept of slavery impotent as a political tool? Is it because people in the FNM have rejected the concept of slavery because they believe that it alienates those people who are not the descendants of slaves?Something to think about.

Amazing Grace

On February 23, 2007, the film Amazing Grace opened worldwide in the USA.For people who don't know (and I'm assuming that there must be many of them here in The Bahamas, for reasons I'll tell you later), this film is, among other things, a look at William Wilberforce's abolitionist movement, the one that focussed Britons' eyes on the inhumanity of slavery, and which led the British Parliament first to abolish the transatlantic slave trade (whose bicentenary we celebrate this year) and, ultimately, to abolish slavery in the British Empire (1834), and to free the slaves (1834-1838).I have to say all this because nowhere is the film showing in The Bahamas.Now I have no idea why this is. One good reason, of course, is that commercial films in The Bahamas are controlled by a single conglomerate: Galleria Cinemas, which owns four commercial theatres in Nassau and Freeport, and which usually decides what the Bahamian public sees or doesn't see. So it is entirely possible that Galleria, looking at the costumes in the movie, thinking about the "dryness" of the subject, decided to pass on the film.This is something they do fairly regularly. As with many purveyors of mass entertainment in The Bahamas, the assumption is made that we are an undifferentiated mass of ignorami, and that no one will spend money on shows or performances that engages thought or reflection. (This attitude is as true of people producing live entertainment as it is of people importing films.) And so many films that I would like to see pass us by. It's one of the reasons that I don't go to the cinema; it's one of the reasons that our DVD collection is so vast. And it's one of the dangers -- a main and looming danger -- of having a monopoly governing commercial film distribution in the country. At least when RND Cinemas were still in operation, you had two sets of people making decisions, and sometimes those decisions would be different. Competition, what.There is, however, another, more sinister possibility. And it's this.The Bahamas Films and Plays Control Board viewed Amazing Grace and decided that it was not something that Bahamians ought to see.Now I don't have time to go into the implications of this. They are, I can assure you, rich with irony and fundamentally alarming. I'll come back to this blog to do this. But I'll leave you with these thoughts.

• Ours is a nation made primarily up of the descendants of slave-owners and their slaves.
• Ours is a nation whose political history is grounded uniquely and solely in the British Empire (yes, our social history is American. For the purposes of this discussion, that's irrelevant).
• Ours is a nation that never tires of referring to itself as "Christian" (even though some of us, who respect and worship the Almighty in relative quiet, would like to take one step back to avoid the lightning bolt when it falls upon us for gross hypocrisy and overweening hate).
• Amazing Grace is a movie about how the British Empire moved towards the abolition of the institution of slavery and the emacipation of the slaves.
• The movers and shakers behind the Abolition crusade were Christians, and it was Christian principles that they used to argue their case and it was in the name of Christ that the battle was won.

Draw your own conclusions.

With all the talk about Bay Street Development

... we might want to take a leaf from the Bajan book. Here's a great post from gallimaufry.ws about the beautification of Bridgetown, with pictures of the results.Here's a sample:

I took a stroll through town today and took some photos, and in the process realised just how much the city has been transformed. Places I used to avoid because they were so ugly and unattractive have become far more appealing. It’s really great.

The photo above is of Independence Square. A few months ago it was a run-down car-park. Now it’s an open space that can serve as a theatre, and with a statue of the nation’s first Prime Minister as its focal point (you can see the base of the statue from this angle, but not the statue itself; I should have chosen a better angle). I think it will look even nicer once the landscaping is really established.

We talk a lot -- about monuments, about beautification, about what-have-you. But we are not yet truly committed to put money behind the talk; we still tend to have a sense of waste about the spending on money on things that don't have apparent practical benefits -- or things, from another perspective, that don't have short-term, tangible returns.As though the long-term benefits that contribute to national and personal pride are irrelevant.

Ideas and comments from around The Bahamas on culture

... and Junkanoo:Ian Strachan on culture

Mr. Smith: When you wrote "God’s Angry Babies" which was very sympathetic to the illegal immigrant population, my information now is the significant amount of sympathy that was there before has been some what eroded by the new image of the new illegal migrant. Any impact from that group on the new Bahamian?

