Dr Keva Bethel's Speech at the Bahamas Business Outlook Seminar

On Thursday past, my mother, Keva Bethel Ph.D., had the opportunity to address the luncheon guests at the Bahamas Business Outlook Seminar.From all reports, the reception to the speech was overwhelming.Two people asked me whether I could get a copy of it for wider circulation. Well, I spoke to Mummy about it, and she sent it on over. I told her I'd like to post it here, and she didn't have any objections, so here you go:

A VISION FOR THE BAHAMAS OF THE FUTURE

by Keva Bethel, Ph.D.An address delivered at the Bahamas Business Outlook 2009,Wyndham Nassau Resort, Cable Beach, New ProvidenceThursday, January 15, 2009I must first thank Mrs. Albury for having invited me to address you. She said that she wanted a "heart" piece, outlining my vision for the future of The Bahamas. Initially I was reluctant to accept, because I knew from experience that speaking to a lunchtime audience during a conference such as this was a really tough gig: everyone is either hungry or engrossed in eating, and far more interested in chatting with one another than in listening to yet another speaker spout ideas. I agreed, however, because there are indeed things that have lain heavy on my heart for some time and this is an opportunity to get them off my chest and to articulate them publicly. I promise to try to keep this as brief as I can, though, and will simply share a few thoughts about The Bahamas I should like to see in the future, not only from my perspective as an educator, but even more so from the perspective of a grandmother concerned about the kind of country in which my now 18 month-old grandson will grow up.  Let me plunge right in by saying, first, that I pray that Jaxon Elijah will grow up in a country that will finally have been able to come to a truly national consensus about the kind of society we want to be and the kind of role we wish our nation to play in the 21st century world context. The fallout from present-day global economic challenges has revealed only too starkly the vulnerability of our status quo, and while our current difficulties clearly require urgent, short-term responses, this may also be an appropriate moment for us to come together more deliberately as a people to craft a longer-term, more indigenously-based, collaborative, non-partisan, national blueprint for our future.In my view, to be defensible such a blueprint should take intentionally into account, and reflect unequivocally, genuine respect for the special features of the natural environments of our individual islands and our commitment to their protection, conservation and appropriate use. It should also demonstrate clearly the value we place upon the historical and cultural heritage of the inhabitants of our islands and our determination to build upon and strengthen these. It seems to me that such considerations would provide a more rational basis for sustainable development initiatives that would be compatible with those realities, and for whose realisation we might, with greater clarity of purpose, seek the assistance of local or foreign investors sympathetic to our goals. (It is fitting that I mention here that for a number of years, a group of concerned individuals has been engaged in just such a visioning exercise, and that this process continues through a project supported by Civil Society Bahamas entitled Imagine! Bahamas. The seminal work already done and that which is ongoing could serve as a valuable springboard for a more widespread defining process for the country).Central to ensuring the kind of future I envisage will be the collective commitment and positive participation of the people of The Bahamas. We must find ways to temper the present rampant materialism in our midst that demands immediate personal gratification, and to engage our people more fully in working for the long-term well being of society as a whole. I should, moreover, like to see a society in which my grandson and all others can be comfortable in their own skins (of whatever shade those might be) and never have to feel apologetic or defensive about any aspect of their heritage. For we shall be less narrowly prescriptive in our definition of who ought legitimately to bear the responsibility of being a "true-true" Bahamian and of contributing valuably to its development. In sum, we shall have become a society that truly values the diversity of its people, that actively promotes tolerance and understanding and that eschews the tendency, too often evident at present, to express distrust and in some cases active dislike of those we perceive to be different in some way from ourselves. These qualities will only result, I feel, if we become a society that roots our people firmly in a more complete knowledge and appreciation of all aspects of our history and culture, so that we may develop a deeper and more genuine sense of who we all are in our wonderful variety.In the future Bahamas I envision (and hope to live to see) we shall have abandoned the current attitudes of dependency and entitlement that seem so deeply ingrained in us as a people and that, to my mind, are so demeaning to and destructive of our national character. I dare to hope for a Bahamas, rather, in which the various social entities -family, school, church, government, private sector and civil society as a whole - will work together in consistent, mutually supportive ways, to develop men and women who have the will and the confidence to take greater responsibility for themselves and their actions and who will draw upon their individual abilities for the purpose.As an important ingredient in such a shift of attitude, we shall have to make a deliberate effort to heal the bitter political, religious, racial and other forms of division that continue to fracture our nation in either overt or subtle ways. If we are not only to survive but also to thrive as a reasonable society in which to live, we shall have to abandon the all too easy temptation either to find someone else to blame for our difficulties or to seek to earn brownie points for ourselves by suggesting that we might do things better. And, ladies and gentlemen, here I am not referring only to tendencies observed in the political arena: if we are honest we must confess that we are all of us guilty of such impulses.We are a small country, with what a colleague of mine has dubbed "countable people." Surely it should not be beyond us, if we sincerely desire it, to come together to address effectively the critical large issues that affect us all. For this to happen, however, we shall all need to open up our thinking much more, and be prepared to jettison some of our preconceived ideas about who should fix what and how. (The alarming crime rate in our country is but one example).  We shall have to recognise that few tough problems are susceptible of simple, one-dimensional solutions. We must be prepared to face more honestly the things we need to change and to listen to voices that speak sense - no matter how unexpected their source. Particularly, I would suggest, we shall need to listen more attentively to the real messages so many of our young people are giving us, both with their words and, even more eloquently, with their actions. One important message that comes through to me is that our traditional social institutions (and I use this term in the broadest of senses) are failing to reach them in meaningful ways. The cynicism and alienation reflected in the often self-destructive behaviour of so many of our young people  (and particularly our young men) are generally incomprehensible to those of us who are older for, on the surface, our youth seem to have so many more opportunities to flourish than were available in the past, opportunities that they fail to embrace - or so we think. But do they really?We know that too many of our children and young people are the unplanned, perhaps unwanted, by-products of the casual sexual encounters of mothers and fathers who are often too young to be effective parents. In some cases children seem to be viewed either as trophies affirming that their parents are real women or real men, or as tangible means of cementing uncertain relationships. In addition, there are many instances of young women being exploited by older men. Child rearing is frequently subject to unskilled parenting and punctuated by neglect or abuse. Further, there is also the isolation of the many stateless young among us who must undoubtedly feel resentment that they do not really belong anywhere and who are routinely treated as outsiders by their peers. Despite all these factors, we in the wider society expect our young people to follow rules whose purposes they may not have ever been adequately taught or that they fail to understand, and in the observance of which they may have had all too few examples in their immediate environment or sometimes even in the wider community. Society also expects them to succeed in an educational system that, despite all best efforts, often seems irrelevant to the real needs or interests they bring to the school.  Ours is a society, moreover, that only too readily confirms what is likely to be their already low self-esteem by branding them as failures when they do not measure up to expectations. Happily, however, there are enough others who are genuinely able to achieve success to make it plausible to hope that the gloomier picture can be reversed.I again take as a point of reference my observation of my own grandson.  