Mr. Strachan: I think that the history of Haitian migration in the Bahamas is a lot longer than the casual observer might imagine. Really, the connection stems back 100 years, what we have now though is a more pronounced separation in terms of living conditions between the Bahamian of the 21st Century and the Haitian peasant who is risking his life to come here, their living conditions haven’t changed much in 50-70 years.

Mr. Smith: But there is also a new Haitian.

Mr. Strachan: I think he is a new Bahamian. That’s my view.

Maurice Tynes on Junkanoo

I have not participated in the junkanoo parades for a number of years. While sitting in the bleachers and watching the parades during this period, I have not been impressed. It appears that the groups, or their leaders, are losing and may have lost their creative edge. The regurgitation of themes, the similarity of costumes from year to year and from group to group, and the seeming difficulty of groups to define or stamp a unique brand has led me to this conclusion. The management and administration of the parades need major overhaul. For one thing I do not believe that junkanoo leaders can or should head the Junkanoo Commission. There seem to be too many inherent conflicts. It appears that one or two junkanoo leaders have the arrogant view that they own and should control every aspect of the parade. I believe that the postponement of the Boxing Day Parade was a direct result and manifestation of this arrogance. How could you postpone a national cultural parade twenty-four hours before the scheduled start of that parade? A weather system could stall, dissipate or radically change direction within twenty-four hours. We do harm to our cultural development locally and internationally when we make these selfish decisions. We all appreciate the time, effort and Labor of love that go into preparing for the parades, but the spectators have as much right to ownership of junkanoo as the leaders. The Junkanoo Commission should be headed by persons who are unattached to junkanoo groups and who have knowledge of junkanoo and possess the highest integrity. We do have such persons in the Bahamas. Some of these persons may have at one time been part of a junkanoo group, but have been unattached to the group for a number of years. Junkanoo groups should be represented on the Commission but in an advisory and consultative capacity.

Lynn on being an artist on the plantation

Lynn Sweeting writes a wonderful post on art and the artist in a tourist economy.Some of you may be wondering why I called it the plantation. If you have, you're new to this blog, and you certainly haven't heard of Ian Strachan's book, Paradise and Plantation: Tourism and Culture in the Anglophone Caribbean. It's worth a look if you haven't.Here's what Lynn has to say:

It so happens that for ten or fifteen years I was a house slave on the tourist plantation, I was a Maryann sifting sand in a comfortable place. I wrote and published many stories for the tourism masters. Some said I was good at it. I was rewarded with a little public acclaim, and a trophy. I quite forgot I was a slave. I remembered again (or realized for the first time) when a story I wrote for the masters turned out to be a complete lie, and was causing outrage in Exuma. Obediently I had written that this community was happy that a huge influx of foreign yachts was coming through their harbor, thanks to a new marketing campagne. The truth was that these enormous boats were causing an environmental disaster, pollution was threatening to ruin a pristine ecology, and for added outrage, the people aboard these floating hotels never had to set foot in town, they spent not a penny. The islanders were in an uproar to see a story in the paper that erased them so effectively and so cruelly. I was horrified, and ashamed. That was the last story I ever wrote as a house slave on the tourist plantation.

Now, from one point of view, it's important that we tell good tales to our visitors, that we describe the happiness that comes from the five million-plus tourists who come to our shores. The trouble is, as Lynn describes above, we run the risk of obscuring the truth by telling these tales. Worse, the message we give ourselves is that our experience is worthless, our experience doesn't count; what matters is the packaging, and nothing more.I could write about how the Ministry of Tourism often falls into the trap of selling packaging and nothing else, but I've bashed that venerable institution quite enough on this blog. You only have to go back a few months to see the last discussion, and since we haven't moved much further from that point, I'll leave it alone (if you want to find the discussion, just put "tourism" into the search box up there and browse on your own time). This time I'll just let Lynn speak for herself.