He is a happy, friendly little boy, full of curiosity and a sense of adventure. Most relevant to this discussion, however, is the fact that while some of these qualities may come from his own personality, much of the confidence he displays arises not only from his obvious trust that he is loved unconditionally, but also from the fact that he is guided at each stage of his development by parents who invest time, intelligence and informed practice in the process.  This kind of attention is what I should like all of our children to be able to receive.Now, I am not so naïve as to think we can realistically expect to prescribe a universal nuclear family structure for all of our people. What we do need to ensure, however, is that all of our people understand that parenthood is a sacred trust that ought not to be taken lightly. As a society, it seems to me, we must bend our minds and efforts to a deliberate, multi-faceted approach to family building. I personally believe, moreover, that in order to accomplish this we shall, collectively, need to begin by committing to a vigorous, comprehensive national programme to encourage responsible family planning, drawing upon the many valuable initiatives undertaken in the past and those continuing in various forms at present. Such a programme will need also, however, to commit communities to accept more fully the responsibility of assisting parents (especially young ones) in their child-rearing experience, by providing as necessary the kinds of safety nets and guidance that children will need in order to thrive. [I should interject that single parents are nothing new in our society, but in the past we had a stronger extended family structure that provided a cushion for their offspring. Nowadays, grandmothers may themselves be too young to be willing to take on such responsibility. [In one of my projects a few years ago I encountered a great-grandmother who was only 39 years old: she had had a child at thirteen, who had had a child at thirteen, who also had had a child at thirteen. If we now have to face generation cycles of thirteen years, we are in serious trouble].The actions I propose will only be possible, though, if all social partners come to practical agreement about their importance and viability. Clear consensus on the provision of effective, comprehensive education (within and outside of the school system) regarding responsible sexual behaviour, supported by appropriate modelling of such behaviour by adults, will not only be critical to help to prevent young girls from becoming mothers at too early an age, but also to protect them from contracting damaging sexually transmitted infections or the potentially life-threatening infection of HIV and AIDS.Clearly, education is a key element in this as in all social development and here I am first referring to education in its broadest sense - the process that occurs in all settings from the time we are born. For it is important that we as a community recognise that our words, and even more tellingly our actions, teach our young what we really value. It is trite but none the less true to say that children learn what they live, and they very quickly discern the difference between what we demand of them in our pronouncements and what we ourselves display in our own behaviour.As the system designed and mandated to accept major responsibility for the formal instruction of the young, however, our schools and other educational institutions have particular challenges to meet in this twenty-first century world which is and will continue to be so different from that for which most of our current approaches were designed. The formal educational systems I would wish to see in the future, therefore, will be ones that will have genuinely continued their quest to transform themselves to meet these new demands. Such transformation will have begun with an honest examination of the purpose of formal education for, as heretical as this may sound in this particular setting, this can no longer be viewed primarily as being that of providing students with skills for the workforce, as important an aim as this will continue to be. More fundamentally, I believe, the formal educational experience will need to aim above all to assist individuals to develop their particular gifts in ways that will enable them to live rewarding and fulfilling lives as law-abiding, functioning members of society. Curricula, institutional arrangements and methodological approaches will, moreover, reflect an understanding that the roles of the various actors in the process of formal education have evolved considerably from those of previous eras. Educational practice will be more deliberately informed by the compelling array of research findings on the multiple forms of intelligence that students bring to the school enterprise and on the ways in which the brain actually learns. The current tendency to reflect a hierarchy of value among individuals' differing abilities and that relegates technical, practical or artistic pursuits to places of lesser importance than those enjoyed by academic subjects will no longer be a feature of the commentary or practice within or outside of the school system.The focus in schools will be even more upon guiding students to develop their ability (1) genuinely to understand their value as individual human beings and to strengthen their capacity to become self-directed, disciplined learners; (2) to think and reason critically and independently, while mastering important skills of language and computation as doorways to wider learning in other disciplines; (3) to access for themselves useful, necessary information and make reasoned judgments about its value and quality; (4) to relate effectively to other people and to resolve conflicts when these arise. Extensive social and nutritional support will be routinely built into the provision of the formal system.  Information technology will be embraced, not merely as an add-on to traditional methodologies, or as the subject of special study, but rather as an integral teaching/learning and management tool. Its potential as a means of enhancing the access to and quality of educational provision to students throughout the archipelago will have been fully recognised and actively exploited.Student learning will be assessed in multi-dimensional ways, that will more authentically measure the degree to which achievement goals have been attained. No longer will standardised examinations be the major yardstick by which student and school accomplishment is judged, as useful as these may be as a quick measure for the purposes of higher education institutions and employers. Teachers and school administrators will be appropriately prepared to meet changing demands, and they will be encouraged to view ongoing professional development as a routine feature of their careers. Parents and the general public will engage more productively with the schools, not only for the purpose of questioning or criticising their efforts, but also to celebrate their successes and to assist in addressing areas of weakness. Particularly important, members of the adult community (especially those in positions of influence) will display a greater commitment to reflecting in their own speech, conduct and professional performance the kinds of standards they expect students to demonstrate.We shall have a University of The Bahamas that will stand as the important source of intellectual leadership in the country and the broad range of its offerings will enable increasing numbers of our people to attain higher levels of academic, professional and continuing education here at home. The research generated at the University will serve to advance knowledge and guide national planning, policy and decision-making.The Bahamas that I should like to see in the future will have succeeded in educating its people more effectively as to the real functions of democratic governance so that members of government themselves may be able to see their responsibilities less as doing things or solving problems for the people of the nation, and more as ensuring the effective provision of necessary public services, and creating environments and opportunities that will challenge and enable members of society to become more productively engaged on their own behalf.Finally, I hope that in the future our actions as a people will demonstrate in more genuine ways our oft-repeated claim of being a Christian nation. Our present tendency to strident manifestations of religious fervour and our complacent, self-satisfied belief that God must surely be a Bahamian are all too often belied by our lack of appreciation and care for His natural or human creation. I hope that as we tout our constitutional commitment to Christian values we shall in fact learn to translate these into more Christ-like behaviour, characterised by compassion, love and genuine concern for those who share with us this very special part of God's creation.Utopian dreams? Perhaps, but let us aim for the stars, even if we only hit a tree!Ladies and gentlemen, you have been very patient with me. Thank you for your attention. Enjoy the rest of this important conference.

No longer Director

For those of you who have not heard and are not aware, I ceased to be Director of Culture on 31st December, 2008.It's a move that has been a long time in coming. For those people who wish to speculate that my return to the College has to do with politics or changes in government or any mundane reason like that, let me attempt to set the record straight right now.I took up the position, initially in an acting capacity, on 20th October 2003, on the understanding then that it was a secondment from my position at the College of The Bahamas. In July 2004, however, I was transferred from the College to the Civil Service, and given a letter signed by the Governor of The Commonwealth of The Bahamas, as is customary for civil service appointees. I queried the move, and indicated that I had no intention of making a full-time move to the Public Service, and requested that the arrangement be rectified. However, the wheels of government turn slowly when they turn at all, and nothing came of that request.At that time, things were looking vaguely bright for culture in The Bahamas. The National Commission on Cultural Development had been established, and was meeting on a regular basis to craft a new way forward for Bahamian cultural life. The period was revolutionary, in that for the first time in decades cultural experts from every different field sat in a room together, hashed out policy and made recommendations directly to government, and fashioned real visions for the way forward for a country that has been impoverished intellectually, socially and emotionally by too-rapid, uneven material development and a lack of reflection. During that period, the Commission drafted three pieces of legislation for the government, travelled throughout the Islands of The Bahamas, touched base with Bahamians everywhere, and highlighted the extent of what we do not know about ourselves.Out of the Commission also came a draft National Cultural Policy for The Bahamas, the beginning of a way forward for us as a people and a nation that goes beyond the surface and beyond the material.As time passed, however, it became evident that the Commission was more revolutionary in title and composition than in any other manner. Its role was treated as instrumental only in so far as it met the specific goals of the politicians. Two of the three pieces of legislation were adopted, and in a watered-down fashion; the specific recommendations contained in those two -- recommendations that reflected the will of the Bahamian people, as determined through nation-wide surveys, in town meetings, and from radio discussions -- were ignored. The Heroes and Honours Bills were pushed through the House of Assembly in a hurry, and ignored their most fundamental elements -- that the successful implementation of Bahamian honours would require the abolition of the British ones, and that the recognition of National Heroes would have to acknowledge, depoliticize and recognize and celebrate the milestone that was Majority Rule. The change of government affected Bahamian cultural development in a very basic fashion -- by ignoring the vision developed for the country by the NCDC (not because it was a bad vision, but simply because the Commission was instituted by the previous administration, and most things so establlished were dismantled, as had happened five years before), leaving culture in the position it had been in 2003, when I first took the position.Here's why I'm returning to COB, then.

1. I always planned to do so, the fact that my secondment/temporary appointment was botched notwithstanding.
2. After five years, culture is right back where it was in 2003 -- entirely dependent on the personalities who head it, and on the goodwill of those politicians and civil servants who might look upon it favourably. If those people exist, as they have done over the past five years, good things will happen in culture. If not, then culture will continue to die, as it has done for the vast majority of our independence. I am temperamentally unsuited to walking in circles. I have a pretty good sense of direction, and I know futile wandering when I see it. 
3. Conflict of interest. I was a cultural worker before I became Director, specifically in the fields of theatre and writing, and my husband is a theatre director who has worked for all of his career in various capacities on various contracts for the government of The Bahamas. His first government job came in 1983, when he was contracted to mount the folk opera Sammie Swain for the Tenth Anniversary of Independence, and he has been involved in the production of national events on a fairly regular basis ever since. However, my position as Director compromised the extent to which he was able to work with the government, and certainly for the Department of Culture (more accurately, the Cultural Affairs Division), even in situations when he was the most experienced/best qualified/most available director. Further, as a playwright and member of a theatre production company, my work was curtailed by the fact that I was a government official.
4. The strictures of the civil service are at fundamental odds with my calling as a writer and with the democratic principles on which our country is founded. General Orders prohibits any civil servant from speaking about his or her job without permission. As a civil servant, very simply, I could not say what I thought outside the confines of boardrooms and the offices of Under Secretaries, Permanent Secretaries and Ministers.
5. I see more potential for change among people under forty than among those over it, and the vast majority of the people in the civil service are over forty. There is far more potential for national development outside the service than in it, and the soon-to-be University of The Bahamas is poised to be a catalyzing force in that development.
6. And last, but not least: so my career has some room to grow. I'm forty-five, with a statutory 20 more years of service ahead of me. In two or three years, though, I will have reached the top of my particular Directorial scale, and will be stuck at the same salary, with the same perks, with no hope of advancement, for the remaining 18 years, unless I choose to leave the technical field and move into exclusive paper-pushing. That is the situation that has afflicted most of the people who work in the Cultural Affairs Division, and there is no good reason why it will not happen to me. COB offers far more scope for career advancement and potential earning. (And, not incidentally, I have come to equate salary scale with respect for one's field and position. The dead-endedness of every long-term position in the Cultural Affairs Division, in which no senior officer has received a promotion of note in a good twenty years, and the concurrent impossibility of hiring new blood, are the best indicators that I have ever had of the complete non-importance of culture and its development to the politicians and civil servants that have run the country for that period of time. But more on that later.)

So I'm leaving government and going back to the College because, ladies and gentlemen, it's the twenty-first century. We've almost closed the first decade of that century, and we're still running our country with a late eighteenth century institution, developed exclusively for colonization and for the subjugation of hostile populations. I'd rather work for a late twentieth-century institution, thanks. At least the College was established in my lifetime, and has changed more in its short thirty years than the Public Service has changed in 230.It's a no-brainer, really. But more on that to come.Cheers.