The danger of anchor properties

Chris Lowe on Weblog Bahamas makes a point that's been concerning me for a while. The thing about the islands in which the anchor properties are going to be located is that there's going to be a radical change in the way in which people live. To wit:

The thing is that within their communities they are equals.

If I have water all have water. If one's power is off, all power is off.

If I'm eating fish, we all have fish. When the mail comes, it comes for us all.

It has been this way for generations, and there is a certain equilibrium that has been maintained with the common understanding that the burdens and tasks of this type of community life must be shared.

Now though, the Anchor arrives, crown land sold cheap by Nassau political opportunists who tout from the capital the benefits to the community of an oversized development smack dab in the middle of their idyllic existence, an existence little understood by the hooked developer who sees profits in the scenery unspoiled but by subsistence living of a few who know what they have.

Read on.

Barbados Tourism Ad

Why am I posting a Bajan tourism ad, you wonder? Why should I?Well, because sometimes it's good to know what the competition's saying.And sometimes it's good to know that the competition's aiming its ads straight at you.Let me know what you think.

Belated Happy New Year

And there're many reasons why 2007 is an important year for The Bahamas:

• Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (March 25, 1807)
• Sixty-Fifth Anniversary of the 1942 Burma Road Riot/Uprising (June 1-2, 1942)
• Sixty-Fifth Anniversary of the introduction of the Secret Ballot in New Providence (1942)
• Forty-Fifth Anniversary of the First Votes cast by Women (January 10, 1967)
• Fortieth Anniversary of Majority Rule in The Bahamas (January 10, 1967)
• Thirtieth Anniversary of the First Woman Elected to Bahamian Parliament (July 19, 1977)

And here's a specific reason why 2007 is an important year for my family:

• 20th anniversary of my father's death (August 24, 1987)

We thought you'd like to know.

Being a Bahamian Woman

I'm catching up on my blog-reading, today, and I come across this post by Lynn Sweeting.I'm not going to say too much about it. Lynn's writing is powerful enough to speak for itself. But it's a story that has to be shared, one that has to be told, and one that can't be ignored.Here's the beginning:

Dear Sista,Four silent weeks have passed since that day you were so horribly victimized by the officers of the Royal Bahamas Police Force, three since we sat down and talked about it. You told me the entire story, how they barged in that Sunday morning and took you away in nothing but a towel, and kept you there at the station naked for four nightmarish hours, in the public waiting area, handcuffed, breasts exposed, having nothing at all on but a small towel over your lap. You told me how that unknown mother spoke up for you, demanding of the four policemen on duty to allow you to put something on and how they ignored her. By that time, you said, you had gone into shock.

Do you care? Then read the rest.

Undergrounding

For those of you who've wondered two things, let me fill you in.The first thing may be what's happening with Essays on Life. Well, here's the story. I'm on hiatus from writing at the moment. I blame CARIFESTA preparation and follow-up; but I also need to blame election fever. Essays on Life are not intended to be political in any way, but now that the Season is upon us it's difficult to write essays that aren't received as being political one way or another. (By "political" I mean, of course, party politics; all social comment is political in a wider sense.)In the meantime, I'm working on a couple of things. I'm seriously considering self-publishing Essays on Life, having investigated Lulu.com as a possibility. I'd hoped to get them out of the way in time for Christmas, and may still manage to do so (though time is running out). I've prepared the first volume — the first fifty, arranged chronologically but intended to be indexed alphabetically and by subject as well. I'm also sketching out a series of Essays of Life to be finished and polished outside of deadlines and resubmitted to the Guardian for their use. I hope to finish these by December so that they can begin to run again. It's time for a change of approach, and I'm hoping to tackle bigger subjects than the ones I've already covered.Two: where I've been. Well, this has been a travelling time. I recently attended a workshop in Barbados treating Caribbean cultural industries. I invite you to check out the website for yourselves, as a lengthy explanation of the whys and wherefores will take too long and will make me run out of Starbucks internet time, but let me just say that the workshop has led me to envision the action plan that needs to be encompassed in the draft Cultural Policy. Watch this space.