Christmas in Nassau

is by far the biggest holiday of the year. It's not just Christmas, of course, though that's important, a time for sprucing up and family gatherings and very conspicuous consumption, but also because of Junkanoo, which happens on Boxing Day and then again on New Year's Day. If you're lucky, there's a cold snap and you can wear all your long-sleeved, northern fashions without expiring from heat prostration; and it's the one time everybody stays up all night just for the hell of it.Just thought you'd like to know. Or if you already know, thought you might like the reminder.

Announcing tongues of the ocean

 tongues of the ocean is an online literary journal of Bahamian, Caribbean and related poetry. We’re an affiliate of the Bahamas International Literary Festival, but BILF isn’t responsible for what we decide to do (so don’t blame them!). We publish three times a year - in February, June, and October. We reserve the right to be picky about what we publish. For now we’re focussing on poems and poem-related material, but that could change. Interested in submitting? Read here for more details.Here’s some of the stuff we’ll be including in tongues:writers on writers - writers talk about the work of another writer. Like a review, only hotter. Bahamians & residents only, to begin with, but we’ll get friendlier as we go on. We’d like to start with a focus on Bahamian and Caribbean greats.bredren and sistren - section for Caribbean and Southern US writers, for West Africans - for our siblings and cousins in the diaspora, and for our spiritual kin around the world. We reserve the right.catch a fire - in every issue we’ll include a section inspired by word prompts, which we’ll post with the call for submissions.  For now, this is the only place we’ll accept fiction, and only flash fiction (for our purposes, fiction under 300 words). Prose poems are welcome. Transgress boundaries. Push.Editor-in-chief: Nicolette BethelSpoken Word: Nadine Thomas-Brown(Blurb taken from the "about us" page of the journal. Logo photograph by Eric Rose.)

ArtOvation

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obNHqWQ4XMQ&w=425&h=344]Go check it out.

Why Obama matters to all of us, everywhere

Four Fingers and a ThumbOn a hot day in a school in Laventille, I am reasoning with a student. This beautiful young woman of 17 years or so. I say to her, what do you want to be? She laughs and says a stripper.Her classmates laugh too, because to them it is a joke, as funny as their lives being lived out in predictable boxes.On a hot day in a school in Laventille painted in colours disturbingly similar to the wall around the Royal Gaol, this beautiful young woman sums up the totality of her potential in saying that she wants to be a stripper.I am not amused. I am also not surprised that she doesn’t hesitate to respond in the negative. I fight the urge to run from the room screaming and crying because she is living proof that you can build buildings but if you don’t build the people, your social fabric will crumble and then what is the point of phallic concrete edifices in you city?I suggest to her that she creates her own reality. I suggest to her that words have power and if you call yourself a whore enough, the ease of the words on your tongue will numb you to the dread reality of your actions.I ask her again what she wants to be. She says that what she wants for herself is not what other people want for her.She says she wants to be a hairdresser and a singer. And I wonder who has told her that she can’t be anything she puts her mind to.

This is from a blog by Trinidadian writer Attilah Springer, who wrote it on Saturday while engaging in the "escapist fantasy" that Barack Hussein Obama might win the US election. I posted it because it is so fundamentally true in so many places that are growing young people of colour.The "No You Can't" mentality is pervasive throughout the world, not just in the USA, and it's in part because our leaders swallowed wholesale and without critical examination the concept that there are first and second and third class citizens in this world, and people of colour never break into the first group, and it's also in part because the popular media really only promote images of non-white people engaging in sex, drugs, violence and angry, nihilistic music. It's also in part because our leaders see no value in supporting an economy or a culture that enables us to create alternative images for our own young people.Until now.The fact that Obama has been elected President of the United States of America means something. It means something to all of us, and it's far more than just the fact that he's African-American (and when we apply that to him, it means something real, it's not just another synonym for black/negro/nigger/ex-slave). It means that the people who elected him, who are overwhelmingly under 30, of all backgrounds, ethnicities, genders, beliefs and class are the people who are creating new realities for us. And maybe it also means that something of that hope, of that new reality, will trickle down to the rest of us in the African diasporic world.  It isn't going to come easily, and it isn't going to come automatically. But what it does mean is that we can no longer fool ourselves that our destinies are out of our hands. And it means too that throughout the Caribbean we must make our own futures. We have to confront those politicians who have nothing but old ideas, stuff fed to them by imperialists and racists and people who didn't even realize that they were imperialistic and racist but who were force-feeding those worldviews anyway, and tell them it ain't like that anymore.And we have to kill the "No We Can't" attitude stone dead.Dare to dream. America just has had its dream come true. Time for us to dream big too.

If you don't know my name you don't know your own

The title is a quotation from James Baldwin.  I got it from the address given by Obediah Michael Smith at the Bahamas Writers' Forum held at Chapter One Bookstore last month.I've meant to post an excerpt from that address for some time, but never did for one reason or another. The time, however, has come.Hear, now, from Obediah:

I can still recall the impact of encountering this remark by James Baldwin for the very first time: "If you don't know my name, you don't know your own."With what was this assertion connected? In other words, what was Baldwin saying? Who or what was he saying it about and to who were these remarks addressed? Is this James Baldwin the poet, novelist and playwright having come into his own? Is he addressing his country, The United States of America? His was certainly one of the most definitive voices of the crisis of the '60 in the U.S.A.James Baldwin, the writer, the citizen, with confidence, with arrogance even, asserts his significance. If I am insignificant he states to his United States of America or whom ever he is confronting, you are as well, without significance.It is about identity too. If I am nobody in America, who is to be considered somebody? If his identity was in questing, whose wasn't? Who had definition if he hadn't?Baldwin's confidence at this point seems to have resulted from a new found self-awareness, his own awakening as it were.As a writer, as person, as citizen, Baldwin would have struggled with himself, his art, and his world to rescue and to cultivate a self.Like a gardener with the flowers blooming - with the sun shining on them - with the rain falling on them, he seems satisfied. His words, somewhat boastful, are about success.He has gotten somewhere; he has produced something, himself. This he offers up. It is prayer or it is weapon or it is both.Baldwin's suggestion is about being tied together. He is tied to whomever he is addressing and they are tied to him. It is the right hand and the left hand or two feet to stand on or two eyes to see with. Baldwin's words are about things that come and go, like the blood, to and from the heart.I found it convenient recently; right here at home, to assert myself using these very words. What an important moment it was for me, I thought initially.A lady called to extend an invitation to me to appear as a guest on a local radio show. I was feeling quite good about it and going agreeably along until I was told of the need to supply them with questions I wanted to be asked.Oh, discovery finally, I thought. This has to indicate national curiosity about my poetry. This call, I though, suggested that someone had invested in knowing about my work. To ask me to provide questions though, suggested the very opposite.It was just more of me knowing about me. I have over time, read hundreds of interview. There was never any indication that this is how it was done. Where therefore was the scholarship? It seemed an attempt to stage something and suggest that it was actually happening. It seemed dishonest. It seemed like an attempt to deceive the Bahamian public or whoever the intended audience was."I am the producer," said this lady, "and this is how I [she might have said we] do it!" I insisted upon wishing to be interviewed by someone aware of or familiar with my work.She decided it was time to update me. "I do not who you are," she said. "Before just recently, I had never heard of you.""Why therefore am I receiving this call?" I asked, perplexed.She was the producer. It was the host of the show, she said, who asked to have me on.I've published 10 books I told her. And you're the producer? I asked. Abruptly our conversation concluded. I was insulted and angry.This seemed the perfect occasion for Baldwin's words I'd known and loved so well for so many years. These words were the weapon this moment needed. I sent her an e-mail: "If you don't know my name, you don't know your own!" I enjoyed these words very much.

Amusing, yes.  But frightening on some level also, surely.

R.I.P. Norman Stafford Solomon 1929-2008

"He was the most industrious person I've ever known, and very meticulous and always checked details. He never seemed to get flustered. He could multi-task better than anybody I know. And he was a workaholic," long-time friend and former politician Michael Lightbourn told The Tribune .... Mr Lightbourn was a member of the short-lived Social Democratic Party (SDP), which was organised and led by Mr Solomon in 1979. The SDP served as opposition to the Pindling administration until 1981. Mr Lightbourn last spoke with Mr Solomon two weeks ago when his "fading" health was evident. "They were hoping to bring him back, but he was in such ill health, they were nervous about whether he could handle the travel and they got him out in Naples, Florida just before the hurricane (Ike) threatened," said Mr Lightbourn, adding that Mr Solomon s health was going "downhill" for "quite some time." Sir Arthur Foulkes, former Bahamas high commissioner to London, described his counterpart as a "great Bahamian." "I've observed Parliament for more than half a century now, from outside and from inside, and Mr Solomon was a formidable parliamentary debater and I can think of no parliamentarian who went to Parliament more meticulously prepared for a debate than Norman Solomon." Dubbed "Stormin' Norman" by the press, the one time leader of the opposition is also known for the courageous stance he took in the House of Assembly during the early 80s when he revealed drug lord Carlos "Joe" Lehder's illicit trade on Norman's Cay. Said former Tribune news editor Athena Damianos: "While others were engaged in a massive cover-up that put the country on its present path of lawlessness, Norman told Parliament that Norman's Cay was the site of one of the largest drug smuggling operations in this part of the world." His home and car were later fire-bombed. He founded the Nassau Tourism Development Board (NTDB) in 1994 and served as co-chairman until his flailing health forced him to step down in February, 2007. He remained an honorary chairman of NTDB until his death. "The Bahamas has lost one of its true patriots. Mr Norman Solomon was the founding Chairman of the Nassau Tourism and Development Board in 1994. In life and in passing, he has remained our conscience, our motivator, a steady and guiding hand, and a visionary for what we, and in particular his beloved historic city of Nassau, could be. His outstanding contributions to the nation's development as a businessman, journalist, politician and activist must be celebrated. Our sympathies go out to his family in this time of sorrow," Charles Klonaris, NTDB Chairman said ....

Bahamas B2B.com

Prime Minister Rt. Hon. Hubert Ingraham's tribute

What we're good at: Farming

School teaches children such lies.One such lie told when I was in school was that agriculture failed in The Bahamas.Common sense back then should've told me that this wasn't true. After all, people in my grandparents' generation were feeding themselves well into my teens. My father's mother hardly ever bought fresh fruit from any food store or outlet -- she had her guavas and bananas and hog bananas and plantains and hog plums and mangoes and coconuts growing in her back yard -- which was on East Bay Street, between Bay and Dowdeswell, a place which was "town" even when I was a kid. My mother's mother kept chickens in her yard on Delancey Street, a yard which was the real kind of yard, with a bunch of houses all in the same lot.And then I grew up and studied anthropology.  And I learned not only about the lie, but where the lie came from.  There's a myth, see, in the world, see, that says that technology is hierarchically stacked and that agriculture is better than horticulture which is better than foraging and fishing which is better than ... well, animal social organization.And in this world, it's true that agriculture failed in The Bahamas.  But what nobody tells you is why it failed.Because of the monolithic worldview that assumes that the history of Europe is the only history that any civilization can ever have -- a history that centres settlement around river deltas and grows cash crops and builds societies around agricultural farms that produce surpluses etc -- the kind of farming that works here in The Bahamas -- farming that is disparaged in literature and discussion as "slash and burn" farming but which is recognized by anthropologists as a valid adaptation to particular terrains and social organizations is ignored completely.  Forget the fact that one person in Long Island or Cat Island can not only feed himself but his entire family, including those who are scattered around the Bahamian archipelago, and all year round, with the range of crops grown on his land.  Forget the fact that the soil that lies trapped in our limestone pockets is not terribly deep but is extraordinarily rich, and produces vegetables and fruits that are pretty darn good -- and among the biggest I've ever seen (I still remember the cabbage I brought back with me from Long Island in 1995 -- huge and sweet and heavy as a cannonball).  Martha Stewart's raving about the produce she cooked with in Nassau doesn't surprise me in the least.But don't take my word for it.  Take word of the homemaking queen herself:

As I mentioned the other day, while I was in the Bahamas, I cooked a fabulous meal with Frederic Demers at Jean-George Vongerichten’s, Café Martinique. I wanted to know where this top chef finds all his beautiful produce and he told me about a wonderful gem of a farm called Holey Farm. I wanted to visit in the worst way, so I grabbed the television crew and off we went. We were greeted by Maria-Therese E. Kemp, who created this amazing place. Holey Farm gets its name because the growing areas are actually situated in the holes of limestone formations. It was very challenging to grow produce at first, in such rugged terrain, but Therese had perseverance and developed many special techniques. [The result:] a most unusual garden that many local chefs rave about!