Celebrations of Mediocrity

I don't normally listen to Immediate Response; I'm normally a FM listener, switching between More 94 and Love 97 when it comes to talk shows. This week, though, I missed several very interesting shows, apparently. Most interesting were those that criticized those in government who prefer to use excellence and mastery of craft as a criterion for selecting people to represent the country instead appearance or show.I didn't hear the show, but heard of it. I want, though, to link to Obediah Michael Smith's blog, where he puts the point better than I will at this moment. Here's what he has to say:

Such a debate needed to be fixed upon and centered around, not the nonsense giggled about, petty complaints and concerns which took up most of the two hour show, but craft, instrument, art...The audience, the public, everybody involved, must be directed by the artist to focus upon these central, sacred elements: instrument and craft. The body as sex object belongs to the profession of prostitution.A singer’s instrument is the voice. A dancer’s instrument is the body and a body is filled with memories, personal and cultural and speaks many languages. The singer of popular music is usually a singer and a dancer, like Michael Jackson or Tina Turner and has therefore two instruments to perfect and to play.Too often though, especially where popular culture is concerned, fascinated by the phenomenon of fame and fortune, out to exploit the public, persons take to the stage with a bit of talent and a little training, dreaming of being stars.A large part of what we in our country call entertainment and culture is inspired by and is part of this crude phenomenon. I turn away from this. I turn my back upon it.Many do attempt to disguise a lack of craft with what is gratuitous and cheap: gyrating, near-nudity; emphasizing what should not be emphasized, attempting to distract from what they have not had and have not got: training.

Hear, hear, Mr. Smith. And here's the rest.

The Real Free Press

Lynn Sweeting writes about true journalistic freedom here, on her blog. Here's some of what she has to say:

I was a reporter in that newsroom for about eight years. During the bad days of the “Pindling regime”, (Christ, was it really a regime?). As I recall there was an endless stream of English “editors” at that desk throughout. As I recall the paper lambasted Pindling’s government every single day. Still, one English man after another was still able to get a work permit. They put hell on the government every day in their editorials and in their front page stories, and as I recall their freedom to do this was never threatened. There were no arrests, no one was thrown in jail never to be seen again, there were no killings, there were no disappearances, the paper didn’t get shut down, and their work permits were not denied. As I recall they went to print with stories that put the PLP in a stinking light every day and that regime never disallowed them to do it.If we were not a free press then, and if they are not now, there is only the Tribune to blame. I was only there for a few years, but I can think of five or ten good and dedicated reporters and photographers from my time alone who were forced to leave their employ and even give up their dreams of real journalism, because there wasn’t a hope in hell of Going Further, there would be no training opportunities, there would be no chance of an upwardly moving career, there was no chance of ever reaching the editor’s chair, no chance of ever making a decent salary, no chance for advancement whatsoever.

Lynn's writing about the John Marquis controversy, which changes meaning as it changes reporters and perspectives.  Here's Oswald Brown on the subject, and here's more on the topic, this time from the Tribune itself. Below are some more links of interest.Bahamas Uncensored.comNassau Guardian OpinionWeblog Bahamas on the subjectBut Lynn, as always, has a voice that's unique.

The vulnerability of small-island states

In case people aren't aware, this week The Bahamas plays host to an international conference (another, yes) on tourism and sustainable development in small island developing states (SIDS). The outline of the conference is here:http://www.world-tourism.org/regional/americas/sem_bahamas/bahamas.pdfIt's an interesting conference. If you look at the outline of the conference you'll see. The first session is on vulnerability and resilience. Tourism can be good or bad; the problem is how we deal with it. The key is policy — the specific commitment of the government to make sure that the potential benefits are received.At the moment, though, we seem to be in a hurry to create a picture-perfect industry, and we are taking shortcuts. We choose to be governed by the agendas of our investors without considering the long-term, the large picture — and we forget (if we ever acknowledged) that the investor's interest is private. It is not the investor's job to make sure that the Bahamian interest is met, or that the development his project brings is sustained over time; it is the government's job. And (to go back to my initial bugbear) if the government has established an agency whose job it is to develop and manage the tourist industry, then it is that agency's job to consider the long-term and the large.But not their sole responsibility. So once again, I'm going to refer my readers to the Draft National Cultural Policy, which seeks to set out some guidelines for the role of tourism in the development or location of culture. Because we need to make sustainability a priority — and this in the face of casinos on Cat Island, Four Seasons exclusion on Exuma, and marinas and speculative second-home developments throughout our Bahamaland. Without policy, there is no sustainable tourism at all.Conference website