The Martha Blog : Blog Archive : More from the Bahamas — Holey Farm

Presentation Zen: Is education killing creativity?

Came across this:

our education systems (around the world) are outdated and mainly designed to meet the needs of industrialization. Sir Ken [Robinson] makes many good points — some you may not agree with — but he certainly is not saying that math and science should be taught or studied less, rather that music and the arts and creativity in general should be pursued more.Presentation Zen: Is education killing creativity?

I think I tend to agree.Forget being tentative. I totally agree.Here's what Sir Ken says in his own words:

Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects ... At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and at the bottom are the arts. Everywhere on earth. And in pretty much every system too, there's a hierarchy within the arts. Art and music are normally given a higher status in school than drama and dance. There isn't an education system on the planet that teaches dance everyday to children the way we teach them mathematics.

See for yourself - the YouTube clip via Riz Khan:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAt-3Yk2u80&hl=en&fs=1]And the whole thing itself thanks to TED:http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/loader.swfArt and culture make good business.

Nassau in the 1950s

A tourist trap already. Check out this promotional film from Pan Am:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXz6BIC7pVs&hl=en&fs=1]Comments are welcome.

A Balanced Moral Framework - Front Porch

Over on Bahama Pundit, where I used to post when I was writing Essays on Life (hiatus almost over), the mind behind Front Porch has written on the need for a more nuanced morality when discussing Bahamian issues. Hear, hear. For those who haven't read it yet, here's a sample:

Genuine insight requires context. Its companions include discernment, nuance, balance, prudence, humility -- and scepticism. It counts as its enemies cynicism, sensationalism and prejudice.

* 

In some quarters there is a knee-jerk conceit about the Bahamas similar to the self-loathing and hackneyed images of the Caribbean by writers such as V. S. Naipaul.It goes something like this. The Bahamas is inalterably corrupt, lacks any kind of moral framework, and may be beyond repair. In its nauseating and inaccurate retelling: it’s worse in the Bahamas, often much worse.A major problem with this storyline is that it is more the stuff of fiction than good journalism. It is like a reality show, filled with exaggeration and drama in order to boost ratings, make money and inflate the egos of the scriptwriters and possibly sell tell-all books based on the reality series.This storyline lacks context. Context requires a broad vision, free of the kind of moral blindness which leads some to dismiss moral failure, and others to see only moral failure.There are many social, moral and other entrenched problems at home. But when you compare us -- or place us within a broader global context -- we are in some areas perhaps a little worse or a little better, and in many areas probably just about the same.

Bahama Pundit: A Balanced Moral Framework

The Role of the Writer in Society

On Thursday past, the organizers of the Bahamas International Literary Festival (BILF), a new-brand entity, so new it don't even have itself a webspace yet, held a literary forum that served as a precursor to the festival. Six Bahamian writers were invited to present on the topic The Role of the Writer in Society. I was privileged to be among them. The others were: Keith RussellObediah Michael SmithAlex MorleyIan Strachan... Who?  who'm I forgetting? Or can't I count? ... I don't think I can count ... there were only five of us!  Gah!Well, anyhow.  The evening was memorable for a couple of reasons.  The first was the size of the audience.  It filled almost the entire length of the upper floor of Chapter One Bookstore, much to my amazement.   Now I know it's entirely possible, even likely, that a good chunk of the attendees were students who had no choice in the matter, whose classes were meeting there, who might even have an assignment about the topic later on.  But that didn't stop the fact that there were, oh, maybe fifty or sixty people in attendance from making me hold the event in awe.  Writers in this country are not used to such interest.  At least I'm not.Just for posterity's sake, and because it might be of interest, and because I've been toying with the concept of podcasting for some time and thought this is on the way to creating one, below's an updated version of the presentation I gave.  It's not exactly the same because Thursday was a runaround day and I wasn't able to get all the quotations I wanted for the presentation, but it's 90% similar.  The comment box is on, for feedback's sake, if people are so inclined.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VITJjobWLyU&w=425&h=350]So I'm not an purist when it comes to writing.  Art for art's sake, as Achebe said, being somewhat of a myth.  I don't necessarily believe that all art has to have a function, a purpose; the kind of art that does isn't really art, as it puts emotions and empathy second to function.  But on the other hand, as Ian Strachan, who spoke last, said of writing -- whatever you think about it, the act of writing is always a political act.  One needn't be a socialist (as Alex Morley is) for that to be true; you just need to write, and to share your writing with people beyond yourself.  In fact, each of us spoke about agency and writing and change and revolution of some kind.  Revelation, said one of us (don't remember which one -- if you're reading this, own it, Keith or Ian or Obie or Alex!) is revolution.  If you don't know my name, said Obie, channelling Baldwin, you don't know your own.  (Obie read an essay which meandered through various meditations about writers and society and kept coming back to just that -- if you don't know my name, you don't know your own.)  Write for change, said Alex.  Write to tell the truth.  Write to show ourselves ourselves. Write to make a difference, said Keith.  Write to tell the truth.We talked a lot about truth and difference and change among us, each of us in our own particular way.  So it's no coincidence that I'm going to post the next video here now.  Chris Abani talked about story and the power of telling a tale, the power of telling the truth, and somebody filmed him doing so.  Watch the video below to see what he said.  It's akin to what we said, only (forgive me, colleagues) better.http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/loader.swf

CARIFESTA X - An Alternative to the same old, same old

wonder of the world: CARIFESTA X - An Alternative to the same old, same oldThe Bookman, a blog from Trinidad and Tobago, muses on art, CARIFESTA, and society.  It's not coincidental, I think, that this week I've been to two talks already about the same thing:  one on Wednesday at PopOp Studios about CARIFESTA XI to be held in The Bahamas, and one last night at Chapter One Bookstore about the role of the writer in society.  At the end of the panel discussion from last night, where six of us, writers from very different backgrounds and with very different bodies of work, spoke about that role, we were answered in the discussion that followed by a visual artist who told us that our conversations were not isolated, that they were happening all around the country.   Something is happening nationwide about the Caribbean arts.  Perhaps we are coming into ourselves.  The Bookman suggests that perhaps this something is happening regionally.  Because I believe in the latter, I'm going to quote from The Bookman's comment on CARIFESTA X to illustrate, just a little, what I mean, and what I hope:

One cannot help but feel that art is held as a fringe. That artists are at the edges of society, almost invisible, except for moments when society is engaged with it and comments on talent. It is always the same trite comment at that, that there is so much talent in Trinidad and Tobago…and? What are we doing about it?

...

So I am going around in circles with my point. The public need to be educated about what is happening in the arts locally and regionally. The corporate world needs to get more involved in the arts and make it much more relevant to their own business mandates, and the artists themselves must start to hold themselves to the highest standards, look at their profession as deserving of much more than handouts and government support and we need to be very loud and clear about just how much we mean to our society by having alternative spaces to show our work and encourage the society to see that we mean business and that it isn’t business as usual.

A Little Respect

Received the following by email.  It's from Terneille Burrows (TaDa).  Quite frankly, I was thrilled to get it. Those of us who work in the Department of Culture have made similar points in boardrooms and accountants' offices, but the attitudes about ourselves and our artists persist.I'm not going to say more -- I'm just going to post her letter and let her speak for herself.

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Big Acts, Big Budgets... bad for Bahamian Artists??

By Terneille Burrows*A major concert sponsored by Bahamian companies and featuring multi-platinum hip-hop artist Lil Wayne will take place in Nassau on Friday September 26, 2008. Will Bahamian performers on this show be fairly treated and compensated???However outrageous it may seem, Bahamian recording artists are often times given the "short end of the stick" when it comes to being recruited to perform on shows featuring major international recording acts. Despite the promoters best efforts to make local artists feel important (backstage, pre and post party events access etc.), there may not be payment offered for the artists' services, which can include not only performing at the show, but making promotional appearances, attending rehearsals, meetings, sound-check and lending their name and likeness to be attached with the event promotion. (Oops, the natives were neglected from the big budget…oh well…)However, it seems everyone except the local artists financially benefit (promoters, advertising media, venues, event consultants, security firms, sound and lighting companies etc.) When promoters apply for international artists' visas and other required licenses to work in our country, should we also demand that our local artists be compensated for their contributions as well? While some might argue that local performers should jump at the chance to be on a big event, merely for the presumed prestige of it, I would have to disagree. Bahamian artists have long fought for the respect of our craft, as some of us do this for a living, while others aspire to. I feel as though if an artist or entertainer has worked to establish them self and gained a decent local following, there should be a fee attached with their service.Some sectors of the Bahamian entertainment industry have established systems in place to cultivate their respective discipline. The burgeoning Bahamian film industry has benefitted vastly from practices implemented by the Ministry of Tourism's Bahamas Film and Television Commission division. The Bahamas film commission has become a excellent example of a system that should be emulated by the wider entertainment and performance industries in the Bahamas.  Film commissioner Craig Woods, and his team actively promote and facilitate the hiring of Bahamian crew for productions that come to be filmed here. They are in intent on continuing the nourishment of the Bahamian film industry through not only promoting Bahamians gaining experience on film productions, but also by providing them with employment on productions that come to town.We as artists and artists' representatives are also to blame for allowing ourselves to be so freely taken advantage of. It's time to effect dramatic change and encourage Bahamians and foreigners alike to regard Bahamian artists and entertainers as working professionals. Throughout other parts of the world, local independent artists are taken seriously for their work.  More closely to home, in parts of the Caribbean, particularly Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados, there exists established and organized music industries.  The government, corporate world and consumers alike support their local music scenes. Major artists like Rihanna, Sean Paul, and Sean Kingston come from the Caribbean, are all respected on the international scene, and celebrated by their countrymen. Why can't we do the same in our country?Other Artists' Input"This (exploitation) has been going on for far too long and people are afraid to speak out for fear of being blacklisted, but mainly because we have been conditioned to believe that we as Bahamians are not 'good enough' to make it on an international level".– Margaret 'Believe' Glynatsis (Recording Artist/Producer) "It is insulting when an organizer expects an entertainer to perform for free however charitable the event without saying, we are willing to pay 'x' in exchange for your services - which in turn offers the artist the opportunity to say,  'don't worry about it, I'll do it for free'. If a promoter/organizer is unable to pay you, there should be some exchange, pre-agreed by both of you that is valued at the cost of your performance i.e. - goods or services, event passes, commercial consideration... something.  And I won't begin to talk about Flyers, Press Releases, web-advertising, radio mentions.– Bodine 'Be' Johnson (Recording Artist/Journalist)"How can major international promoters and the local consultants they hire expect to be taken seriously by local (Bahamian) acts, when our performers are treated like second class citizens at events in our own country? I have seen too many major concerts come to the Bahamas and have local artists act as guinea pigs, while sound engineers check levels and tweak the house system during the opening performances in preparation for the headliners!! The local artist are again put in a predicament, when headliners arrive late, and the opening acts are used to "stall" the aggravated audience. For this type of treatment, it only adds injury to insult to imagine our Bahamian artists performing at these events without being duly compensated"– Ian 'Bigg E' Cleare (Producer/Studio) 

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 Talk it, family!

Nah, ya see ...

It isn't a frivolous thing to protest against the way in which people expect to view Africa (and the rest of the third world for that matter, where skins are dark and palm trees feather the skyline).  I know Hurricane Ike was a bastard, and ripped up the southern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos and slammed Cuba and is now going to hammer Texas.  I know this, and so do you.But is there any excuse for the kind of coverage provided below?BBC NEWS | Americas | Paradise flattened in storm's wakeHere are other ways in which the BBC has reported on the storm:Images of Ike (almost all of Cuba, which racks up the heartstring points)And here is how the local media covered it:Images of Ike damage in Inagua, including millions of dollars' damage at Morton SaltMy conclusion:  our lens sees damage.  The lens of the BBC seeks human distress.All the better to underline, once again, and subtly (or not-so-subtly) the wonders of being civilized.I wrong?***(15/09/08) Edit: So maybe a little wrong, and certainly a lot biased.  Here are some other links to consider before weighing in on the discussion:New York Times on Ike (May require a password to view)LA Times on IkeHuffington Post on Ike

Hurricane update

Hanna has passed without incident, as expected.  Ike has weakened and has shifted a little so that the eye is no longer heading for New Providence but further south.  We don't know what will happen, but there it is.We're keeping our eyes on the storm.  We'll feel it by Monday.