A Tourist's Comment

provides some evidence that we are not dealing with our tourist product the best way. Sharmayne says:

I [am] an African-American and spent my vacation on Paradise Island. I could not wait for some local friends or taxi came to take me away from the place. Maybe it is a paradise….for whites. For me it was slightly boring and lacked culture. I will definately not stay there again….my main reason for visiting (my eight time) is to be enveloped in Bahamian culture.

The comment is addresses this post, here.

The buck's gotta stop somewhere

Yes, I'm still on the topic of tourism and culture.

The reason I'm so antsy about this, Idébu (you would say passionate, and you did, and why do you have to have that pesky accent aigu in the middle of your name?) is that there is a prevailing thought Out There that tourism destroys people's cultures. It's a very old thought. It's one of the reasons that our Caribbean neighbours chose in the beginning to reject the tourist industry as a major force for their development, and it was drummed into our heads all throughout school when I was coming up. Tourism is bad for a country because it destroys the culture and turns citizens into servants. Marion Bethel, the Bahamian poet, has even written a poem about it.

But I have always fought that idea. Since they first told me that tourism destroys countries and economies and citizens, I've disagreed. Because in The Bahamas, while tourism did bring several ills, it also brought many good things too; it gave Bahamians access to cash money when all they had was credit in white people's stores; it created infrastructure when there was none, it turned our major festival, Junkanoo, into a parade with pretty costumes rather than a parade with scary costumes, and it educated many people's children.

Now I am Going Back here. The Bahamas is a global pioneer in the tourist industry; tourism in our country is almost 200 years old. Together with the Mediterranean and (strange to say) Switzerland, The Bahamas has one of the few societies whose people have been making money off the tourist dollar for far longer than the industry has had a name.

As that is the case, it is impossible to separate tourism and tourists from the Bahamian self. We have been offering hospitality not only long before we knew ourselves, but literally since the abolition of slavery. Europeans were visiting Nassau for their health and for the winter since the 1830s, and Bahamians were offering them tours of New Providence since then. Tourism on a bigger scale started in 1860 when the Royal Victoria Hotel was built, the pride of the nation, and provided Bahamian musicians and artists with a place to go and make their performances happen. Of course many of the sights have changed -- we don't have the Mermaid Lake anymore, where phosphorescence would light up the wake of the boat and the trails of the oars, and the Blue Hills are being cut down for construction purposes, and many of the homes in which those tourists stayed have been demolished or disfigured, and the Royal Victoria, that architectural wonder, burned to the ground twenty years ago. But the forts are still there, and so are the Botanical Gardens, which were opened in part to provide tourists with a sense of Bahamian flora and fauna.

Tourism even helped fund the Bahamian civil rights movement. That was in the 1950s, during the post-war nightclub era, when tourism created Bahamian performers of world class status. Freddie Munnings' Cat and the Fiddle was a meeting place not only for Bahamian civil rights activists, but for the Americans as well; through Sidney Poitier, Andrew Jackson and Martin Luther King and others met with Lynden Pindling and the pioneers of Majority Rule within the confines of that club. And the fact that Freddie Munnings was independently wealthy -- one of the richest Black Bahamians at that time -- enabled him to help fund the fight for the abolition of the colour bar that prohibited Black Bahamians from entering selected establishments.

And tourism reinstated Junkanoo and made it an arena which was right for the developments dreamed about by men like Gus Cooper and Percy Francis and Brian Gibson and Phil Cooper and Winston Rolle and others.So why is tourism now the reason that all of the above are compromised, stymied, or dead?