Hanna, Ike, Josephine

Guyana doesn't get hurricanes.We do.I'm sitting here, a tropical storm watch active for the area, while three storms line up and take aim on us.  Of them, the one that worries me the most is Ike -- a decent Cat Four hurricane currently heading straight for Nassau. I'll keep you posted.Cheers.

CARIFESTA X Update - Moving Forward

I'm sitting in Nassau now, with life half back to normal, the desk suitably christened with the muttered invective and laughter that it takes to get me through a bureaucratic day, with CARIFESTA X behind and CARIFESTA XI straight ahead, a target whose bullseye we Bahamians ought to shoot. We've had four years to prepare, after all. We've studied two of the festivals, the two most recent, the two that have happened since the design and adoption of the New Strategic Plan. We've got the resources, if we agree to free them up.But do we have the will?I don't know. Five years in government incline me to believe that we don't, that the collective we have neither the vision nor the balls to do what needs to do to host the festival as we could, that we trust neither ourselves as innovators nor the Caribbean culture as a whole enough to regard this as a valid investment. Five years of watching the government waste my tax money on Madison Avenue advertising agencies who know nothing about us and who must be taught what elements to emphasize, and who sometimes get it very wrong ($12 million in supplementary funding midway through a tough budget year, this after the Bahamavention cockup, with no guarantee that a similar failure won't be the result of that $12 million reinvestment), five years of hearing that while an average of $2 million of my tax money is allocated to the development of our own indigenous culture (that's all, and I challenge you to find it in the National Budgets for 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, or 2004), about twice as much of that same tax money is spent on promoting Atlantis every year, five years of being told that we don't have the money to offer workshops in the Bahamian Family Islands for those people whose talents are discovered through the National Arts Festival, of being told that we don't have the money to fix the only government-owned performing arts centre (even though that centre collects revenue every week), that we don't have the money to hire dance teachers or to find government-owned quarters to house either the National Dance School or the so-called Department of Culture.We've got the resources; we send more than enough of them out of the country to promote a Bahamas that has nothing to do. We have yet to invest even a quarter of that money in ourselves here at home.Will CARIFESTA change that? I don't know. I rather doubt it, unless we ourselves change. Will we host CARIFESTA well? We are certainly capable of doing so; but that ability needs nurturing and investment, neither of which we have done for the thirty-five years of our independence. That ability needs faith in ourselves -- and that is something that we Caribbean people find in short supply.

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For future reference, I'm closing out my commentary on CARIFESTA X here. There's lots more to say and share, but it'll take place over at the Ringplay blog, as it's largely theatre-related, and has to do with The Children's Teeth mostly. Check the blog: the RSS feed is here.

Walcott warns; others walk

Walcott warns : Stabroek NewsRight, well I've been hinting at it for some time now on this blog, but now I think it's time to come out and say it straight.  I've turned in my resignation as Director of Culture for the Bahamas Government.  I had originally intended to leave at the end of this month, as of August 31st, but a series of situations have pushed the actual date back till the end of this calendar year, and turned the resignation into a requested transfer back to the College of The Bahamas.  Courage!People who have heard sometimes ask me why.  (People who know me and have known the tribulations of working as a cultural professional within The Bahamas government don't ask why; they ask when.)Derek Walcott, Caribbean Nobel Laureate for Literature, gives a very good reason why in his speech at the opening of the CARIFESTA Symposia.  Here's what he says:

Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott yesterday implored the region’s governments to resist prostituting themselves to foreign investors, warning that giving into tourism-fuelled gentrification would spell disaster.“The prostitution is a thing we call development,” he said in stinging remarks delivered during an impromptu presentation at the grand opening of the CARIFESTA X Symposia, at the National Convention Centre. He warned: “Don’t let this continue, [because] something serious is going to happen.”

and:

 “It is terrifying, all around there are huge hotels we are going to leave as monuments,” he said, with obvious disgust. “We are not leaving museums or theatres, because the governments say they can’t afford it.”

and:

Walcott took the view that investors should also be encouraged to put money into the development of cultural infrastructure, like museums and theatres. He also challenged regional governments to be more supportive of artists, saying that younger people needed to have access to more scholarships.Walcott, who had once famously  called for the scrapping of the festival, was featured as the Distinguished Guest at the symposium. Nonetheless, he admitted that he still harboured serious reservations about the fate of artists afterward. Indeed, he blamed the regional governments and institutions for keeping artists in what he described as a state of deprivation. “Is this what we are celebrating?” he asked. “You are killing your artists.”

and:

Walcott challenged regional leaders to pursue development of the arts simultaneously. Though he was not optimistic that the idea would be realized, he said it was important for them to adopt a change in attitude. He said there be should be no question of competing needs; that governments should do both.***He also suggested yesterday that the governments consider putting a moratorium on the festival in order to ensure that it is professionally organized and that it features the best people that the region can offer. “You need the best,” he said, before quickly adding, “But it is self deception, because what happens afterwards? What are their futures?"

There you have it.  My dilemma in a nutshell.  On the one hand, there are the people who tell you that the country needs you, that we have come a long way, that we are on the move and things are gonna get easier.  "Why now?" they ask.  The answer is simple, and Walcott has stated it plainly.  Caribbean governments do not invest in their people. Caribbean people do not see any real reflections of themselves.On the other hand -- and this is the reality, while the other is simply the spin -- the bare naked truth is that The Government of The Bahamas (gold, red or green, the party in charge doesn't matter) is no different from the governments of all our neighbours when it comes to cultural investment.  The Nobel Laureate has stated the truth, and there is no getting around it.  The President of Guyana has stated the excuse, and there is no getting around that either.  To remain in the post legitimizes the active underdevelopment of our people that all of our governments have made the central policy of their administrations.  To remain in the post restricts the criticisms that I can make; and to remain in the post compromises, whether we like to admit it or not, the attainment of excellence in all that we do.